What this session is about

1. Receiving the ball in tight areas.
2. The ability to score from a variety of situations.
3. First touch to control or to shoot.

What to think about

Forwards must be able to score in a variety of situations and they need to be able to score with one touch using a shot on either foot, a volley or a header. Forwards may have time to take a touch before shooting but this touch must be excellent and close to their body so they don’t give the ball away and can strike it with their second touch. Recreating a crowded penalty box where players have little space to move and little time to receive the ball is essential to developing your players in this way.

Set-up

What you get your players to do

Mark out an area with a six-yard box near each goal, which has a forward in it, and eight players on the edge of the area, as shown in the top picture.

Each forward receives four serves from the outside players near to him. The aim is to score from as many serves as possible.

Servers are free to use different types of serve. These can be low, lofted, driven, curled, fast or slow passes. The only rule is that the ball must enter the player’s square.

The forward must get a shot on goal using just one touch and try to score as many times as possible from the four serves.

After all serves have been completed, the forward must have scored more than the forward in the opposite square to be declared the winner.

Now the forward becomes a server and a server becomes a forward. The remaining servers rotate positions to a new angle and improve their passing accuracy.