In this week’s exercise, we will look at a very important aspect of possession soccer, which is developing the understanding of when to maintain possession and when to penetrate to score.
Split your group into two teams and assign two of the players to be neutrals. In the middle of your field there will be two triangles that you can set up with cones (shown in the video below by the white shaded triangles). Adjust the size of the area depending on the age and ability of your players.
A point is scored when either team manages to pass the ball through the triangle and is received by a teammate on the other side with the help of the two neutrals as shown in the video at the bottom of the page.
Progression:
Once the players have got the hang of playing with the two triangles, you can take one triangle out and go with one bigger triangle in the middle.
For more advanced groups, you could also play this game without neutrals.
Coaching Points:
• Decision making of when to possess the ball on the outside and when to look to penetrate through the middle.
• Patience so that the players don’t try to force things and look to penetrate when it is not appropriate.
• Weight and accuracy of pass into the correct foot depending on pressure
• Receive on back foot as much as possible, make sure that the body position is open, which will allow the player to see more of the field
• Make sure that the player has looked over their shoulder to see where the space is before receiving the pass
• Spreading out in possession and being compact out of possession
• Communication
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