Try Alternative Kick-Offs to Keep Teams Guessing
Kick-offs are particularly important in junior football because if you’ve just given away a goal, or you are starting the first or second half of a match, you need your players to take the initiative and catch your opponent out, says David Clarke.
Positive from the kick-off
In Soccer Coach Weekly last year I wrote about how to be positive from kick-offs, and I was pleased at the success you all seemed to get from it, judging by the emails. However a lot of you remarked that if your teams had to take a few kick-offs during the game the opposition soon read what your teams were going to do. They started intercepting the long ball over the top into the corner and stood players in the appropriate areas. So here is another way to go on the attack straight from the kick-off and catch your opponents off guard.
Try it this way
Tell your left-winger to move quickly forward and immediately pass the ball to the winger.
Get your winger to move towards goal and cut the ball back to either supporting player.
Tell your supporting player to shoot for goal.
Tell your players to vary the cross
Get your winger to vary his crosses between the two attacking players, and the attackers may want to exchange passes. Attackers can change the angle of their runs towards goal. Gradually add defenders to make the practice more difficult. Tell your players they can also pass the ball backwards to another player and then follow the same procedure.
Key coaching tips: move the ball forward as quickly and accurately as possible.
* Editor's Tip *
Only Let Your Captain Talk to the Referee
Referees are being given such a hard time at grass roots level that the worry is that there will not be enough
young referees coming into the game. So it’s time all of us coaches helped them out, says David Clarke.
I heard a whisper recently that UEFA is considering copying
rugby’s lead by allowing only captains to talk to referees
during games.
Put your captain in charge on the pitch
To me this sounded like a fantastic idea, and I have decided
to do it with my teams anyway. If you have chosen a captain
who you can rely on to look after the team on the pitch I
believe you should do it too.
Build up a rapport with your home referee
It will give your captain extra responsibility and the team will
respect him more for that. He can build up a rapport with the
referee that will be beneficial over the course of a season
especially if you have the same referee each week for your
home games. It should also cut out silly free kicks.
IT’S UP TO COACHES LIKE YOU AND I TO HELP REFEREES BY
USING OUR CAPTAINS TO REPRESENT THE TEAM
Key coaching tip: Referees will respect a
team that uses the captain as its mouthpiece.
* Inspirational Quotation *
"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."
Lou Holtz, American football coach
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