Soccer Playing Tip: Attacking 1 v 1

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the importance of winning your individual battles/matchups and how doing so help you stand apart from other players and help your team win games. That week, I looked at things from the defensive side of the ball (you can read that article by clicking here). This week, I want to shift our perspective to the attacking side of the ball and teach you how to win your 1 v 1 attacking matchups.

First things first is knowing when to attack and when to maintain possession for your team. Attacking 1 v 1 is a risk, but it’s a risk that pays dividends if it pays off as it leads to high-quality scoring chances. My general rule of thumb is this:

If you can read the numbers on the back of the closest defender, then you have the right to go forward.

If this is the case, it means you are already beyond the closest defender and can likely attack open space and isolate one of the defenders. This means moving smartly before you get the ball to put yourself in a dangerous position when you receive it.

Now, once you do receive the ball, here’s how you win your matchup:

1.       Drive with speed. Speed kills in soccer and is lethal in 1 v 1 situations. Particularly if you have an outside back isolated, being able to get that player moving backwards puts you at a significant competitive advantage when you are attacking 1 v 1.

2.       Push the ball past the defender. This is where a scissor or shoulder fake may come in handy to get the defender off-balance, but at the end of the day, we are trying to get both the ball and our body beyond the defender so that they are no longer involved in the play, or are forced to pull you down and concede a free-kick.

3.       Take a big touch into the open space and change your pace. Once you are past the defender, you cannot let them back into the play. If you drove with speed, they are already on their heels, if you put them off balance, then you are already past them with them facing the wrong direction, so now you just have to make it a footrace to the ball that you can easily win.

There you have it. Your step-by-step guide to winning your attacking matchups. Move proactively to put yourself into a dangerous position when you receive the ball, drive with speed to get the defender on their heels, get them off balance and push the ball past them, then take a big touch to make it a footrace that you will win.

A Solid Foundation is Key to Success in Sports

Parents will often approach me and ask what their son/daughter can do to get better at sports. Success in sports requires proficiency and eventually mastery of 3 main skills:

1.       Sport-Specific Technical Skills

2.       Athleticism

3.       Tactical Understanding/IQ

Of course, there are other elements at play, but the systematic development of these three skills will drive a player’s success in sports.

In this country, I don’t think we do a particularly great job developing any of these skills at our youth levels. I’m going to use soccer as an example because it’s the sport I’m most comfortable with, but the concepts apply to all team-sports.

If we want to develop mastery of these three skills, we must start by building a strong foundation.

For technical skills, this means starting with mastery on the ball. Young kids should spend the majority of practice with a ball on their foot. The more touches they get at an early age, the more comfortable they will get, the more confident they will become, and the more success they will have as they grow and develop higher-level skills.

For athletic skills, our focus should be on developing fundamental movement skills through play. With early specialization running rampant and physical education continuing to be cut from schools, this responsibility now falls on the sport-coach. Every practice, kids should be jumping, skipping, hoping, crawling, balancing, rolling, and developing the foundational skills they will need to have future sporting success.

Lastly, tactical skill development comes down to practice design. Drills should be designed in ways where kids develop foundational tactical skills while developing their fundamental technical skills. For example, simply having players dribble in space while playing red light/green light rather than dribbling through cones will teach players how to find open space, become aware of their surroundings, and react to a constantly changing environment, just like they will have to in the game.

If you are a parent who is coaching your child’s soccer team, and would like help designing impactful practices that will build a strong foundation for the players, email us and we’ll set up a time to chat.

Soccer Playing Tip: How to Defend 1 v 1

A key to differentiating yourself from other players and making an impact on the soccer field is to win your individual battles/matchups. These mini-1-v-1-battles occur throughout the duration of a soccer match, and are often the difference between winning and losing. Strong team play will keep you competitive in the game, but winning your individual battles is what actually leads to wins on gameday. So, with that in mind, here’s my tip to winning your matchup defensively:

Make the game as hard as possible on the other player.

That’s it.

It’s nothing extraordinary or innovative, but doing this play after play for the duration of the game ensures that you will win a higher percentage of the battle’s vs your opposition. Here’s how you do so defensively:

1.       Always force the player to their weaker foot. 90% of the population is right-sided, meaning, it’s a very safe assumption that the player’s weaker foot will be their left. Forcing them to their weak foot will kill the game for most players, and even if they are skilled enough, and confident enough to beat you, the chances of them actually completing a play on their weak foot are slim to none. Sure, they may beat you, but if they do so on their left, they are either going to dribble out of bounds, take a heavy touch that your teammate can win, or hit a cross over the goal, all positive outcomes and nothing dangerous for your team.

2.       Play physically. This is an attribute that can separate you from the pack: get your hands on the opposition. Any time they run across your space, get in their way, put your hand on their chest, or bump them off their path. Play in, play out, with no exceptions. Doing this allows you to control them. It wears them down and frustrates them to no end, to the point where their head will either be out of the game, or they will hesitate to make the runs they would usually make.

3.       Make them play backwards. Defending 1 v 1 (and as a team) is not about winning the ball, it’s about controlling where the opposition has the ball and what they can do with it. By cutting off passing lanes, and staying between the defender and your goal, you can make them play backwards, and if they are passing the ball backwards, towards their own net and away from yours, you’ve won your battle because that is going to make it much harder on them to score.

BONUS TIP: If for some reason the player does beat you, that doesn’t mean the play is over, it simply means they got past you. Your job then, becomes to react positively and do whatever you can to recover. If the ball is past you but the player is not, it may mean planting yourself between the player and the ball and winning the footrace to it. If the player and the ball get past you, it probably means sprinting as hard as you can to occupy space centrally to protect your net and cover for your teammate who is now in the 1 v 1 matchup; the play isn’t over just because you get beat and those that react positively and recover still have a chance to win that individual battle.

Try implementing these tips into your training. How you practice is how you play, so building these habits over the next month is going to make a tremendous difference when you get out on the field for your games.

Soccer Training Tip: Practice at Game Speed

One of the keys to having success on gameday is practicing like you want to play. This starts with the coach by choosing exercises that actually translate to the game, but it then trickles down to the players to practice at game speed. While this seems apparently obvious, it happens far less than you think.

In my 10 years of coaching, I’ve had very few players who bring the “game-like” intensity on their own without needing to be pushed, and I’ve been there too. Unsurprisingly, these players have been the ones who have had the best careers because every time they step on the field to practice, they aren’t just going through the motions, they are actually preparing themselves for what’s going to happen in the game.

At the highest level, practices often become faster and more intense than the game itself. Bill Walton once said that when he played for John Wooden, the game was actually significantly slower than what they had been doing at practice.

So my challenge to you is this: if you want to become the best player you can be, come to training with a new mentality. Come out with the intention to practice at game speed. Move hard off the ball, talk relentlessly, play firm passes, defend like an animal; play at practice like you want to play in the game. Do this for one season, and I promise you you’re going to get noticed, you’re going to improve, and you’re going to do better on gameday.

If you want help developing skills like this that will take your game to the next level and the coaching to accelerate the process, then check out our Soccer Academies. Our academies are the perfect complement to your school training as we help you maximize your potential and become an impactful player on the field.

Practice like this:

Your Fall Season’s Over…So Now What?

As the weather gets colder and fall seasons come to a close, I want to take a few minutes to discuss some viable next-steps for the winter depending on your age, goals, and ability level, to improve at your craft and come back next fall ready to take the world by storm.

First, let me make something extremely clear. I am adamantly against early specialization. For those that don’t know, early specialization is exactly what it sounds like, specializing in one sport at an early age/early in athlete’s development. Early specialization has become a huge problem in this country for many reasons, and is far too expansive a topic to dive into in this blog, but be on the lookout for deceptive coaches pushing athletes to specialize early for their own financial gain. Without going too deep, early specialization leads to overuse injuries, a lack of physical literacy, coordination, and movement development in children, and early burnout.

With that in mind, it’s hard to pinpoint an exact age or ability that children should begin to specialize in one sport, because in an ideal world, they never would. Playing multiple sports allows them to develop their athleticism safely, utilize different muscles/movement patterns, and be introduced to a plethora of different stimuli that force them to solve new problems. Not the mention they will develop great social and character skills by playing multiple sports.

With all that being said, in today’s cut-throat sporting landscape, it’s hard to feel like you child isn’t falling behind if they aren’t investing copious amounts of time/energy to their sport, and it sort of makes sense. At the end of the day, consistent effort will most likely breed success, so the more consistently an athlete invests effort into their sport, the more they will develop. While this principle bears out, an athlete must train smartly to ensure that he/she is developing appropriately and avoiding the common errors of early specialization and winter training.

So, with that context established, let me give you some viable options for this winter to continue to develop without worrying about putting your child at risk or in harms way.

1. If your child is younger than 14 years old, get them in some sort of movement-based program, martial arts, or gymnastic-type training to compliment their primary sport. The components of these kinds of activities will build the fundamental movement skills and coordination athletes need to have success in their sporting endeavors, while doing so in a fun, exciting, and safe environment. Putting your child in a program like this is far and away the best thing you can do as a parent for their long-term athletic development.

2. If your child is 14 or older, get them in some sort of formal strength and conditioning/athletic development program. Do NOT allow them to join the gym on their own, where they will develop bad habits, put themselves at risk to be injured, and most likely set back their athletic development, making them worse at their primary sport. At this age, training harder is not always the best option because athletes typically don’t know what they are doing. Training with smart coaches who will keep them safe, teach them lifting principles, and get them comfortable in the weight room, is a much better option.

3. Look for a 1-2 day/week sport-specific program. Here’s where the magic of balance truly happens. Once your child is playing a different sport/enrolled in some sort of movement/athletic development program, find a program where they can work with a coach 1-2 days/week for sport-specific development. I would steer clear of anything more than 2 days/week, and 1 day/week truly is the sweet spot. It’s the spot where athletes can continue to invest effort and improve in their primary sport, without being subjected to the risks of early specialization.

There you have it. Hopefully you now have a clear picture of what to look for this winter, and what to steer clear of, if you hope to continue your child’s development in their primary sport. As a conclusion, I want to give you as a parent a quick checklist to follow to simplify this process:

1. Enroll child in secondary sport.

2. Depending on age, enroll child in some sort of movement development/athletic development program with a coach who will keep them safe and develop them properly.

3. Enroll child in 1-2 day/week sport-specific development program.

If you want to inquire about working with us for any of these services, please do so HERE.

Thanks for reading, we hope to work with you soon to safely develop your child and allow them to reach their athletic potential and dominate their sporting endeavors.

Until next time,

-JL