The golden years of soccer learning occur between ages 6 and 14, write James Lennox and the co-authors of “Soccer Skills & Drills.” If you coach players in the “golden years,” you can introduce the game via drills that isolate elements of soccer, to be applied later in scrimmages and real games. Drills allow players to rise through stages of skill mastery, from fumbling incompetence to silky competence, where technical training ultimately pays off in perfect moving and timing.
Dribbling
Strong dribbling skills, marked by control, a gentle touch and elusiveness, separate the mature player from the less experienced. As a means to control, “Soccer Skills & Drills” recommends the classic Center Circle Dribbling drill. Use the center circle of the field as well as 10 cones placed outside the circle. At your command of “cones,” the players spring with their ball to the cones, circle it and sprint back to the circle. Each player starts with a long touch toward the cone followed by short touches to round the cone. Variations include continuing to dribble within the circle and having each player stop on the command “spin” and turn in a 360-degree circle keeping the ball close to the body.
Receiving And Passing
The world’s best teams have one thing in common, writes Mike Matkovich in “Elite Soccer Drills.” From Arsenal to Barcelona and Bayern Munich, top players at the elite level circulate the ball in a way that leads effectively to goals. Quick passing allows your players more time to make good decisions before a defender closes them down. A simple passing and receiving drill is “Two Lines,” where you create two lines of four to eight players, 10 to 15 yards apart. Player 1 passes to player 2 in the other line and follows the pass. Player 2 receives the pass in one touch and passes the ball back to Player 3 in the first line with a second touch. Player 2 follows the pass to get in the other line, and so on. Players need to zip the ball along and take a good first touch.
Goalkeeping
Goalies require specialized drills that work on catching rollers on the ground and balls in the air and diving to stop balls to the side. Drills can also work on distributing the stopped ball by throwing it with a baseball or sling throw or kicking it via a punt. Lennox suggests a simple drill of throwing or kicking the ball 100 times against a wall and trying to catch it 100 times with no drops. Over time, you can try tougher and tougher catches “until virtually every catch is automatic,” he writes.
Heading
Heading the ball into the goal wins games, as Zinedine Zidane of France proved twice in the 1998 World Cup final against Brazil. Quality heading is a problem in the U.S., Matkovich notes, and improving this quality gap can start at the youth level with a drill to head crosses into the goal. Form two lines from a group of 10 to 18 players. Have each line stand at the top of the penalty box on either side of the penalty arc. Servers A and B stand with five balls each near the end line. Servers send a flighted ball into the penalty box, and players from alternate lines try to head the ball into the goal. Players keep score until one team has scored five goals.
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