Soccer Training Session: Passing and Possession Drill

I’ve always wanted to share some of the soccer drills I use with my team. So, every week I’m going to publish one of the lesson plans that I’ve used in the past three years whilst coaching youth soccer.

The drills will be a mix of:

• Technical
• Tactical
• Coerver

Before publishing just any soccer drill I have some criteria:

• No (or very quick moving) lines: I like all of my players to be involved as much as possible so they have as many touches on the ball as they can. However, with some Coerver coaching drills that isn’t possible. So, what’s the next best thing? If you do have to use lines, make sure they are quickly moving and keep the kids on their toes.
• Very few pieces of equipment: Since a lot of soccer coaches are volunteers and are involved because their son or daughter plays, they don’t have a lot of money to spend on equipment. About the most equipment you’ll use with my training sessions are balls, cones, Pugg goals, and bibs. Since most of the kids will have their own soccer balls, you wont often need lots of balls, but it’s always good to bring some in case the kids forget theirs.
• Fun (but with objectives): Too much instruction and the kids switch off, too little instruction and the kids get bored. With the drills I use I will provide coaching points, and what the training session topic should be. I want my team to have fun when they’re playing and training. If they’re not having fun they won’t return.

To start us off, I’m going to use one of my favorite and most versatile soccer drills.

What You Will Need:

• Two soccer balls
• Different color bibs
• Cones

What This Session can be used for

• Passing – both technical and tactical.
• Possession – keeping possession.
• Defensive Principles – 1st, 2nd, and 3rd defender (pressure, cover, balance).
• Movement off the ball – Do we have options up top, out wide and deep?

Warm-up / Fundamental

Regular readers of the blog already know that I’m a big fan of using soccer ladders. I do this for about 25 – 30 minutes at the start of each session. Once we’re done with the ladders, we then move onto working with the ball. I found that without doing the training ladders, the boys were too energetic and sometimes lost focus. The ladders make sure they’re ready to go and are ready to do some ball work.

• Split up your roster into two groups. Give each group different color bibs and a ball between each group.
• Have them pass the ball within their group. Make sure they don’t run into the other group – encourage looking up to see the field.
• Reinforce the right passing technique – inside of the foot for short pass or pass on the ground, and getting underneath the ball for long passes in the air. Encourage your players to try passing the ball with both their left and right foot.
• Once the players are moving the ball around well it’s time to change it up a little. Take away one ball. The players now need to pass the ball sequentially. Let’s say we’re using green and blue bibs. Give the ball to a player with a blue bib. That player now has to pass the ball to a player in a green bib. That player then has to pass the ball to a player in a blue bib. This encourages the players to look up and find the player who they need to pass to. Once the players are comfortable increase the amount of balls. Reinforce using all the space on the field and giving the player in possession of the ball more than one choice.

Non-Directional

We’re now going to introduce some game conditions. This part of the session is a possession game so they have play what I like to call smart soccer.

Start off with unlimited touches for both teams who’s aim is to retain possession of the ball. If you have an uneven number of players you could make one player an all time attacker (a player who is always on the side of the team in possession of the ball).

For the team in possession of the ball you should work on:

• Range of passing – did we have to go long? could we have kept possession with a short pass?
• Options – were other players available for a pass?
• Communication – are the players telling each other if they have time on the ball, or calling for the switch?
• The field – is the full width of the field being used? are we using depth to our advantage?

For the team trying to win the ball back:

• Defensive shape – do we have pressure on the ball? how about cover and balance?
• Options – are we limiting the choices? are we marking up?
• Communication – is the first defender shouting “I’ve got ball”?

Objectives:

I like to give the team who has possession of the ball an objective. Can they reach 20 consecutive passes without losing possession? Set a time limit for this. If neither team can reach 20 consecutive passes within the time limit, both teams do push-ups. If one team manages to reach the goal, the other team does the push-ups. Be sure not to make the goal unattainable. With older players you should probably increase the goal to forty or fifty consecutive passes.

Restrictions:

• Limit the touches on the ball to 2 or 1
• Make the size of the playing field smaller

Directional

The final game of the training session is directional and similar to match conditions.

To score, players must stop the ball on the opposing line. We want to reinforce what we’ve been teaching in this final game with our passing, and making the right choices in our distribution of the ball.

Sometimes the players may have a tendency to dribble toward the end line. To counter this you can limit the players to two touches. If you have an uneven amount of players, and depending on what you’re using this drill for, you can play a numbers up or numbers down situation, or have a neutral player who is the all time attacker. I normally run this drill about once a month.

Hopefully this session plan will help you out. I’ll be happy to answer any questions and receive feedback. If you use this session with your team let me know how it goes.