Soccer Drills

Best Practice Drills for Kids Ages 5 and Under

The key to developing kids’ skills at a young age is to make sure they are having fun and enjoying themselves, so they actually want to come back to soccer practice.

The most important skill to develop at this age is their dribbling skills. Passing is not a concept that players understand quite yet, so they are mostly limited to stealing the ball from their opponent and dribbling.

In general, you want kids to learn how to dribble in a zig-zag pattern, so they can dribble around defenders.

The following drills will help players improve their fundamental skill of dribbling and become more confident while having fun and enjoying the game of soccer.

These drills can also be used as a practice plan as well. For the first practice, do just two to three drills. Then add a new drill each practice, so the kids will get into a routine and know what to expect.

Coaching points to develop kids dribbling skills:

-Keep the ball close, so don’t kick it super far ahead.
-Change of pace and direction
-Go slow and then fast while dribbling in a zig-zag pattern

Warm-Up Drills/Activities

Free Play

One of the best drills is to just let the kids have free play by scoring in one goal and then getting the ball out of the net and going to score in the other goal. Kids will naturally be creative and try new moves. As a coach, there are a couple things you can do to encourage creativity as well as develop their dribbling skills. You can be chasing kids encouraging them to go score a goal. You can be in the middle of the field to act like you are playing defense so kids have to dribble around you. As you do both these, say your coaching points (see above).

Simon Says/Soccer Gymnastics

Another good warm-up drill is Simon Says, but don’t say “Simon Says” and try to get kids out. You want everyone dribbling and working on their soccer skills. Have the players dribble around while you call out skills to do. Call out “dribble slow.” “dribble fast,” “change direction.” Then “FREEZE.” Have them stop the ball with the sole of their foot. Then continuing having them dribbling and stopping. Every time you have them stop, have them perform a skill. Here’s a list of skills to do when you stop the players: Perform a stretch, toe taps, pendulum taps (kicking the ball between your two feet), touch the ball with a body part, jumping jacks, squats, balance on one foot, hop on one foot, etc. This is also a good time to take suggestions from your players.

Games/Activities

Red Light Green Light Game

For this activity, have the players start on the endline with a soccer ball. When you say, “Green Light” the players need to dribble as fast as they can to the other endline. When you say, “Red Light” the players need to stop the ball by using the sole of their foot. Keep saying “Green Light” and “Red Light” until each player makes it to the other endline. To spice up the game, throw in a “Yellow Light” which means they must go slow. This will help the players with their change of pace.

Coach, what time is it?

This game is great because the coach gets to chase the players like they were during free play. The players start at half field or on the endline and then the coach starts towards the opposite endline with their back to the players. The players shout, “Coach, what time is it?” The coach says a number like “3 o’clock.” The players must take the number of dribbles the coach said towards the coach then stop the ball with the sole of their foot. The players shout, “Coach, what time is it?” and the coach responds with a number. This cycle continues until the coach turns around to chase the players back towards their goal.

The Crab Game

In this game you will NOT be moving like a crab, but instead the coaches and guardians will be the crabs with pincers spread out vertically up the field sliding laterally across the field trying to “pinch” the players trying to dribble in a zig-zag pattern from one goal to the other. Remind the players to keep the ball close and not just kick it and run after it. As the players feel more comfortable, then they should try to dribble faster but not kick the ball too far ahead.

Lightning McQueen/Racing Car Game

This game is great because the kids will naturally practice cutting the ball with the inside of their foot. Additionally, they will need to keep the ball close to them to make it around the circle faster. Have the players start inside the pits (the goal). The players need to start their engine by doing a specified number of toe taps. Say, “Start your engines.” Tell them the direction and how many lap(s) they are doing. (Start with one lap.) Then say, “On your mark get set GO!” As the players make their way around the circle track in the middle of the small sided soccer field, make sure the players don’t dribble through the middle. As they close in on the finish, have the players come back to the pits. If you are going around the circle counterclockwise like NASCAR, then encourage the players to use their right foot to keep the ball close to the inside lane. *Make sure you change direction so they work on cutting the ball with their left foot.

Sharks and Minnows

This classic game keeps all players involved and as there are more sharks, the players need to keep the ball close so the sharks don’t get it. Start with one or two sharks depending on the number of total players. Bring the sharks to the middle of the field. Here you can ask the players what kind of sharks and have them show their shark teeth to the minnows. Have the sharks yell, “Minnows, are you ready?!?!” The minnows should be spread out on the endline and respond by yelling, “YESSSSS!!” If the minnows don’t yell loud enough, then have the sharks say, “I can’t hear you. Minnow, are you ready?!?!” The minnows will yell a really loud “YESSSSS!!” Then the coach should yell, “GO!” The minnows are trying to dribble to the other endline without getting their ball kicked out of play by a shark. If the minnows ball gets kicked out of play by a shark, then the minnow gets added to the sharks. As more minnows become sharks, the remaining minnows must dribble quicking in a zig-zag pattern around the sharks keeping the ball close. Once your team has mastered this fun game, then your team is ready for Dino Egg Snatch.

Dino Egg Snatch

The game really teaches your players to try and win the ball back once it’s lost. The game is very similar to Sharks and Minnows. However, instead of the shark just trying to kick the ball out of play, the dinosaur is trying to get its stolen egg back and return it to its nest, which is their attacking goal or the goal that they are facing. The players with the eggs are trying to keep the egg and dribble it to their attacking goal or the goal that they are facing. If one of the players gets their egg taken by the dinosaur, then they need to try and get it back before they get “scored” on. If the player’s egg gets stolen and put in their defending goal, then the player becomes a dinosaur.

Other Games

Volcano Game
1st – Dribble around the volcanoes
2nd – Plug the volcanoes
3rd – Ice Cream Cone
Pick the cones and put them on your ice cream cone.

There are endless ways you can make dribbling skills fun for your young soccer players. We hope this article has given you some good ideas, and let us know any questions or comments you have below!

Soccer Possession Drills: Best Exercises to Learn to Keep the Ball

By Parker & Walsh Leave a Comment

rondo 4v2 5v2 Passing is a fundamental individual skill in soccer, but when the whole team gets in on the act, it becomes something much greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Possession is a key metric for team success, a requirement for scoring goals, and something that you need to be able to do well as a team, regardless of what any particular game plan is going to look like.

You may think that you need a whole team to work on possession, but this is not necessarily the case. In fact, one of the more popular possession exercises involves just 6 players. There are endless variations of adding numbers in different situations, though, so you can certainly utilize any higher number of players that you happen to have.

Let’s start with what teams and players most commonly do to work on their possession skills.

Rondos, 4v2, 5v2 and (Much) More

The most basic possession exercise has quite a few variations and you may call it a few different names.

Some refer to it as rondos, while others prefer to name the number of players who are serving in the drill, like 4v2 which indicates 6 players (this is the drill we referred to above). It’s closely related to some much simpler games that just about all of us are familiar with: keep away (aka “monkey in the middle”).

But no matter what you call it, the drill involves setting up a square area for playing. It is also characterized by a numbers up situation for the attackers (otherwise possession would be far too difficult to keep).

So in the most common example, we have 4 players on offense and 2 on defense, or 4v2. The offensive players usually start stationed on the outside of the square, while the defensive players start in the middle of the square.

To play, the offensive players try pass and keep the ball away from the defenders, who in turn try to intercept the ball and take possession.

If a pass is intercepted, the player in the middle switches to the outside and player who made the pass goes into the middle. Also, if a pass goes outside the square, then the player at fault (either the one who played a bad pass or failed to receive the ball properly) goes in the middle and the defender who has been in the middle the longest goes out.

Setting a Technical/Tactical Goal for Small Sided Possession Games

In these types of drills, possession is obviously the ultimate goal. But there’s more to it than just dinking the ball around. It’s important to have a purpose to work towards as you play. There are plenty of possibilities for what this could look like.

For example, the goal could be taking extra care to play the ball across your teammate’s body to their opposite foot so they can open up as they receive it.

It might simply be keeping your feet moving when anticipating a pass. Or picking your head up and scanning around before receiving a pass so you have a better idea of where you’re going to go with it.

For the defense, a goal might be communication between the two players, always saying who is going to press and who is going to cover.

There are many different types of benefits to rondos that have been studied extensively.

Variations on Possession Drills

We’ve already hinted at one variation that you can do: change up the number of players on offense and defense. 5v2 is another common one, and you can try playing with 1 or 3 defenders as well.

If you’re tweaking the number of players in the possession drill, then you’ll also want to consider varying up the size of the playing area. In general a smaller square makes it more challenging to keep possession and leads to quicker passing, while a larger field gives players more time and can get in more touches. (You can quickly set up soccer cones or extra shoes and move them to your heart’s desire.)

Offensive Link in the Middle: One possession drill that we like is used with a slightly larger square (or circle) and has one of the offensive players play in the middle and try to link play from one side to the other.

This will have them checking to the players on the outside, receiving the ball with a defender at their back, and either turning and dribbling or finding another open pass.

Other variations on these drills can incorporate larger numbers of players, which we’ll explore in the next section.

Larger Sided Possession Drills

You can take the main concept of the numbers up possession situation of a rondo and apply it to a bigger group. One good way to do this is the 4v4+3 possession drill.

To do this drill, use a larger area but make it somewhat rectangular. You are playing 4 offense versus 4 defense with three neutral (or all time offense) players who do not switch. Here when possession is lost, the whole team of 4 switches to defense and the defense becomes the offense.

Switching Possession Game: Another good drill to play involves two rectangles side by side. Play 4v2 or 5v2 in one rectangle with one offensive player alone in the other rectangle. If the offensive players get to a certain number of passes, they try to switch the ball over to the target player and if successful, everyone moves over to the other area to continue the game (minus one offensive player who stays and becomes the new target player).

There are also lots of different tweaks you can make to this type of switching game too; the sky is the limit!

Fun Possession Games and Challenges

Just because you aren’t playing a regular full team scrimmage doesn’t mean that you can’t make your possession drill just as fun as a game.

Passes = a point: One easy way to turn nearly any drill into a game is to say that a particular number of passes (5, 10, 12, etc.) will earn you a point. Sometimes a bonus can be given for a pass that “splits” the two defenders.

However, with any type of rondo in which offensive and defensive players switch frequently, it can be difficult to try to keep score.

So in these cases, another way to do it is not to switch when the ball is lost, but rather award the defensive team a point if they win the ball and resume play.

Find a fair number of passes for the offense to get a point and you have a challenge: which team can get to 5 or 10 points first.

Passing into Squares: Another good drill is to set up a few smaller squares inside the larger area which serve as target areas. The offensive team tries to complete a pass to a teammate who receives it inside the square.

To up the motivation levels even more, you can incorporate shooting on goal with possession drills.

You can set up any size grid and either a numbers up (like 6v4) or even (like 7v7) number of players. Your “goals” can be cones, or you can use actual goals to shoot on. Common parameters include making the team that is up numbers get to a particular number of passes before they can move towards and shoot on goal. The team that is numbers down usually is allowed to shoot any time they win the ball due to their disadvantage. You can also incorporate all of the other concepts like adding 2 or 3 neutral players. You can even set up two fields side by side, each with goals, and have your players switch sides as in the previously described exercise.

As you’ve hopefully seen by now, there is no shortage of possession drills that you can work on as a soccer team, from the basic 4v2 rondo up to a much larger exercise with the whole team and even goals.

If your team works on practicing possession, which drills have been your favorite?

image credit