Essential Practices for Player Development (eBook)

When it comes to choosing what we want the players to work on in training, we often look back on the game just played and identify areas within it that we believe, as a team, we did not do very well and need to improve on. However, this approach is extremely short term and only considers the players as they are now, when, ideally, we should be planning for how we want them to turn out at the end of the development process, in other words, when they are no longer ‘youth’ players. We can also be guilty of trying to cover aspects of the game that they do not currently require or do not need to learn yet. From the time most children start playing the game, at six or seven years of age, they will have approximately 10 years of training in which to learn all aspects of the game. Therefore, there is no need to rush through everything straight away; we have the opportunity to take our time and be patient with the process. This then allows us to concentrate on the key aspects of the game that are crucial to their development, and will provide the essential foundations to everything they will need as a player.

We need to remember that whatever we teach them in these developmental years, especially the very early years, will have the greatest impact on the player they will become. For instance, if we never encourage a player to take a risk and we always tell them to pass the ball or ‘get rid’ of it in dangerous situations, then this will be their experience of the game for as long as they play. We have a duty as a coach to provide the players with the opportunity and the support to help them reach their full potential as a player. Our role is not to try and win games but to develop them as players. Therefore, the rest of this chapter will put forward the main aspects of the game, which it is recommended are covered throughout the season, through a carefully planned curriculum. This guarantees that there is a preplanned schedule to ensure there is a focus on all these key areas of the game throughout the season, rather than just choosing a topic each week, which we believe the players need to work on. Greater focus can be put on the areas the coach believes are more important, or where the players need to spend a bit more time developing. But the essential part is that it is all pre-planned at the start of the season to ensure that the players get time to practise and develop all key aspects of the game. There is also no reason why the schedule cannot be reviewed and, if needed, amended at predetermined times, during the season.

Each of these areas are identified in the rest of this chapter and an outline of their importance is also provided, as well as a number of key points that we need to take into consideration when we are delivering the topic. These key areas then appear regularly throughout the rest of the book, as every adaption of the 10 core practices has a focus around one of these areas. Therefore, whichever area of the performance is due to be the focus for training, a number of the practices can be selected to create the whole session, or just one or two can be used, leaving room for an additional practice.

Individual Possession

Arguably the most important skill we should help the players develop is the ability to retain possession of the ball on their own. In the modern game of soccer, players are often under instant and constant pressure from an opposition player or players. The solution to escaping this pressure is not always immediately available to the player on the ball, for instance, they may have to wait for a teammate to change their position on the pitch, before they become a viable option to pass the ball onto. Or it could be that they have to create their own solution by keeping hold of the ball until they have worked an opening where they can travel with the ball themselves or are now able to share it with a teammate, or possibly even shoot. What is important to understand is that quite often in a game, a player will need to select and then execute a number of the other skills that are key requirements to the game of soccer, such as passing or driving with the ball while under pressure. Therefore, they need to be comfortable and have confidence in their ability to be able to retain possession of the ball, which will then allow them to concentrate on getting the ball away from the pressure, whether this is individually or with the help of a teammate.

There are a number of key requirements that a player needs to be able to do, for them to be successful in maintaining possession of the ball. The main requirement is that they need to be able to manipulate the ball quickly and confidently. They need to make it difficult for the defender to predict which direction they are going to travel in and when they are going to do it. Feints and disguise should be used to shift the body weight of the defender to create opportunities to move the ball in an opposite direction. It also requires a number of physical attributes – strength is probably the most obvious one as it allow a player to hold off the defender, but other physical characteristics are just as important. Balance may not be seen as being vitally important to a player when they are attempting to keep hold of the ball, but due to the pressure and contact from the defender, it is quite easy for a player to lose their balance, which makes any task much more difficult. In addition to this, other key physical attributes needed include agility, coordination, power and speed. The other main requirement is awareness of where they are on the pitch, where exactly is the defender in relationship to them? Where other players are on the pitch and where there is space?

The most effective way in which the players will develop all of these different parts, which are needed to be able to keep possession of the ball, is by being put into a situation where they have no choice but to keep hold of the ball. Constantly changing the environment in which they have to keep the ball – for example, against different opponents, in a range of areas, shapes, sizes, etc. – and by giving them a variety of tasks to complete while keeping the ball, allows them to discover a wide range of strategies and solutions they can use when they are playing in a game. This will take a significant amount of time, and they will obviously make countless mistakes, and it is therefore important we provide constant support and encouragement, but the end result will be invaluable for the players.

One Versus One Attacking

Although a lot of emphasis is put on passing, as it is seen as the most effective way of progressing up the pitch, disrupting the opposition and penetrating defensive lines, if a player is able to do it on their own, it can often be a lot more effective. A player going past an opposition player with the ball will often result in one of two things occurring. First of all, the player may find themselves in the position to do what they wanted to do next. For example, if we picture a player in a wide area just outside of the penalty box, it is likely that their main aim is to provide a cross, but they are unable to do so because of a defender preventing them. Therefore, to be in a position to be able to cross the ball, they are going to have to get past the defender or at least create enough space to attempt the cross. The other likely outcome is that once they go past one defender they attract a second defender, which again makes it difficult to do what they may have wanted to do next. However, by forcing the second defender to leave their original position, it produces a gap in the defensive organisation of the opposition, which can be exploited in a number of ways.

Similar to developing a player’s ability to retain the ball individually, supporting players to improve their one versus one skills is mainly about increasing their confidence and providing them with lots of different environments where they cannot keep using the same solution each time. When a player is at the beginning of their journey and developing their one versus one skills, a coach may often see that they are hesitant and revert to protecting the ball instead, which involves turning away from the defender and facing the opposite way to which they want to travel. The main reason for this is that they are concerned about losing possession of the ball and the possible consequences. Hopefully, we already recognise that players will make mistakes and that it is part of the learning process and, therefore, they know if they do lose the ball, it does not matter, and they are praised for trying. What they might not realise, however, is that the reason we encourage them so much is the risk of them losing the ball is more than balanced by the rewards it brings if they are successful. Therefore, we just need to replicate this ‘reward’ within the practices we place them in. For instance, we may award bonus points if a player manages to complete the task without passing the ball. The option to pass is therefore available, but the players know that if they do pass, they will not win as many points. As well as giving them praise and encouragement, we also need to provide the players with an incentive, so they have a reason to stay on the ball and attempt to go past defenders.

One Versus One Defending

When we look at the phase of the game when the team is out of possession, a lot of emphasis is placed on ‘pressing’ and winning the ball back quickly, either high up the pitch trying to prevent the opposition from playing out from the back or trying to win the ball back immediately after losing the ball (counter-pressing). And although...