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0:01 hello coaches welcome back coach KW here again with another uh drill session this time it's a little bit different it does take a little bit of um a turn from a
0:11 typical play practice play it's more of a functional practice it is a practice actual session that I delivered with my third grade team a couple years ago and
0:21 it was super successful um but it is a little bit different in terms of it's a little bit more prescribed and unfortunately in order to help your
0:30 players along a lot of times especially again Town level players who perhaps don't have that rich uh background of watching soccer with parents that are knowledgeable they don't necessarily
0:43 have some of that background knowledge that you know our athletes who play hockey wrong side hockey or baseball or football who watch it with their parents and are a little bit more knowledgeable
0:55 tend to have just from their cultural background of watching sports here in United States so it's a little bit more prescribed um and it also takes into account realities on the ground
1:09 everybody wants our soccer players to be two-footed and be equal with both feet and we all know even at Pro level they're not equal they might be 70 to
1:18 80% from right foot to left foot but they're not equal while our u 10 players are nowhere close to equal so this drill does take into account that fact so what
1:28 we're looking at is how we attack from wide areas and we do it in our formation of our 231 and we lay out basically the runway patterns for our players to run and in
1:41 this process we're teaching them about angles of attack and angles of support and moving with their players and making different runs but it's very prescribed uh I'm sure that if some US soccer
1:53 person looked at this they'd be like no no no this has far too many directions and cones and lines and whatever else but sometimes in order to get through to
2:02 your players a very kind of complicated idea that they don't have a natural inclination to because again they don't watch the game enough they need sometimes something like this and it was
2:12 very successful we'll talk about that at the end so let's jump in to the graphics we'll take a look at it and go from there okay so here we are uh this is a
2:22 functional finishing from Wing play uh session I call it functional because it's not necessarily a technical practice it's much more a team base practice you're really teaching a
2:32 functional skill for your whole team with and without the ball that's just the way I think about it uh so that's why I call it that uh there may be some
2:40 other name for it but that's what I've got uh and we're working on finishing from crosses delivering crosses from the left and the right we're really working
2:47 with the seven the 11 the eight and the nine and I delivered this session in the spring of the first year of my team my third grade team so my boys are in third
2:57 grade it was the second round so we had a fall session now it's the spring session so that's why I delivered this uh a couple of weeks into the start of
3:05 the spring season so here's my welcome activity and honestly there wasn't any thought in this one it's just what I did uh it was just my son and I uh players were late
3:16 arriving and we noticed during the games that we were having a hard time finishing from wide areas uh what was happening was players were taking a wild
3:25 swing at the ball as they came in from wide areas and shanking it uh in all sorts of Manner and Direction none of it really going into the net so just me and
3:34 my son to start I would just cross balls in from the wide area he'd run on to him and we're working on blocking the ball in with the inside of our left foot
3:42 using that big flat surface to be a nice controlled way to be able to redirect the ball into the net as his teammates arrived I was able to deliver the balls
3:51 quickly enough that nobody was really standing around a lot as you can imagine you can do this pretty quickly if you have a good supply of balls and what I
3:57 started doing is I had the player who was next in line ready to receive I first made them back out around the line of players while keeping an eye on me
4:06 and then starting their run and snapping into position kind of like what you would do to finish if you were a striker you want to be in that space and then
4:15 you want to get out maybe pull the defender away and then run in behind when the cross was made to stay on S side so we were working on that motion
4:21 as well and we flipped and we did the other side now you could also have a more structured activity or you could add on this activity and I think this
4:29 would be a great idea to do is create a conditioned game this is one of my conditioned games I believe it's in my 13 welcome games but if it's not um it
4:38 could be uh so basically what we did is we made a condition came here it's got two channels on either side with those yellow cones there's a player on either
4:46 in each Channel they're neutrals that play with whomever has the ball and we play 3v3 4v4 whatever we have and all we say is hey those players play with any
4:57 whatever team has the ball and nobody can tackle them and we encourage them to try and use that wide player to move the ball up and down the field but instead
5:06 but otherwise you just let them play so it's a great way to kind of plant the seed without being so overt with it because again it's a welcome game you
5:13 don't want to be coaching all that much you want to set them up and see what happens and give them a hint or two so here's the setup and it is a
5:21 little bit of a complicated setup because there's a lot of cones here and basically what we're mapping out is kind of like flight paths for all our players
5:29 where to go so the basic setup here is we're highlighting the channels we have the wide areas where the 71s operate um if you haven't seen my video on how to divide up the field
5:40 where you see the channels and the half spaces and such I'll leave a link for that it's a really important video to think about how you divide up the field
5:47 and how you get your players to move throughout the field it's a great video for coaches to think about when you're dividing desiging drills type of deal uh
5:55 we've got some nines or the strikers hanging out below the center circle we've got some eights kind of hang out in this area the spare 11 is here with
6:04 the collection of balls they're going to deliver the ball from this position kind of mimicking where a ball might come from from one of the Defenders and we
6:11 have the wide seven here the idea here is the 11 is going to play a ball into this 11 or into this Channel and they're going to take the ball down wide and
6:21 because this is on their strong foot their right foot cuz let's be honest statistically most of our players are right footed and that's their strong foot they can get down deep deeper into
6:30 the area before they make this cross so usually this cross is much flatter or parallel with the goal line sometimes it's a pullback but they can get further
6:39 down before they make that ball go across the eight is going to run near them and then make this S curve kind of run to get to the top of the box so
6:48 first this player is supporting the 11 perhaps they play a onew in a game or whatever but the idea is first you're here and then they cut out here the nine
6:59 needs to make a run that kind of goes towards the coach and then back in this direction so sort of a v we're really trying to get our players understand
7:07 that they all need to go to a separate spot because really what happens in 11 7v7 soccer is the eight and nine end up standing on top of each other more often
7:16 than not because the eight just doesn't have that spatial awareness to stay away from their teammate and so they end up on top of each other so we're trying to
7:25 get runs To Go in different places and get them to understand that's where they should go so the nine is cutting up coming down this way heading to the top
7:32 of the six heading towards the front post the seven is staying wide and then they go from corner to corner it's a great way to give them a sort of a
7:41 visual road map and that's why we have the cones here they're heading towards the back post so the ball comes in here they come down they make that cross in
7:49 and now we're working on blocking the ball in with the left foot if we can as I come across if the striker doesn't have it we have the wide 11 to clean up
7:59 if this pulls the ball back you have this player at the top the eight come down and finish and also this eight serves a purpose of if there's kind of
8:07 that slop in the box where the ball's bouncing around they act as a seal at the top of the box it's also important for this 11 not to just stand around
8:15 after they make the cross they need to start to head in and seal off this side looking for rebounds so coaching points here of course we're looking at the time when
8:23 they going run to stay on side we're reminding them of those channels we're talking about cleaning up the back post we've talked about the nine getting to
8:31 the top of the six the eight having that complicated job to support and then curve out and get to the top of the box again the 11 can't just admire their
8:41 pass they need to get in and seal off the thing that Crossing player shouldn't be really thinking about where the player teammates are they should take a
8:48 glance up and then they're firing in we're talking about that blocking motion with the left foot um or you know getting those hips open towards the ball
8:57 facing them diagonally as they come in so if they have to Sweep with their right foot they have a better chance at it and again we talked about with right
9:03 footed balls they tend to be a flatter delivery because that player can get further down into the area closest to the goal area before they send that ball
9:12 in now on the left side we do something slightly different it's the kind of same setup we got the sevens now with the spare balls but we've added this line of
9:21 cones and this line of cones here is to get this player to understand that we understand that their weaker foot cannot deliver the strength of a cross that
9:30 their stronger foot can at ages 8 and N from this lower area they're going to have to do something different um and that's what we're telling them it's okay
9:39 to do this uh because it is a method to do uh to get a good cross in without feeling you have to swing with that weaker foot while they're still
9:47 developing it I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't develop it I'm saying let's we need to work with the realities that we have on the ground and so here's the
9:55 plan we still have the same run we have the 11 coming in here we have the eight doing the sweeping run as support the nine getting to the top of the box
10:03 heading for that front post at the top of the six but you'll notice what we're having the seven do is do a extreme cut in they're cutting in and they're coming
10:12 parallel across the top of the box so they can deliver this ball with their strong right foot now with this sort of cross the target tends to be this 11
10:22 whereas coming from this side the nine and the eight have a much higher likelihood of getting on to the end of that ball because of the angle it's
10:30 coming straight across but with his angled ball it tends to be this back post Runner who more often than not is going to have a free shot at
10:39 net now also this player could and we'll talk about this whip a ball in on net and we look for rebounds we've seen lots of players inverted Wingers where a
10:48 right footed player plays on this side and a left footed player plays on that side and when they come down here they cut in and whip a ball in with their
10:56 strong foot uh think of mosala on Liverpool left foot player Cuts in shoots across the top of the um the box to the far post again the same coaching points all
11:07 the way around except that we need to make accommodations that that far 11 player is usually going to be the primary target and that that wide seven
11:16 on the left side has to make that cut in onto their stronger foot at the top of the box to send that ball in now we can revisit that welcome game
11:26 we can go back to this welcome game same rules apply and just let them play and just say to them hey if uh you score from this wide player directly it's
11:36 worth two but again we're now going back to something familiar and we're trying to get them to reinforce the things they're doing and then of course we
11:43 finish a game no restrictions full field half field whatever you can do um and again try to get them to use those skills and if they score a goal from
11:53 those tell them you know the goal is worth two points or something again incentivize them if you want but the idea is now we're going to play a
11:59 regular game let's see if we can do what we're doing so here's our the observations that went through when we did this example this drill is you know
12:08 we're we had to explain to the players that hey it's okay we know that your left or weaker foot isn't developed yet so we're going to make accommodations
12:16 for which side of the field you're coming down the other piece we could talk about is the different kinds of crosses where we have that flat or
12:23 parallel one we have the pullback and then we talk about those early or angled crosses because the ball is played sooner up the field further away from
12:32 the goal line more diagonal into the box sometimes behind the line of Defenders when an opposite Winger is running in behind to score the or to get on that
12:42 ball we talk about that body shape opening up the hips we do un oppose at first then you can add a keeper and even Defenders if you want and if you want to
12:50 add some urgency to your players if they're kind of just going through the motions the player that makes the pass to start the practice they can then
12:59 chase the player in their channel to give them a little bit of pressure it really does speed up the speed of play because it just gives them that
13:06 incentive to get away from the player who's coming after from behind it just makes the whole practice move a little bit quicker and we talked about that
13:14 their early cross playing that ball early meaning maybe three quarters of the way down the field playing in behind a backline that perhaps hasn't collapsed into the box yet for players to run in
13:24 behind to make a score so different ways to play again here's the map overview from the left side that cut in and the wide ball coming in usually for the 11 and from
13:37 the right side usually flatter or pullback but the same motions now we'll talk about the results we had this practice on a Thursday or Friday uh we had Thursday Friday
13:47 practices the next day we had a game first half uh the field was condition wasn't great kind of bumpy but in the first half we we scored two goals we had
13:56 at least five of the chances from play just like this in the second half we had even more success just because that side of the field was easier to control the
14:06 ball frankly there were less rocks to be honest with you and dirt in the field on that end and you know ended scoring up four more goals and what was super fun
14:15 about it is that the kids were so excited because they recognized what they had done a day or two prior was working in the game and really that's
14:23 all you could ask for um so while we scored a couple goals from the left side obviously statistically we scored far more from the right side just because
14:33 that's the reality of youth players at ages you know eight and nine years old is they're going to be just far more right-footed players stronger on the
14:41 right foot better crosses away they went well I hope you found that useful it is a little bit different um it's a little bit more prescribed but like I
14:51 said in the video it was super effective like honestly the next weekend in that game scenario the kids look so excited because they probably scored six games
15:00 six goals in that game using techniques from this and they were so excited and that was probably worth all of it together but I hope you uh found this
15:09 useful please again like subscribe share with this I I didn't pull the curtain back I realized that after the fact so you see the absolute disaster behind me
15:19 with the drum kit and everything else but that's just another part of my life I hope uh you enjoy music as much as I do because I enjoy it as much as soccer
15:27 so there you go so until next time I hope you're having a great time on the fields I'll see you real soon bye
