Soccer Coach Weekly Practice Plans give you a blueprint for an entire training session – warm-up, training, progression, games and warm-down. If your next training session is fast approaching and you haven’t had time to put together your own plan, Practice Plans could be the answer.
There are now over 350 Practice Plans on the Soccer Coach Weekly website, so there’s bound to be something to suit your needs. And the great thing is that Practice Plans can be adapted by to suit any age group from age 7 to 16, and are also appropriate for adult teams.
To get you started, here’s a selection of my favourite Practice Plans:
Getting your players to pass across the pitch and link up play with good passing moves is critical to playing a possession game. Zigzag through the pitch is a great way to get players moving the ball like they would in a match.
If you want to win games you have to score goals. Finishing off attacks helps you coach your players to take goal-scoring chances when they come along, with great tehnique work and a good amount of repetition.
When it comes to coaching skills, it can be hard to put together a training plan to work on the skill you want to coach. Practice Plans can help you to get it right first time – try The art of turning for example, it’s great for getting players to turn with the ball and head off in another direction.
Games are a great asset to any coaching session. With Practice Plans the games are all set out for you – take a look at Three team triangle games, which encourages players to play with the freedom of the playground. Great fun and well worth trying with your team.
Scoring goals is one of the key aims of football. This technical session works on finishing and movement. It gets players shooting from both sides of the penalty area and from the centre. MORE
Being able to turn with the ball under close control is an important skill in any player’s armoury. “The art of turning” will improve your players’ ability to turn whilst dribbling the ball and turning away from a defender when receiving a pass. MORE
This training session is designed to encourage your players to play with the freedom that they might have in a school playground where they are in control of the environment. MORE
I see a lot of statistics on the TV that often show the teams with the most possession don't always win games – you can have the ball as much as you want but if you are not doing something different then it's much easier for the defence to break the attack down. Keeping the ball is a small part of the game, you have to make use of it. MORE
Creating a way for your team to play is an important part of your season plan. I like my teams to play a fast passing game, and I am pleased that my players like this style of play MORE
Why is it that when your team has been cruising all game the last 10 minutes sees them lose shape, control and late goals? You can often be just a goal up and disaster strikes just when the final whistle is in sight. Pressure brings its own problems but there are things you can do to stop those late goals going in. MORE
Transitions are a big part of the youth game. A ‘switched on’ team that responds quickly to a change in possession will benefit enormously by taking their opponents by surprise. MORE
There are a lot of set pieces in a match no matter what level or age you are playing at. So you should make sure you practice at training and get your players to set up and take the important set pieces that could be the difference between success and failure. MORE
One of my players loves to score goals... in fact last season when he didn't score he often cried. I've worked with him all last season and at the start of this to make him realise that setting up a goal is just as good as scoring. I'm battling the professional game here because they hold up goalscorers above anyone else but I am also helped by an unusual influence! MORE
