FineSoccer Drill 82

Rather than discussing an activity that I consider to be useful, I am going to write about one that is used by many, many youth coaches out there and has so many things WRONG with it that I feel it should be addressed.

The activity I am referring to is "Knock Out".  For those of you who are not familiar with this game, it's where everyone has a ball in a small area and each player tries to dribble the ball around while trying to knock everyone else's ball out of the area.  When a players ball has been knocked out, she must leave the area.  The last person with a ball in the grid is the winner.  While there are many variations of this game, this is the way the game is normally played.

Almost every time I have seen this game played, I see the same pattern happening over and over again.  The same couple of kids are almost always the first ones to have their ball kicked out (simply because they might not be as athletic or because they don't have as good skills as the others).  These players who are almost always getting their ball knocked out first are the ones who need the MOST touches on the ball but instead, they get punished for not having the skills and their punishment is that they don't get to work on the skills that they need most (I am sure some would argue that by getting knocked out early it would give them an incentive to work on these skills in order to not get knocked out in the future but I don't believe this is being realistic at all).  Rather than limiting the touches of the players who need it the most, shouldn't we be finding ways to maximize their touches???

Also, from a defensive standpoint, this game does NOT teach players how to tackle a ball and keep possession but rather it teaches them to get someone else's ball  and knock it out of bounds.  Is that what we want our players to be practicing?  

Inevitably, the players who are in at the end are the ones who found ways to hide in the corner so no one went after their ball.  This means they let the other players knock each other out and then come out as winners at the end.  Is this helping to create the risk takers we want in soccer?

When teaching dribbling, we should be encouraging our players to dribble at a defender (more specifically dribble at their front foot) but instead this game encourages players to dribble AWAY from the defenders and not worry about direction at all.  How is this helping our players?

I have seen some variations of Knock Out that are a LITTLE bit better such as where the rule is put in that if your ball gets knocked out, you must sprint to your ball, juggle it 5 times and then can come back in the grid or something like that but it still doesn't deal with the other issues.  

There are so many other games that can be played that accomplish the same thing, are fun for the players and DON'T come with the negatives that I don't understand why so many coaches are so adament about wasting their teams time on this game.  If you want a simple alternative, go to http://finesoccer.com/finesoccer_drill_78.htm.

Any questions, comments or suggestions should be posted on the FineSoccer Forum or can be emailed to me at comments@finesoccer.com

Have a great day!

Lawrence