Football/Soccer Session (Moderate): striker: position practice

Warm-Up (10 mins)

Organization:

• Two cones lined vertically about 7 yards apart

Instructions:

• Two touch passing drill
• Each player passes the ball using inside foot
• Receiving the ball requires inside foot touch and then pass back out
• Player who receives the ball must pass it to another teammate that did not deliver the pass, i.e., player A passes to player B, player B must pass to someone else other than player A.
• Minimum two balls with minimum 5 players. Maintain ratio with more players, i.e. 3 balls with 8 players, 4 balls with 11 players, etc.
• No more than 5-minutes on this pre-warm up activity

Coaching Points/Questions:

• Ensure quality of passes, no balls should go in the air

Regressions/Progressions:

• Progression - two-touch where the first touch transfers the ball to the opposite foot to pass the ball back to the other end. For example, if player receives the ball with their right foot, the first touch transfers the ball to the player's left foot to pass back to the other end with that left foot. And vice versa

Conditioned-Game (30 mins)

Organization:

• Create a 50 yard by 30 yard box as the overall playing grid
• Cone off a 10 yard by 30 yard area within the playing grid on each end
• Setup two goals on each end with two goalies.

Instructions:

• 7v7 plus goalies game
• Game starts with the goalie playing the ball in at a goal kick situation
• In order to score, the ball must successfully be played into the center forward/striker (9)
• All resets of play are goal kicks to the possessing team
• Offsides rule apply
• Keep the 10 by 30 yard grid areas to honor the center forward/striker and two center backs on each team staying in their areas for proper spacing. Once the game gets going, this can be removed after observing the spacing and movement of the players reflect what was achieved in the main activity

Coaching Points/Questions:

• Technical:
  • Looking for shielding (hold-up) play when the 9 receives the ball
  • Movement and rotations of the attackers to support the 9
  • Quality of pass into the 9 - inside foot passing technique, weighted ball allowing the 9 to easily control it
  • Striking - can we take the appropriate long touch to lean into the ball and drive it to score
• Movement - ensure all the players are moving around to create good passing lanes