U13 - Two productive sessions preparing for Thursday

Our last two sessions were probably our most productive back-to-back get-togethers since we started the season.

Our Monday and Tuesday sessions served to get our boys as many positive touches on the ball as possible and a lot of competition.  We've yet to win in our league and I wanted them going into Thursday with as much confidence as possible.

Without getting technical, we ran fitness, passing, 1v1 defending and attacking and one-ball-per-player dribbling sequences.  All geared for success, confidence and improvement.

To help drive home the message of patient and intelligent 1v1 defending we actually put them through a drill on 1v2 defending.  Coaching points were:

• All key factors of 1v1 defending
• Do not over-commit to the player on the ball unless you force him into a pure 1v1
• Deny the pass to the teammate
• If player you are pressuring passes, drop and move to pressure new player with ball

The message was patience and timing were the keys to success here.  If you held them up long enough in a game, help would/should be arriving after a few seconds to even the numbers.

We ended both sessions with 3v3, 5v5, 6v6 in the box on the same net.  We were looking for:

• Boys to have fin and enjoy the training environment
• Players to shoot on half-chances
• Players to recognize they are being blocked and create space using 1v1 moves
• Players recognize if they have a shot or not and to shoot or pass - QUICKLY
• Smart defending to look to win the ball back
• Tough/physical play to deny shots and chances and win the ball back

I have to say driving home from both sessions I had that good feeling I was looking for.  Teaching new ideas was part of the plan, but the focus was to simply build some confidence, create a good feeling among the boys and work WITH them to approach Thursday's game with the same enthusiasm and confidence they show at training.

Was it a logically sequenced training session all dealing with the same topic?  No.  But for what Coach Paul and I wanted to see, we got what we wanted.  The boys kept working, there was no need to any disciplinary barking and they seemed to enjoy what we were doing and how it ended both times.