Practice Plan: Attacking - Taking advantage of Breakaways/Overloads

Objective:
Attacking - Taking advantage of Breakaways/Overloads

Warm Up:
Ball Work - Rivelino Elastic, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho as demonstrated below.




Work in small groups:
Combination Shooting - as shown in the video below. The emphasis here will be on painting a picture for the players that they are in a breakway scenario so they need to move fast and get a shot at goal to take advantage of the situation.



2v1 Choice - Progress the previous small group work onto the video below. The emphasis here again will be on getting the players to imagine the overload situation in a match.



Work in small areas:
Overload Game - In an area of 40 x 30 (adjust to suit players) play the overload game as shown in the diagram below. Play 3 v 2 or 2 v 1, or another variation so long as there is an overload in the attacking half. Whenever the defenders get the ball they need to pass it to one of their teammates in the attacking half. Players to stay in their half of the pitch.

Group Work:
Normal Match - Focus on the skills learnt in the session, particularly taking advantage of overloads and breakaways in the attacking half of the field.

Follow this with a penalty shoot out with mums and dads as the goal keepers?

Practice Plan: Passing - Accuracy and Technique

Objective:
Passing - Accuracy and Technique

Warm Up:
Ball Work - Sole to Sole, Rivelino Elastic and the Ronaldo. The second, third and fourth movements demonstratred on the video below.



Work in small groups:
Topple My Coconuts - This game involves knocking balls of cones in the middle of a grid. You can view the full diagram on the Acton-Boxboro website here

Work in small areas:
Famous 5 - In this game the focus remains on accuracy in a game like situation. Rather than knocking the cones over I play the game, as shown here, by giving more points for passing the ball through smaller gaps than you would get for larger gaps.

Group Work:
Normal Match – Focus on skills used in the session, passing technique and accuracy.

Follow this with a game of bucketball, put some water in a bucket and challenge the players to chip or drop kick ball into the bucket.

Practice Plan: Passing - Technique

Objective:
Passing Technique

Warm Up:
Ball Work - Tick Tock, Sole to Sole and Rivelino Elastico. The first three movements demonstratred on the video below.



Work in small groups:
Passing - In groups of 2 or 3 players practice receiving and passing the ball using both feet as demonstrated in the Aaron Dorrance video here.

Work in small areas:
Square Passing - In groups of four the players now focus on passing the ball into the space their team mate is running into, as demonstrated on the video below.



Follow this with a 3v3 or 4v4 small sided game.

Group Work:
Normal Match – Focus on skills used in the session, passing technique and passing ahead of team mates

Follow this with the knocking the cone over from the furthest distance time allowing. Each player gets 3 attempts to hit a cone with an inside the foot pass from the further distance.

Practice Plan: Defending - Role of the 1st Defender

Objective:
Defending - Role of the 1st Defender

Warm Up:
Ball Work - Tick Tock demonstrated here, Side Drag Rolls demonstrated here, Toe Touches backwards demonstrated here.

Work in small groups:
Danger Zone - Defenders try to prevent the attacker from dribbling across the danger zone. The defender is trying to either win the ball or force the attacker outside the danger zone. Progress to playing 2v2 in the same area.

Work in small areas:
Attack vs Defence - Game played for five minutes before swapping over players with the attacking team continually recieving balls from the coach. Defenders get a point for forcing attackers out wide and outside of the grid.

Group Work:
Normal Match – Focus on skills used in the session, role of the 1st defender.

Follow this with a game of Soccer Tennis time allowing.