17 May 2012
PROGRESSIONS AND CHALLENGES WHEN COACHING FOOTBALL – PART TWO
This is the second part of the topic that I presented at the recent Football Coaching in Porto, Portugal. This involves progressions and challenges when coaching football players.
In these examples, again taken from legacy.grassrootscoaching.com, the football coach has organised a rotating close range shooting game. The objective is to provide the players with lots of opportunities to have realistic, match like scenarios to practice close range shooting and finishing opportunities. The football coach should firstly ensure that the players respond as they would in a game, for example if there is a shooting opportunity, be positive and take that opportunity. The football coach can then look to help the players improve their finishing techniques, their decisions and encourage individual, inventive play and quick combination play between players. The coach can then start to introduce progressions and challenges to the session, to provide greater enjoyment and realism as well as to put pressure on the players’ performance.
- Diamonds start – Initially, the players are allowed to practice and develop the pattern of the session. Once they understand the pattern of the practice and have achieved a degree of success, the initial progression and challenge is to make the game a competition to see which pair of strikers can score the most goals in a set period of time.