Skill training
Skills is an athlete’s ability to perform and successfully and regularly choose the right techniques at the right time with a minimum of effort. Soccer is a sport that requires a player to learn many specific skills such as kicking, ball control, dribbling, heading and tackling.
A soccer player can develop their skills through:
Drills Practice
Through repetition and regular training a player develop and improve their soccer skills. Thus, soccer drills are one of the best ways to develop certain skills and allow a player or a group of players to learn about the sport and how to work together as a team, which will then lead to an improvement in performance. Drills are also a vital part of warm-up as they prepare muscle movements for training or the game. The idea of a drill, is to start with a basic skill or activity and as the player/s begin to understand and develop, the coach adds more components or requirements to the drill, to make it more challenge so that they can further improve their level of development.
An example of a basic drill is: passing a ball between two players.
This simply involves two players standing opposite of each other while passing the ball, trying to make their kicks as accurately to the other player as they possible can. After practicing this skill and once they understand the skill of passing and improve their accuracy, they can start dribbling side by side while passing the ball to each other. To make it more challenging, the coach can add a player to try and tackle the ball of the two players while they practice passing the ball to each other while they are dribbling up and down the field.
A soccer player can develop their skills through:
- Drill practices
- Modified/small-sided games
- Games for outcomes e.g. decision making, tactical awareness
Drills Practice
Through repetition and regular training a player develop and improve their soccer skills. Thus, soccer drills are one of the best ways to develop certain skills and allow a player or a group of players to learn about the sport and how to work together as a team, which will then lead to an improvement in performance. Drills are also a vital part of warm-up as they prepare muscle movements for training or the game. The idea of a drill, is to start with a basic skill or activity and as the player/s begin to understand and develop, the coach adds more components or requirements to the drill, to make it more challenge so that they can further improve their level of development.
An example of a basic drill is: passing a ball between two players.
This simply involves two players standing opposite of each other while passing the ball, trying to make their kicks as accurately to the other player as they possible can. After practicing this skill and once they understand the skill of passing and improve their accuracy, they can start dribbling side by side while passing the ball to each other. To make it more challenging, the coach can add a player to try and tackle the ball of the two players while they practice passing the ball to each other while they are dribbling up and down the field.
Modified and Small-Sided Games
Modified and small-sided games can be useful for the development and improvement of certain skills in soccer. Small-sided games can be used in soccer to develop the ability to retain possession of the ball, decision-making and tactical awareness, to create or reduce space, or to develop contact or reaction skills. |
An example of this, is a small-sided passing and movement game. This involves two teams with 4 players on each, having to maintain possession of the ball by passing and dribbling in a small space (outlined by cones).
This game develops the player’s ability or maintaining possession, making decisions under pressure, dodging the opposition and passing accurately to teammates. Some games may have some modification and requirements where the players are given an amount of time that the have to try keep possession of the ball, or amount of passes they have to make without the other team interfering. These games encourage the awareness of time, space, and also help the development of team play. |
Games for specific outcomes – Tactical Awareness, Decision Making
In a soccer game situation, it is important that players can analyse tactics in the game to help them with their own decision-making when they play the game so that they can achieve a high level of performance. Analysing tactics is based on five components of play, which are further broken into two groups – initial and advanced components.
Initial components (in relation to soccer):
Advanced components (in relation to soccer):
In a soccer game situation, it is important that players can analyse tactics in the game to help them with their own decision-making when they play the game so that they can achieve a high level of performance. Analysing tactics is based on five components of play, which are further broken into two groups – initial and advanced components.
Initial components (in relation to soccer):
- Space – where the ball should be placed in the area of play and where a player should do in the area of play
- Time – when to execute a skill within the soccer match, when to create time to play with the ball
- Force – how much and where to apply force on the soccer ball for height, directional control and distance
Advanced components (in relation to soccer):
- Self – in relation to what the player is able to do with the initial components within the game, and what should be done to gain a tactical advantage over a player on the opposing team.
- Other- in relation to what another player is doing with the initial components, and what should be done to gain a tactical advantage.