FineSoccer Drill 83

Here is an excellent activity to work on passing and receiving as well as communicating.

Start with a square shaped grid with a player on each of the corners.  Each of the four players should have soccer balls.  There should be another 4 players in the middle of the grid (see diagram below for set up)

The players in the middle of the grid go towards one of the players in the corners who have a ball and call for the ball.  The ball is played into the feet of the players calling for the ball and then the ball is played right back to the corner and then the player EXPLODES to another corner to do the same thing.  The balls should be played properly with good pace and the players should communicate ("Jeff, Ball" and "Back"). Do not have the players going in a certain pattern (for example, the players in the middle should NOT go in a clockwise rotation to make it easy).  This will force the players to keep their heads up to see who has a ball and is available.  Do this for one minute and then rotate the players (players in the corners go to the middle and players in the middle to the corners).

Next get rid of one ball and now the players receive the ball from a person in one corner and with their second touch play the ball to a person in another corner who does NOT have the ball.  Now all of a sudden, it becomes important to receive the ball and keep the ball moving (see http://finesoccer.com/soccer_edition_93.htm for more on this).  It also requires the  player to take a look around before receiving the ball in order to see which corner is open to pass to.  Also, there is a lot more communication in this version as the person passing the ball from the corner should be instructing the person receiving the ball which person to pass to next.  There also will be communication between the players in the middle as to where each is going to run next.

You also can do this with one touch but that gets quite complicated as all balls must be played perfectly in order for there to be success.

The next progression in this series would be for the ball to be served from the hands of the corner people so that the person in the middle must receive the ball with the thigh and bring it down to the ground before playing the ball to the next corner.  From there, you can go with receiving the ball with the chest as well as receiving the ball with the head and then playing it to a corner.  

Once a group gets proficient at this activity, you can add defenders so that now the players in the middle must do the exact same thing but now under pressure.  Please do NOT progress up to this level until the players are comfortable with receiving the ball without pressure because otherwise you are putting them in a position to fail.  Let them get the basics down before putting too much pressure on them

Give this progression a try and let me know what you think on the FineSoccer Forum

Have a great day!

Lawrence