Teaching Finishing Soccer Drills
Yesterday, an old friend of mine (and youth soccer coach)… invited me to his practice session. He wanted my opinion on some new ‘fancy’ finishing soccer drills he was testing.
I accepted immediately (”dinner is on me!” - he said)… 
During the time we was teaching these crazy new drills, I noticed that there was a forward player that was scoring very well. I ended up commenting this with a parent that was standing near me… and he replied: “Wow… that was really luck, he scored 8 out of 10!”.
Are Good Finishing Skills Just Luck
…Or some Kind Of Magic?
Well, to be honest with you, I don’t believe in luck — everything that happens, happens because we did something that ‘made it happen’. Success in coaching youth soccer or everything else we do is not some kind of magic… or strange trick like this one…
Everything has a logic explanation…
That player’s first performance really got my attention, so I started to put some numbers on a piece of paper, so I could get a good perspective of what’s going on…
And guess what? After 6 different finishing drills this player scored 58% of the time. This means that for every 10 shots… he scored about 6. Believe me, this isn’t luck…
When the practice session ended, all players ran for their well deserved hot bath… all except one…
I noticed that this player I’ve been talking about so far, stayed on the field.
He grabbed all the soccer balls available and created a line in front of the goal and just started to shoot. He repeated this procedure over and over again… from different angles, positions and distances.
He did this for about 30 minutes… alone in the field…
Now… here’s the reason WHY those stats were so great!
Finishing Is All About Practicing… A Lot!
And here’s a great example of what I’m talking about…
With that said… let’s dive in!
Here’s an idea for a finishing drill that you can teach to your players… (and don’t forget your notebook, so you can keep track of what your players can do).
Drill: Shooting Out of the box
Aim: Practice and develop finishing skills and confidence
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Age: U17
Time: 15 minutes
Steps:
- Start the drill with the player who takes the shot controlling the ball.
- When players are at ease doing this, they finish with one touch.
- Players practice shooting techniques and move to one touch.
- Players finish from outside penalty box.
- Sequence is finisher passing the ball to distributor who arranges the finish.
- Each player gets a chance to practice finishing.
Diagram:
Key points:
Strike ball outside the penalty box. Players progress from technique practice to developing composure while playing.
That’s it for today…
(By the way… I recommended to that youth coach friend of mine that he should identify those players that are the best at passing, dribbling, crossing, scoring, etc… and run specific individual drills to develop and perfect their skills).
Send some feedback with the stats for your best ’scorers’…
Andre Botelho
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