Improve your Football Coaching, with great drills, techniques & training plans

Playing the ball out from the back

This week's Sportplan Session gets your players working on dribbling, passing and their ability to look forwards when in possession deep in their own half.

Quite often when defenders are in possession they will 'hoof' the ball up the pitch and play route one football. Although this is good defensively, as it clears your lines, it is rarely very useful for your forwards who now have to compete for the ball in the air up against the opposition's tall defenders. To encourage your players to support the attack this week's session covers alternative ways for defenders to move the ball up the field.

To get your players into the right mindset for moving the ball around quickly and thinking about their options we start with a simple, but fast paced, passing exercise. Following on from this your players will practice keeping the ball close to their feet in a fun relay race against the other teams.

After having dribbled, passed and worked hard on looking up with the ball you will be able to set up a conditioned game which will see your players having to complete a set number of passes before passing the ball to the wing player to carry it up the field and create a goal scoring opportunity - keeping route one football well at bay!

Play the ball out from the back - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Does your team have play-makers like Mesut Ozil?

This week's Sportplan Session works on getting your players to work hard at all times in order to support the play, running to create options for the man on the ball and offer an outlet.

The best teams in the world are those who work as a team. Looking back on the World Cup at the likes of Brazil, Italy and Portugal, they all fell at the wayside, despite having some of the best individual players in the world amongst their ranks. It just goes to show that there's no 'I' in team.

To make sure your team perform as a unit this week we look at ways for you to communicate the importance of movement off the ball. Play-makers, like Germany's Mesut Ozil, are a nightmare for defenders - they make excellent runs offering passing options for on the ball players and in turn draw defenders out of position and open up space for strikers to run into.

Starting in pairs your players will need to be on their toes, running around cones before being able to pass to their partner. Later in this session your players will have a 2 versus 1 situation and will need to move around the defender to exploit the space before culminating in a game that rewards passing and scoring - but who will be the first team to 21 points?

Try this player-maker making session today - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Do they have the skills to pay the bills?

Here at Sportplan we are often asked for ways to assess players. To help answer this question this week's Sportplan Session has been designed to provide you with the perfect training for you to assess your players' basic core skills.

Designed by one of our Secondary school teachers to grade his GCSE players in a final assessment class, this session allows you to coach your players whilst simultaneously assessing their footballing ability. Working on passing, movement, game awareness, shooting and defending your players will have a chance to show you what they've got and where they might figure in your team next season. Key areas to focus on are their natural ability, their skill levels and team play.

Starting with small group passing and control activites you will be able to focus on basic core skills before introducing your players into a conditionned game to see how they use those skills in a game situation. Initially playing with no tackling and only three touches on the ball your players will need to move quickly, communicate well and play neat and tidy technical football to keep possession. Your players will be able to referee the game themselves, leaving you to take a step back and assess you players properly.

Test your players and grade their footballing prowess - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.