Soccer coaching drills must not be perceived by your players as a boring exercise. They must be encouraged to feel enthusiastic, understand their purpose and come back with renewed excitement each time. Therefore it is advisable to design your soccer conditioning and game drills in such a way as to make it enjoyable for your players.
Here is one such drill that can raise the spirits of your players:
How To Conduct The Drill
- You will require four cones. Arrange these in the formation of a square, with each cone in a corner. You might like to use half your field area. Get your whole team to step into this square. Choose one of the players to be the Messenger. Let this player attempt to tag the team players.
Whoever he tags must hold hands with him and together they must continue the exercise. When another player joins them, the three must continue doing this, sprinting around the cone square.
Finally, you will have a long chain of players trying to grab players who are free to make them part of this chain. The entire drill is wonderful as a fitness drill and your players will enjoy themselves hugely, working as a cohesive team.
- Ensure your players never stand still and continue to jog all the time whether or not they are part of the chain. Generally you will find that the very young players enjoy being on the move while the older ones try to be clever and become stationary. The idea behind this drill is to keep your players happy with soccer practice.
- You can vary this drill by having two ‘Messengers’ instead of one so that two long chains develop and when there is only one player left to link, both chains can work together to get them to their chain. This is guaranteed fun.
There are plenty of soccer coaching drills that are multipurpose in terms of building fitness, skills and technique and as a coach, incorporating these into your training sessions in a planned manner will help you ensure the development of your team in the proper manner.
There are drills that focus on individual player skills as well as the skills of the team as a whole. When these are supplemented with small-sided games, the players can practice all their skills in context, making your soccer coaching efforts fruitful.
