Improve your Football Coaching, with great drills, techniques & training plans

Use the V drag to change the point of the attack!

This week's Sportplan session works on teaching your players a skill they can actually use in a game situation and just down at the park when they're showing off to their friends - I speak of course of the V drag, a skill which begins with a fake kick to send the defender and ends with your player running off in the opposite direction, with the ball still at their feet.

As the Champions League draw was made last week we only have a few weeks to wait until the first leg commences on the 14th and 15th September. On show will be some of the best players in the world, strutting their stuff.

The difference between a great player and an average player can be very small though - sometimes just having a few extra skills can make that all important difference! Take the V drag for instance, not only is it a skillful piece of footwork but it's also a great way for your players to escape from congested areas of the pitch without losing the ball!

Eric Cantona once famously said that in football he tries "to find different ways of expressing [himself]. Without that I will die." This is a great view of how football should be played and is emphasised by the fact that the great man was as brilliant on the microphone as he was on the pitch (as long as we overlook that seagull quote!)

To get your team playing like Mr Cantona this week's skills session starts with the basic skill in isolation - getting your players to master the V drag on the spot - before then progressing the skill into a dribble and drag scenario. From this point we progress into some overload exercises so that your players can learn by doing, seeing how the V drag can quickly and easily allow them to change the point of the attack.

V drag like Ooh ahh Cantona!- full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Pre-Season Trials - Squad Selection Session

This week we're bringing you the Sportplan Pre-Season Trials. Whatever level of football you're involved in, from Serie A to Serie Z, now is the time to assess your players' skill levels and decide who's going to make the final cut for this season.

But how do you choose which players should make up your starting XI, which players should sit on the bench and which should be left back... in the changing rooms? To help you make this difficult decision we've created a session to help you quickly and easily set up a series of simple exercises to assess your players' dribbling, close ball control and finally a bit of passing and moving.

Once you've set up the drills you can take a step back and watch your players in action - keeping track of the player's who demonstrate a good touch and control.

If you want to increase the pressure for more experienced players you can time your players with a stopwatch as they perform the slalom dribble or the under the bridge run. The pressure of performing these exercises under timed conditions will give you some interesting results to help you pick your final team.

This session has gone back to the grass roots of training, using traditional core skill drills to enable your players to show what they can do - dribbling under, over and through cones. After this we work on close control, feeding the ball into players for them to control with their feet, thighs and chest before concluding the trials with some passing.

See how you player's perform the basics in this week's squad selection session! - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Coaching Good Support Play

Coaching players to support the player on the ball is not easy, so to help you get your players working all for one and one for all this week's Sportplan session looks at movement off the ball, creating options and picking out the right pass.

Gone are the days of 'letting the ball do the work', in today's football it is all about putting in the leg work. Over the course of the 2005/06 season Steven Gerrard covered roughly 380 miles, this is equivalent to about 15 marathons, a tenth of which was run at sprint pace. Nowadays your average Premiership footballer will run 12 km per match!

Of course, lower league football will not require the same levels of fitness as the top flight but it is important to get across the importance of running off the ball to your players and making sure they understand that creating options by moving will help them to receive the ball more often and ultimately support their whole team.

To ensure the player on the ball always has an outlet we begin with a passing and moving drill before adding a defender into the mix with a 3 vs 1 possession game. Players will need to move around the grid to avoid losing possession though, running the cone and calling to receive a crisp pass from the ball carrying player. Your players will then progress into larger possession games, they'll have to think quickly if they want to avoid losing possession for their side!

Use this session today so that your players understand that if the player in possession can't find a pass it's their responsibility to move and offer an option, not just wait for the ball to come.

All for one and one for all! - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.