In the video clip below Paul Heffer, who is the Assistant Academy Director at West Ham United, instructs players during an Attacking with Speed and Vision drill. Coach Heffer is a former professional soccer player that played for West Ham United and has lots of experience with training youth soccer players.
The clip is provided by World Class Coaching, a great resource for soccer coaching tools.
This drill is set up as a small sided game with the focus on attacking with speed and vision. The grid is 60 yards long and extends from sideline to sideline. There are two groups and teams of six players on the field with target players set up on both ends in front of the goals. The teams are attacking one direction and must play possession with the purpose of trying to connect a pass to their target player on the opposite end.
There are several important parts to focus on with this drill and demonstration:
1.Offensive Purpose
The purpose on offense should be to move the ball forward as a team to attack and eventually try to score. The target player is the goal in this drill and the players must understand that lots of possession is great, but if the ball does not find the target player, those passes don’t mean much.
2.Vision
All players, both offensive and defensive, need to have their head up and see the whole field. They should be constantly thinking about how they can find the target player on offense or how they can stop a pass to the target player when on defense.
3.Quick Defensive Close Downs
This drill shows what can happen when defenders do not close down the ball quick enough. There are several long passes to the target players without any defensive pressure. Both teams should focus on quickly applying pressure to the other offensive team so they have to connect more passes and can’t play the ball up and over everyone to the target player.
If you are interested in improving your teams ability to take advantage of the oppositions defense, you might want to check out these 2 e-books from World Class Coaching . Just click on the images below for more information about Coaching Possession with Purpose:
Volume 1 Volume 2
