Auto-generated captions — may contain the odd mishearing. Click a time to jump there.
0:01 hello coaches welcome back coach KW here for another exciting session hope you're all well uh my preseason is just started which is fantastic had two great sessions with my boys can't wait to get
0:12 back out there I hope uh this time of year when this video is recorded uh you're in the same boat one of the things I did notice unfortunately when I
0:20 was coaching was I was taking a look around at some of the other fields and not loving what I saw every time we had you know players out there and I could
0:30 just see lines and people doing one scale function in their drill while the rest of the crew sometimes 8 10 12 kids just standing in line waiting to go next
0:42 and was kind of disappointed and it got me thinking like how is it that we judge whether a drill is worthwhile if you've taken a coaching course at all one of the things I talk
0:54 about is the principles of play and that's the thing we're going to take a look at today CU When I sat there and I watched I could say that drill that
1:04 thing that they were doing really is not meeting almost any of the criteria that we'd want to be teaching never mind the fact that people are standing around
1:13 it's not efficient kids are not active they're not having fun but they're also not working on multiple things that make them a better soccer player in an
1:23 environment that's more game likee or more challenging than waiting in line taking a ball and saying go do this one thing and then come stand back I'm going
1:32 to show this book off here um this is a great book the link will be in the description uh football's principles of play by Peter pricket basically what he
1:41 does he goes over a little bit of the history of it 1968 uh gentleman uh for the fa in England kind of cified these Unwritten rules or concepts into what is now known
1:53 as the principles of play and they've been that way ever since and so this book explores the five attacking the five defending principles of play traditionally and then because there's
2:03 been lots of modern developments in the game different ways of thinking about it different ways of playing it that he then also explores some of these modern
2:12 takes on different principles of play and how they relate and maybe the best thing about this and it's not a very big book it's pretty short one of the best
2:19 things about this book is at the end he takes all the principles of play and shows an example session for what might it look like to work on those princip of
2:30 play and it's really helpful because it gives you some ideas of like oh I can either use that or I could use something like it um to create and work on those
2:39 things so I feel like it's a great measuring stick to evaluate a session or a drill or a plan that you may see online or you might see somebody do and
2:48 say hm what other the principles of play are they approaching and trying to instruct and is it multible and is it complex and is it integrated or is it
2:58 very focused on one certain thing thing and you can use that as another measuring stick you know besides can all my kids get in on it can they be active
3:06 with it are they going to have fun with it I mean you and I may Define fun a little bit different than the kids do but I think you know what I mean so
3:13 let's take a look at them we're going to look at one slide uh that I created I'll be able to I'll give you a link as well
3:18 if you want to download this infographic that I made um to use as a reference sheet but let's go and take a look at that and kind of work through that
3:26 now okay so here this slide I made this infographic and I'll make this available uh there'll be a link in the description where you can download it if you want um
3:36 there are two sets of principles of play there's the attacking or in possession one and there's the defending or out of position and each one has five elements
3:45 and again if you take a coaching course this is going to get pounded into you uh with good reason so let's go through and talk about this so the first one is
3:52 penetration so soccer is in a class of game called a invasion game if you think about it you're trying to take the ball from your side to the opposition side
4:02 you're invading their territory with a goal of trying to put the ball in the net or you know score by getting through your opponent to their end goal what
4:11 they're trying to defend kind of medieval sort of thought process but that's the type of game it is hockey's that way football all those types of games Invasion games and penetration is
4:22 a key component how can you get your players and the ball into their Zone and so we take a look at some of these attacking examples to kind of think
4:31 about what does that mean by penetration can you pass through them can you pass around them can you pass over them can you dribble with them can you shoot the
4:39 ball shooting the ball is an active penetration all those things are penetration and it's one of the F it's the first principle of play um that's always on the list second then is
4:49 support how can your teammates support each other when they're trying to penetrate the ball and so we can take a look at those examples how can you be
4:58 shaped and formed on the field to make multiple passing options your angles of support for spacing between each other so support how can you create a session
5:08 that works on that support and kind of related to support is width using the width of the field use making the field big spreading out so with is one of
5:18 those key components because if you can make the field big it makes it harder for your opponent to cover every possibility that you have on the field
5:26 the next one is movement soccer is a game of constant movement and having that coordinated movement between players so that they know where they should be going next or what to expect
5:38 from their teammates is an important one so whether that's moving the ball and moving with the ball or moving without the ball which is let's be honest for an
5:46 individual player probably 94% of the game is they don't have the ball but they're having to move to places to either support their teammates or help defend with their teammates right so
5:59 move M and then the last one is creativity soccer is a game of flare it's a game of Brilliance some of the best players they do things you would
6:09 never expect and as part of the game having that creativity to try something to surprise and Delight uh or surprise and dismay really the opposition side is
6:20 part of the game so whether that's you know disguising your true reason for having certain movements and you know surprising the team or those individual skills those players that can play with
6:30 Flare 1 V one beat a player on the dribble make a unorthodox pass to unlock a defense creativity is all part and partial of that so when you're creating
6:42 a attacking drill or session or you're looking at a session online or someplace else these are some criteria you can use to say is this drill a session worth it
6:55 do I have all my kids engaged what is this drill really working on is it working on penetration and support is it working on movement and creativity is it
7:04 working on with and support and penetration is it working at all five and I can give you some examples you know we're working on One V one you're
7:14 probably working you could say that's working on penetration and creativity because there's not a lot of support there's not a lot of width I mean movement but not really they're just
7:22 running with the ball necessary but they're trying to penetrate by trying to beat a player 1 V one and they're using their creativity to try and figure out
7:29 out new unique ways to get past that player so they're surprised at the move and they get beat right so that's one example I can think of another example
7:39 if you watch my 11 I'm sorry 13 uh warm-up games one of the games I love using is a four goal game where you have two goals at corners and you're playing
7:49 and it allows the team to decide whether or not to switch the field well a drill slash a drill a session or a game like that it does all of those things you're
7:58 working on penetration because you're trying to score you're looking at support because you want players around you you're looking at width because you could switch the play from one side to
8:06 the other you've got movement as the players are trying to jockey for position and try to figure out which goal might be free for them and your
8:12 creativity as they're trying to get there can they find new novel exciting ways to invent to get the ball from where they have it to the back of the
8:21 net so that's the offensive side of the game attacking or in possession so now let's flip the coin looks let's look at the defending and out of possession
8:32 principles of play now I'm going to say this I'll say this before but it Bears feel when you're creating a session and you're running a session you need to
8:41 resist the urge to coach both sides of the ball if it's an attacking session only coach the attacking principles and if it's a defensive session only coach
8:52 the defensive session because it's confusing for your players have one message you could use the same drill and one week only coach the attacking principles and the next week use the
9:04 same drill but now only coach the defensive principles it's much clearer for your players and it's much more effective you think you're killing two birds with one stone and there are
9:14 studies out there it it it doesn't even if you have an assistant coach because you want all your players to focus on whatever it is the main concept is so
9:23 one side of the ball so now we're going to look at the defending out of possession so when we look at defending first one is delay how can we apply
9:31 pressure to a ball carrier or the other team to slow their progress down or stop it or reverse it all those things of delay right we're trying to make sure
9:40 that we get the play away from danger whether that's pushing them to the outside or blocking them with a low block or parking the bus or defending 1
9:49 V one all those things that's delay the next is depth and now that is defending in layers it's making sure that layers support each other it's kind of the
10:01 opposite of support on attacking it's the same concept you have depth but now you're creating layers of Defense so that if one player gets beat there's somebody there to help cover and support
10:13 them the next is compaction which is obviously the opposite of width now you want to make the field small you want to squeeze in you want to narrow the gaps
10:22 between your defensive players that make it harder for players to move the ball in those gaps and so can you work on getting comp packed and bringing your
10:30 players inside and closing down spaces to make it harder for the opposition the next is balance and that kind of goes with movement and the opposite thing
10:40 because now what you're looking to do is while the ball is presenting a clear and present D danger in one area of the field you still need to have the balance
10:48 so that if the ball gets switched to another area your team can easily move themselves over to that side to now provide that delay that depth the
10:58 compaction so balance is that movement of your players into positions that support the play but also are ready to spring into action if the ball moves at
11:10 the point of attack moves to another part of the field that you can get there because you have balance you have not you've not committed all your players to
11:18 one single area of the field and the last one perhaps the hardest to teach kids especially the younger ones as patients you have to wait for the moment
11:27 you have to defend as a team we've all seen it you have a player they've got in front of the player you think they're G to stand them up and delay them till
11:35 they get help and what do they do they're go diving in trying to steal the ball right away because it's like can just steal the ball I can take off and
11:41 go the other way and the other player just walks around them and now they're one-on-one with the keeper or they're that clear and they're running so patience is that last piece how do you
11:50 get players to learn to pick their moment to do the other things whether it's delay or depth or compaction or balance you get yourself into shape so
12:00 that when the moment is right then you can strike whether that's a bad touch a bad pass the player turns into pressure or he gets into where now the balance
12:11 and the depth now you can be 2V1 on that player and really commit to him but again having that patience that defend as a team and knowing when the right
12:18 moment is to strike so when you're working on a drill that's you're looking at the defending piece now you have things you can look at to say is this drill working on one
12:32 or more of these areas and is it doing it in a way that's cogent to our game model one thing they have a drill that tells you
12:42 how to do one thing but if in 7v7 that happens very rarely then it's not worth teaching it to the kids because it makes no sense it's not applicable to them so
12:53 using these outer possession or defending principles of play um when you're looking at defensive drills is a great way to do that so let's go back to
13:03 the 1V one that we're looking at creativity well now we're talking about delay and patience whereas before we were talking about penetration and creativity you can see they almost match
13:12 up left to right and that's on purpose so now you're defending 1 V one can you de can you delay that player that come at you and can you have the patience to
13:22 wait until they make a mistake or take a bad touch or go in the direction you want them to go to before you strike and try and win the ball all so again using
13:31 these principles of play to judge those things are super helpful for when you're designing or considering using a drill when you go forward so that was a quick
13:42 overview I felt that was important to get into that topic it's not a replacement for a coaching course in any way shape or form but it's an important
13:49 concept to understand so that a you get a better sense of why you do things on the soccer field and hopefully it's a measuring stick you can use when you're
13:58 evaluated whether or not a driller session is worth it for you and your kids uh again I'll leave a link to the book uh in the description as well as a
14:08 link to download that infographic uh as always if you could uh like share subscribe and comment that'd be huge help for the channel and until the next
14:17 time I hope you're having a great preseason if uh you're watching this about the same time I'm doing this and otherwise I'll see you soon on the
14:24 fields thanks a lot bye for
