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0:01 hello soccer coach KW here hello coaches hope you're all doing well spring season is upon us I just had my first practice with my kids knowing that it's now going
0:09 to rain and snow for the next three days here in New England hopefully we'll get our first match in on Saturday but today's video we're going to talk about
0:18 playing out of the back in 7v7 perhaps the most important skill that you can teach your players in third and fourth grade because they're going to need this
0:25 skill for the rest of their lives if they play soccer being able to play out of the back with a controlled method keeping possession learning to use your
0:34 goalkeeper as an extra spare player in the back to Pro provide overloads all super important skills and it can start in third grade I promise you it can it
0:43 won't always be pretty they will make mistakes but I promise you it can be done they can do it successfully and if you do your players are going to have a
0:51 huge leg up as they move forward so we're going to take a look at some slides then we're going to take a look at some game VI footage and we can see
0:59 how it looks it's not as perfect as it looks on the little video slides with the pieces moving around but that's okay that's what we want to see so let's get
1:07 into it right now okay as we said we're going to take a look at playing out of the back it's probably the most important thing you can teach your 7v7 players because
1:17 they're going to need this for the rest of their lives playing out of the back is a chance to maintain possession stting attack but you have to do it in
1:24 the coordinated manner we don't allow any of our 7v7 teams to punt and neither should you for any reason they can't head the ball and if the ball goes over
1:32 the halfway line in the air the other team just gets the free kick on the halfway line and it comes right back at you and those long passes the pass
1:40 accuracy is not great especially at this age and the time it takes to handle that ball as it bouncing around it's just not worth the risk so we're going to get
1:50 them in a good setup so they have multiple angles so they have lots of options to play triangles and diamonds all over the field we're going to spread
1:57 wide to make the field as big as possible as we've talked about and we're going to take a look at the players who don't get the ball it's important for
2:05 them to slide but there are certain players that have to slide right away and there are other players that need to learn to wait until the second pass as I
2:12 like to say before they move and we'll look at that so here here's the basics we've got the goalkeeper with the ball in the center of the six not on either
2:22 Edge always in the center we don't want to give anything away our four and our five are just inside the area perhaps even a little bit lower if your buildout
2:31 line is here you could even bring these players back level with the keeper to give them a few more minutes uh 7 and 11 are out on the paint we like to say get
2:40 paint on your boots we want them on the touch line as far wide as possible the 711 may even start a little bit higher so that they have room to come down the
2:49 line to come to the ball if they have pressure on them but that's something that you can teach them to learn if there's no press on they can perhaps
2:57 start here what we're looking for is a good angle here we don't want too flat of an angle we want a good angle when we receive this ball eight is in the center
3:05 here the nine too often because the other team has to retreat to the buildout line the nine thinks they have to do the same and that's not true this
3:14 nine can go as deep as they can to stand to create some depth now remember if you watched my offside video If this ball happened to be kicked bounced before the
3:26 halfway line and traveled all the way down here where this player was standing they cannot be offside on a goal kick if they receive the ball directly from a
3:36 keeper is that going to happen probably not but the point is is this player can stretch the field because they're going to slide up and down as you'll see in a
3:45 minute so here you see we play the ball out first pass is always to one of our center backs it can be tempting to play that ball long and it's okay to try it
3:54 once or twice but again the distance and accuracy these players have on that range is not great early on and by the time the ball gets there usually the
4:03 Press is on and they're dealing with a ball that's bouncing or in the air giving them fits honestly it's not a great luck perhaps as they get older it
4:11 gets better for them but first pass out to one of our center backs first pass happens you notice the nine is starting to press this way because they're going
4:20 to try and form a nice Diamond up here notice the five and 11 they do not move at first that was only the first pass we're going to see why in a couple of
4:28 slides later you can see here now the four has a bunch of options they can play out wide they can apply to the eight they can play back to their
4:36 keeper odds are they're not going to be able to play to their nine way up here because there's too many players involved doesn't hurt the try once in
4:43 the blue moon but that's not the high percentage play the high percentage play and the play that will work nine times out of 10 early on is just a play to
4:52 your wide player you can see our presses come in here so I like to call it sometimes The Charge of the Light Brigade when it's not coordinated they
5:00 were going full speed for this player and now the ball has moved out here they've overcommitted you can see the nine has actually tucked in here cuz
5:07 they're looking through this window looking for space and now the seven has lots of options they can take their space or make a pass in up they could go
5:17 back this eight probably isn't a great option but you can see now the five and the 11 have now slid over because that's after the second pass then now here in
5:26 case something goes wrong this is a central protection this player can get back and protect the goal as well they also provide an option if this ball goes
5:35 forward since the play is over here now the wide play perhaps is in this space you can see here in this option seven has played the ball down the line cuz
5:43 nine has made a run into this space and now we've cut four players out of the play and now we're moving into the attacking third now another option is
5:53 the term switching the field switching the field simply means moving the ball from one side of the field to the other to switch the point of attack at this
6:01 age they can't usually go from one sideline to the other with the one pass one kick of the ball perhaps as they get closer to the end of their fourth grade
6:09 year but even then accuracy isn't great so you're going to use a player in the middle to finish it two short passes are more accurate than one long pass we're
6:17 going to look at this example where the team is overc commit we're going to use the eight and then we're going to move it up and out so again here we are in
6:25 formation our press is coming in here we play the ball out to the seven now we've got two players here this four again probably will want to slide in behind the seven
6:38 as an option but this eight has done a good job they're in this window because perhaps this press one play has gone far and the other one didn't make it that
6:46 far and they're coming straight at the seven now eight has positioned themselves as they should to be an option here you notice now the second pass happened five and 11 have moved
6:57 over the seven is play this ball into the eight now this team is overcommitted to one side because they were all rushing towards the seven and the four
7:06 now this eight has a bunch of options they can dribble and take their space they can look to find the nine they can look to find the 11 directly perhaps
7:14 they have to go back to the five to cut back out or perhaps they're playing a onew with a seven who looks like they've started to move up the line but now you
7:21 can see we've played it out wide we've taken out four players out of the play and now this 11 has plenty of Green Space to rush into as we push the rest
7:31 of our players up and now we're into the third another way to switch to play is Recycling and recycling simply means we have to restart we have to start over
7:42 because our way was blocked as we're going forward perhaps it's a good press perhaps we've taken a bad touch and the Press has now got on top of us and we
7:50 need to recycle a start again again I'm going to reiterate a hundred times if I'm going to do it once your goalkeeper plays half the game in the field the
7:59 feet still work when they have gloves on you need to get them involved with play after they've released the ball because that's where your overloads are going to
8:08 come from in your defensive third when you're playing the the ball around back there it's really important as you get older but isn't you can do this third
8:17 graders can do it I promise you it's risky they're going to make mistakes it's okay because what they're going to gain from it is going to have huge
8:25 dividends you'll see it already in fourth grade I promise you so here's our setup we've played that ball out but now this is a really well-coordinated press
8:34 we've got a player that's gone onto the seven we've got a player that's gone onto to the eight and this player is now coming this way cutting off really any
8:41 forward motion with that ball well maybe the four fumbled it and gave these players time to get there either way the safe play now two short passes versus
8:51 one long pass to the five is to play to the keeper and this is why the five and the 11 shouldn't move until the second pass because in
9:01 this situation if they had moved in and the ball comes back to the keeper now everybody's in this middle area and the Press is on top of them but now as you
9:09 can see it moves to the keeper they simply now switch that ball out to the five this team is now recovering from overc committing to one side of the
9:17 field the 11 is in acres of space they get this ball and now they have tons of options dribble pass all the things all right one more option here
9:30 and this is more advanced I'm not saying you should do this in your first 10 weeks with your third graders but it's something you should add in and that's
9:37 using the eight as a decoy or as the central player to turn and move forward um we'll talk about body shape being side on it's super important for the
9:46 eight also keeping it simple early on and then more advanced requires good communication to have that eight turn and face up the field so here we are
9:57 positioned again perhaps now the other team is getting used to you playing out wide and they're starting to push their pressors out wide so what you can do is
10:06 to have the ball mve to the eight but two things are important here body shape of the eight they should not be facing the goalkeeper the hip should be facing
10:15 one of the two Sidelines so they can turn their head and see the pressure coming and turn their head and see the keeper second to keep it simple what I
10:25 tell my eight is if the keeper delivers the pass to this side of their body then they play to the center back on that side if the keeper delivers the ball to
10:33 the other side then they play there at least first on it just takes away the decision making for them because they may Panic as the Press comes into them
10:43 because these players are much closer don't give them too much to think of as they get older they can make the decision which of the center backs is
10:50 better to go to in addition if these pressing players were way out wide and there is no pressure on here these three players can see exactly what's happening
11:00 the most effective tool they have in their Arsenal is their mouth they tell this player what's happening behind him even if they even if they're side on
11:10 they still have to receive this ball if they can turn then these players should be telling him to turn with a simple command turn this player turns and looks
11:18 up the field now the seven and 11 are moving they maybe take their space or they can find a simple pass but if they can't they play the the ball comes here
11:28 if they can hold on to it for a couple of seconds to invite the pressure to pull in especially if those teams were getting used to you being way out wide
11:36 and so now the Press is having to come into the middle as they gather that pressure it's now a simple pass back to the four now both of the wide areas are
11:45 wide open because the pressure has come into the middle and now you play up and out and you're Off to the Races so again to review you need to
11:55 find your shape on a goal kick restart using that shape will give you a team the both best options with all those triangles and diamonds again use your
12:04 keeper it's a field player don't be afraid to have your players play back to the keeper we do it not just in goal kicks but in other parts of the game as
12:11 well which we'll review high and wide Wingers on the touchline paint on the shoes and the striker can vary that position central midfielder and the OPP at Center back need to hold the position
12:21 to the ball is move the second pass we have a video that I will look at different patterns of play that we you can practice but what we're going to do
12:28 now was going to take a look at some game footage and just take a look at a team that clearly hadn't practiced goal kicks and then we'll take a look at the
12:36 team our team and you can see how it works when we play out from the back so let's go take a look at that now okay let's take a look at a couple
12:45 of video clips this is from a game in the fall of 2023 this is a fourth grade team so this is their third cycle of four where we're
12:56 playing we're playing against the team that we did end up winning I believe 5 to2 or 4 to2 it was kind of even early on um kind of a funny game um going
13:06 forward as you'll see other team was BIG my team tends to be is a little bit smaller in size but uh we had to adjust in the first half and the second half uh
13:15 we came through we led into uh two kind of uncharacteristic goals uh in the first half and then we straightened it out and we put five in in the second
13:24 half and the kids did a great job but we're going to take a look at a couple of goal kicks both from for my team and the other team and we'll take a look and
13:31 compare what's going on um you'll also note that I believe there's a clip in here when it's not a goal kick Keepers just collected the ball you'll see my
13:40 team just breaks out into this shape that we've shown on the video as well to play the ball out because that's what they know to do uh sometimes they play
13:49 long but again having that halfway line kind of be a DeMark where they can't get the ball over the air kind of limits that keeper from just chucking the ball
13:57 downfield or punting it um really it's more beneficial just to hold on to the ball so let's take a look at this first clip goal kick here you
14:05 can see my keeper has it in the middle of the field they're going to pull in we're going to pause it right here as the play comes to them so you can see
14:13 here couple of things are happening that I'd rather have not happened and that is that the defender on the right side they're pulling in before the second
14:21 pass has been made which is not what we want to have happen but again they're still learning also if you look for the far left Winger by the center line
14:30 instead of being out by the paint they're starting to creep into the middle here so now if we let this play go my Center back going to make a good
14:38 move and try the long ball across and it comes off but that was uh creative to say the least but maybe not exactly what we want in the end we have some good
14:47 interchange as we get down the field we end up with a halfway decent chance and they just Sky it over the N so first example mistakes are made and that's
14:55 what they expect to be made almost that ball was picked off but you can see not what the little X's and O's on our screens look like but that's okay that's
15:03 what we want to see here here's another one now this is one of the ones where we play into the middle I paused it here and then we're
15:12 going to play out wide now I'm not sure that he means to do what he's about to do here in terms of when he goes to play
15:17 this ball wide I think he's looking to play it back to the center back but maybe not hard to tell it's been half a year but here pressure all is in the
15:26 middle that wide players out wide ball has to retrieve it but still gets up the field and now takes two players with him while the rest of the team moves up the
15:34 field again they play into the middle you can see that the center backs are I mean the two middle players are on top of each other again here's another
15:43 opportunity here we playing out from the back again we play out to the left for reason this time he takes his space plays it out wide kind of Shanks the
15:53 pass and it goes out of bounds so again it's all part andoss of the learning process it's never going to be pretty and I want you to see that it's not
16:00 going to be pretty but you can see that most times that we have the ball we're getting the ball up and at least up to halfway before we encounter any sort of
16:08 real pressure here's another one this time let's see what he does this time he goes off to the right and now this time the Press is pretty decent and our
16:19 Center back instead of doing what they probably should do which is turn the ball backwards he kind of panics and goes forward but then there's enough support in the middle there for us to
16:27 move forward it's not pretty again not classic but again these alerting things this is where I can pull my players aside afterwards and say hey in this
16:37 situation what else could you have done here and it's all about learning so now let's take a look at this other team they're playing in a 33 which is one of
16:45 my least favorite formations to play if you've watched any of my other videos I really kind of uh I really dump on this one and for lots of reasons look at the
16:54 setup here the players are in straight lines there are no real angles and they're going to do we'll see a couple of these basically their only play is
17:03 they play it to the wide player and he hoofs it up the field now they've got some big players some fast players and they have a little bit of success um one
17:12 of these situations they end up scoring a goal but it was because my keeper got hit in the head and the referee who happened to be my son didn't see the
17:18 incident but you'll see here they'll play the ball out and all they do here is they just boot it up the they have some success getting forward
17:31 but it's more of a chance of they just run after the ball and again half of their team doesn't get involved with the play there's no actual skill involved
17:41 there they're just using their speed and strength to try and win and if you've seen some of my other videos I talk about I can definitely take a 7v7 team
17:49 and Coach them to win and this is one of the ways to do it put the big kids up front just lump the ball forward and have them go chase it down but you're
17:56 not helping them any cuz once they get the 9v9 that strategy does not work anymore the field is way too big there are better faster players all around you can't
18:06 manage that game all the time and then what are you going to do because there's no build out line teams are going to be right on top of your 18 with pressure
18:14 let's take a look at the next one here we are again same deal as they place the ball in the corner my entire team is shaded off to one side they know what's
18:22 going on I've got couple one player pressing I've got the other players waiting they just lump the ball up and that we just kick the ball out to the
18:30 side and we come back around we end up with a decent shot on that so those are just a couple examples of teams playing out of the back couple
18:38 of game situations it's not pretty it's not always as clean and clinical as we want it to be but I will say that my team does a really good job of playing
18:48 out of the back more times than not against other teams they have success because they have a structure they know they have options they don't always technically execute to the best of their
19:00 abilities because they're third and fourth graders they're going to make mistakes but they've got the framework together today is our first practice of the spring season and so the only thing
19:11 we did because it was windy a little rainy and kind of cold and we were losing light all we wanted to do was remember how to play out of the back
19:18 because over the winter we played footle it had been a while and one of my kids said yeah I kind of forget all the options let's go through them all so we
19:25 went through all the options one by one we played out to the right we play played out to the left we played to the middle and we talked about what we want
19:32 to do after the ball has moved up and out what do we do if we have to recycle the ball when's the second pass and the wide players on the opposite side of the
19:40 ball the weak side they move in we did all that we just kept changing up positions and we did that for a couple of times I had seven kids show up to
19:47 practice so it worked out perfectly although it is nice to have more because then I can have them press um and put some pressure on the ball but it was a
19:55 great way to just kind of walk through what do we do when we rest got the ball get everybody back on the same page because we probably won't get a second
20:02 practice before our first game because New England so I hope this is helpful let's finish up well I hope you found this video on playing out of the back in
20:11 7v7 helpful again I'm going to stress it's probably the most important skill that you can teach your players in the grades three and four because they're going to need this once they get to 9v9
20:20 where there's no build outline and the pressure is going to be much faster and much closer building that confidence to be able to play the ball out the back
20:27 using your goalkeeper as an spare player in the back with their feet are all things that if you start early you can do it you've seen in those videos those
20:36 are players in their first year of fourth grade playing out of the back it may not be pretty all the time but it does work and it does build upon those
20:44 things that we want to work on in terms of passing receiving body shape all the pieces and parts recognizing where players are with and without the ball all the skills that
20:55 you're going to need as you go forward until you get the 11 V1 11 game you can teach and learn all these things in third and fourth grade it can be done
21:03 there's proof in the pudding lots and lots of teams do it so I hope you enjoy this love to see some comments on this if there are other things you want to
21:11 ask about Please Subscribe share like all the things so other people can find this and until next time thank you very much we'll see you out in the fields