Possession Sessions relevant to U11 Girls

OK, so I am trying to plan a few possession type practices that will be relevant to my 2006 girls that I will be coaching this fall. This is what I have come up with. I have tried to make the practices simplistic, relevant, and realistic.

Technical Practices

In pairs Passing - this, as the name suggests, will consist of two players standing opposite playing balls to each other. It does not get any simpler than this practice, but the players will need it, and I will not do it for too long. I do prefer sessions that consist of lots of decisions to make and are a bit more chaotic and variable. However, this will get the player lots of repetition at passing the ball and I will vary the distances. One of the reasons I will do this, is to get the players passing using both feet. Also, I will introduce the player to different kinds of passes to add to their 'technical locker'. I have a feeling that these girls will have not been exposed to the idea that you can put swerve, or backspin on a ball, for example. So I will get them to practice different passes such as simple side foot passes, driven and lofted passes, playing balls on the 1/2 volley, and also introduce them to putting swerve and backspin on the ball. Now I am not expecting to turn the girls into Xabi Alonso overnight, but I would like to just plant a seed for future development and practice with regards to the different passes you could use.

Square Passing practice - this is another simple practice that you see a lot of teams use. Players have to pass around the side of a side. I used this practice a lot with my U10s that I coached in the spring and it had a positive effect on their technique I feel. Other things to emphasize are:

• a good first touch in the direction you are going
• a bit of movement off the cone before you receive
• communication
• firm, crisp passes to feet
• now with this I encourage players to try to make their pass easier for the receiving players to do what they need to do next, i.e., by passing the ball to the correct foot (back foot in this example) to make it easier to take the touch in the direction of the next pass. However, I am not that demanding if the players do not pass this way all the time. The reason for this I want the player who is going to receive the ball to be on their toes and to be able to adjust and react quickly if the ball is not coming towards them favorably. I want them to be able to adjust, and to also come up with different ways to take their touch in the direction they want to go. My argument here, is that the game is not perfect when it comes to match day, and I want players to be able to cope with imperfections when they receive the ball and be able to adjust and react. I like players to receive on the back foot and all that good stuff, but it is only one way to receive and in my opinion, within the game, you are not always going to have a perfectly placed pass to be able to deal with easily. Nevertheless, I don't want passes that are all over the place and so inaccurate that the practice breaks down constantly.

One way to progress this, is to add a combination to play through the square - this just adds a different aspect to the practice and incorporates a bit more movement off the ball. I have attached a picture of the practice below:

The two technical practices above are as simple as you can get. But I think they are very effective with younger players. Especially, the players I will be coaching, who in my opinion, will need lots of technique work. Here are also a couple of ways to make the practices a bit more engaging and promote a bit more focus and quality from the players.

1. I have two grids for the square passing practice. One grid is The Championship whereas the other grid is the Premier League. I get players to start in The Championship and they have to make a certain amount of consecutive quality passes around the square before they can get promoted to The Premier League. When I do this, I talk to the players and we usually come up with 3/4 pointers that we can judge quality with. Normally, it is a good first touch in the direction of play (sometimes I am a bit lenient with this, as discussed above, if they adjust quickly and still play across the square effectively). Other pointers can include firm, quality passes, communication, and to try and play with two touches. If the players get to The Premier League, then I give them, say, three attempts to repeat the amount of passes they did to get there, and if they don't do it, then they get relegated to The Championship. This is a very simple way to increase the focus of the players, and when I have done this, the level of the play really increases.
2. I sometimes have competitions with the first pair to make x amount of quality passes to feet wins.

One thing I also like to do with simple practices as above is to change the distances within the session. This will make it a bit more realistic as players can get into a bit of a rhythm when continually playing over the same distances, thus becoming easier and not including as much thought. Playing over varying distances with younger players will help them understand the weight of their passes better as they constantly have to keep changing the weight of pass.

Variable Practices

This practice will progress from the technical practices above. For these girls, I am going to start very basic and do a lot of 2vs1s to help the players to work on movement off the ball, creating angles to receive and support. This will teach them the basic principles of keeping the ball. Also, my thought here is, that in a 2vs1, we can work on quick and clever combination play. For example, overlaps and one-twos. Also, players will get lots of touches on the ball and lots of involvement. So the practices that I have found will be as follows:

I will do simple 2vs1s inside a grid working on maintaining possession of the ball. Ways to progress this are:

1. Make a certain amount of passes, then move to another grid. Defenders are locked in zones.
2. You could have the defenders locked in zones and the 2 attackers going anywhere within the big grid passing and moving trying to keep the ball.
1. An extra progression to this could attackers cannot be in the same grid as each other and they have to constantly move about. This will force them to be aware of each other, to constantly be on the move, and to create space and distance between themselves.
1. This progression could stray a bit from the reality of the game. There will be times that in order to provide an option for the player on the ball, the other attacker will have to be go into the same grid. I would stress this point to the players, and state that although you want them to be in different grids, that sometimes they will have to go into the same square to provide a passing option.

As the progressions move on with this practice, it can get very chaotic and messy. I love this as it really gets players thinking and if they can organise themselves, play with quality, and keep the ball in a messy practice, then I think it will set them up better for the game.

Small Sided Games

These progressions are possession/small sided games that will include more numbers and will usually be carried out at the end of practice following on from the previous practices. They will be very realistic and similar to the game.

Target to target through the thirds possession game - this is a simple possession game that is extremely relevant and realistic to the game. Pretty much everything that the girls will encounter here, they will encounter in the game. I like possession games to be directional and have a purpose. The players play in one direction and have to play from one target to another in order to score a point. When the team plays into their target player, the other team gets the ball and has to play across the other way. Ways to progress and manipulate this practice are:

• mess about with grid sizes
• mess about with player numbers
• could add floaters down the sides. These are essentially the same as wingers in the game.
• Instead of playing into target players, players have to play into an end-zone to receive. This would help with through passes and runs in-behind defenders.
• could remove the thirds to help players play without the visual aid of the thirds
• could just quite simply get goals on the end and play a normal game with keepers and players have to play through the thirds to score.

This practice, in my opinion, is one of the best that you can do. You can take this absolutely anywhere. For example, you could lock players into zones, you could have players dropping deeper to receive, making forward runs to create overloads. You could play that players have to play a one-two into the end-zone. This game can be taken anywhere. It will also be enjoyable for players as it is like a game.

Once again, these practices can be done in any order depending on what you want to achieve and the ability of your players. Some players might be technically very good, and might just need 10/15 mins at the start of practice for a bit of technique refinement and then can go straight into the game realistic possession practice. Also, these sessions can be done for any age group in my opinion.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

That is it for now.