Once you go through the article, it’ll be easy for you to believe that it is games rather than soccer drills that are most influential in honing skills during the Soccer practice.
In comparison to drills, games are more revitalizing and call for same stamina level as in a live game.
In relation to soccer training, games command passion, is a source of great fun, and in the process of learning it, kids benefit from various phases of the game.
You must remember the following rules while bringing in games in the training sessions.
1. Its necessary for each player to both have the ball and play with it more often.
2. Make sure each player participates equally in the game.
It shouldn’t be that the weak players are deprived of playing with the ball.
3. Abstain from adopting the policy of reward or penalty.
The games are not meant for that.
4. Games should only concentrate on building soccer skills.
5. If possible, don’t impose any regulations or limitations in a game.
6. Games should be such that are easy to recognize and take part in.
If games are complex in nature, they lead to wastage of time and energy.
7. To finish, have the kid’s face tougher challenges after that have successfully gone through a certain phase.
In a soccer practice session, 200-300 times is the least that every player participating should touch the ball.
This has the effect of ensuring each player’s progress in improving soccer skills.
Here’s a list of few soccer coaching games that are not only interesting, accepted, and useful, but also help players hone their skills.
1. Shoot the coach: Here, the kids try to put the ball into the goal by moving in a crowd and keeping their head held high.
This leads to a player’s dribbling ability and concentration power getting better.
One of the great ways is to play the game is to begin with 3 players and add on the number gradually.
2. Freeze Tag: Teach the kids the skill to keep the ball away from the defender with this game and it’s also an amazing war up exercise.
In this game, every player has a ball except one and the player without the ball must touch (not kick) the ball.
When this happens, the player with the ball is frozen and must act as a goal post.
Only when the other player has hit the ball between frozen player’s legs can that player be de-frozen.
Play till all players are frozen.
3. Red light, green light: In this game, the kids make a queue.
What the coach does is shout green light and turns his back to the kids, who should then move forward with their balls quickly before the coach again shouts red light and faces the kids.
If a player fails to come forward, he must return and start again.
This is a perfect game for building stamina and concentration.
So there you have it!
If you would like insight on more such soccer practice games, join our youth soccer coaching community that has tons of similar resources on youth soccer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Practice Drills
