Staying on the ball – Warm-Up
in Soccer dribbling drills, Warm Ups
Allow your players to develop confidence and technique in this three-part session. By HANNAH DUNCAN MORE
Keep on dribbling
This intense session will hone your players’ dribbling skills. This vital attribute opens up avenues of attack and means your opponent does not have the ball.
What this session is about
- Improving dribbling skills and close control.
- Improving ball familiarity and touch.
What to think about
When dribbling the ball, players must:
- Keep the ball within playing distance.
- Use the inside and outside of both feet.
- Take quick, small steps.
- Dribble with the head up.
- Use sudden changes of speed and direction to surprise defenders.
- Use feints to unbalance defenders.
Set-up
| Warm up | Session | Developments | Game Situation | Warm Down |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | 10 minutes | 15 minutes | 15 minutes | 10 minutes |
What you get your players to do
Mark out a square area and place a player on each corner. Place some balls in the middle of the playing area – ideally, an odd number.
Once the exercise starts, players dribble as many balls as possible back to their own corner, but must only dribble one ball at a time.
They are allowed to steal balls from their opponents’ corners. The player with the most balls after two minutes wins.
On your whistle, players dribble as many balls back to their corner as they can.
Development
Set up an area with a five-yard zone at each end. Use two teams – we have used a 4v4 in this example. Teams score by dribbling the ball into their opponent’s end zone and stopping the ball dead.
Players can only pass backwards or sideways, but can dribble in any direction, meaning the only way to move forward is to dribble the ball.
Players take dribble-ins instead of throw-ins when the ball goes off the pitch.
Players can only pass sideways or backwards so the ball must be dribbled forward into end zones.
Game situation
Expand the playing area and make the end zones each 10 yards long. Play a five-a-side game, including keepers. Each team has a defender restricted to its end zone.
The aim of the game is for a player to dribble the ball into the opponent’s end zone. Once there, they face a 1v1 against the defender, plus they have the keeper to score past. Players take dribble-ins instead of throw-ins.
An attacker faces a defender, who is restricted to his team’s end zone, and then a keeper to beat.
