Take a look at the video below to see Christen Press, Ali Riley, Whitney Engen and Bianca D'Agostino doing the Beast Mode Soccer Phase 2 Footwork Program! Also... check out the tweet above we got from Arsenal LEGEND Lee Dixon!
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We have collaborated with leading women's journal 'Our Game Magazine' (www.OurGameMagazine.com) to present the Beast Mode Soccer Phase 1 Footwork Program! Check out the video below and see quality WPS aces Ali Riley (WNY Flash), Bianca D'Agostino (Boston Breakers), Christen Press (Atlanta Beat) and Tina DiMartino (Philadelphia Independence)! Kayla Johnston runs Ali Riley's fan club on Twitter, and she had a whip around to get 10 questions from her fans.... here they are! Xavi is one of the best passers on the planet. I personally love the fact that he rarely gives the ball away, and is always seemingly looking for 'that' pass to split the defense open, but doesn't force it... He is cunning, composed and creative, if you want to look at a real footballer, here he is: Here's the Beast Mode Soccer Xavi Passing Drill Here is one of Beast Mode Soccer's passing drills, entitle 'Xavi Passing'. This drill focus' on good quality long range 'threaded' passes.
What you need:
The idea of the drill is for the coach to pass a ball into the player in the center circle (pass can vary, make it hard to develop your touch), player has two touches, one to control, one to play the pass. The flags serve the purpose of the target. Ideally you want the ball to 'thread' between the fake players as if a forward is running onto the ball. The coach has numbered the targets and shouts which number they want the player to hit as they play the initial pass! Progressions are numerous including:
Any questions? drop me an email train@beastmodesoccer.com If you read these pages often you will know that we are a massive fan of Arsenal forward Robin van Persie's technique. He rarely puts a foot wrong, and is a great role model to kids looking to improve. For me, his goal against Everton last weekend sums him up as a player... cool, calm, collected...smash! Take 10 minutes out and watch RvP in action with 100 goals for Arsenal: Every player needs to watch this! Robin is a great testament to 'what you put in, you get out', in his own words, when he was a child playing street soccer in Holland he hit thousands of shots EVERY day with his left foot... now look at it. He is known as a left footed player, and he definitely prefers it, but look how many he actually scores with his right foot as well. Legend.
Look out for our RvP drill coming next week! When people say the name Zinedane Zidane, I immediately think of an immense soccer player who orchestrated games with his amazing footwork and glorious vision, exquisite touches and accurate finishing. How did he become so good? Well, in the mans own words: “I reached this level by sheer dint of hard work, toiling away at scores of tricks and experiments. I used to play with the ball from dawn till dusk and just kept practising. If I wasn’t playing matches, it was trying out one on one or two against two with a tennis ball. Then I used to try aiming at certain targets. That’s the only way to learn. And if I missed the target, I kept trying until I scored” Take a look at the video below, then look at our 'finish like Zidane drill!' Look at his finishing. Most of the times he hits the corners, when he doesn't he drills it close range so the keeper has no chance. His technique is ridiculous, learned from hours and hours of playing with tennis balls when he was a kid. This is a simple drill. You need a goal (or a wall), targets for the corners (plastic bags/sweaters... anything will do) and some balls. In the picture you will see a small box that the player stands in. The coach feeds them the ball, they have to control it inside the small box, then shoot. If you do not have someone to feed you balls, just by-pass that part of the drill and try to hit the targets.
At Beast Mode Soccer we start about 12 yards out, using tennis balls. We will take 50 shots with the tennis balls, then move up to a size 1. With the size one we go about 18 yards out. Again, take about 50 shots, then move to a size 5, about 22 yards out, taking 50 shots. The player has to get at least 50% of the shots in the 'kill zones' (marked with the cones in the goals) and at least 10 in each round have to hit the target directly. This is a lot trickier than it sounds! The great thing about this drill is it can be done pretty much anywhere that space is available. We recommend getting some chalk and drawing the targets and the kill zone onto a wall. Have a friend? Make it a competition! The next progression is to repeat but while running with the ball i.e.: Dribble ball 10 yards look up and shoot at the target. At Beast Mode Soccer we preach about good technique and that goes for this drill as well. Watch Zidane's flowing technique as he shoots the ball, it seems that he always knows where he want to put the ball. If you're a soccer fan, player or coach you must be like us here at Beast Mode Soccer and love it when Messi goes on one of his mazey runs! I found this video on YouTube that shows his close control, and just watch as he puts his body between the defender and the ball, changes speed, switches direction on a dime, amazing! Every young player should be encouraged to dribble dribble dribble! We know that Barca has an INCREDIBLE tiki taka passing style, but guess what... to be able to knock the ball around like that you have to be confident with the ball at your feet to begin with! Too many coaches get their young teams to try and play Barca and Arsenal styles when their players do not have the confidence to dribble already. Take a look at the video, the drill is below: Here is a drill that we use at Beast Mode Soccer. Barca also use it in La Masia, and Manchester United's coaches use a very similar drill with Nani Place about 20 cones randomly about 20 yards from goal. Have the player perform 50 touches at speed. Make sure the player uses ALL parts of their feet, perform quick change of directions, step overs, scissors, bests, matthews etc etc. On the 50th touch, have the player burst out of the grid at top speed and slot the ball into one of the corners of the goal.
At Beast Mode Soccer we start the series with a tennis ball, then move to a size 1, then a size 5, having 3 reps on each ball. Focus on good quality touches, using peripheral vision. Have the player imagine that the cones are defenders feet, if they touch them with the ball they have been tackled. This a simple variation on the old 'cones in a line' drill, but we have added a goal, 50 touches and encouragement to try new things, players seem to love it! I found this video on YouTube and will be writing a 1 on 1 session emulating Thierry Henry. Look at the composure when he is through on the keeper... a little glance up, opens body, hits the most space available to him, usually the far post side netting. Then there's the ridiculous goals... look at his technique, always looking to shoot, always electrifying! Thierry learnt to play on the streets of Paris, and definitely has that street soccer feel to his play, sometimes he just outrageous! TH14 FINISHING DRILL
Two poles/flags/cones are placed just outside the 18 yard box. Coach plays the ball into players feet, player receives, turns and explodes into space. Player looks up, plays the ball into the most space- usually the far post. The goal only counts if they score between the flag and post as seen in the picture. Coaching Points:
10 shots on each foot! Here's a GREAT video showing some awesome tiki taka one touch passing. If you know your teammates movements, and have confidence on the ball... you too can achieve this with your team, its not hard, is it? I found this great article in 'The Guardian' and thought it was worth sharing, it talks about how Pep and Barca have crushed certain tactical maxims. I do agree with a lot of it, but I also genuinely think that Barca just play. They don't focus so much on complicated tactics, they literally just play flowing football, if they lose it, they immediately try to get it back... I honestly think that we, as coaches are hysterically over analyzing what Pep does... in my opinion, this team would play great football with a monkey in charge :)
Tiny cracks may be starting to appear in the previously impregnable armour of Barcelona, with Real Madrid rampant and Pep Guardiola's side rudely obliged to play catch-up, but this team's place in history is already secure. The trophies and the unique, hypnotic passing style have made sure of that, but less remarked upon is the tactical legacy that they have bequeathed to the game. As the first budding usurpers begin to congregate at the gates of the Barça citadel, Football Further looks at five tactical maxims that Guardiola and his team have torn to shreds. 1) Don't mess around with it at the backAs any Sunday league football captain will be only too happy to tell you, trying to play your way out of trouble in defence is the game's cardinal sin. "Not there! Not there!" is the cry whenever a full-back checks inside and seeks to pick out a defensive colleague, or – heaven forbid – a centre-back attempts to carry the ball out from inside his own penalty area. Professional football, particularly in England, can take a surprisingly similar view of players who try to build up play from the back, but Barcelona's commitment to guarding possession extends to all areas of the pitch. Yes, passes inside your own area carry a risk heavier than passes made anywhere else on the pitch, but if you trust yourself to pass the ball five yards to a team-mate, why would that trust suddenly evaporate merely because you happen to be close to your own goal? If anything, Barça's players almost seem to enjoy playing each other into trouble at times, because they know their team-mates have been taught how to protect the ball properly. It is thanks to this confidence that they are able to rattle passes at each other at such an astonishing tempo,regardless of where they are on the pitch. 2) Goalkeepers – just get ridSir Alex Ferguson's criticism of David de Gea for the role he played in Benfica's equalising goal in last week's Champions League game at Old Trafford – "He should have put it into the stands" – felt anachronistic and not a little ironic, given that the Spaniard was identified as an ideal replacement for Edwin van der Sar largely thanks to the fact his distribution withstood comparison with that of his vaunted predecessor. Football Further touched on the growing importance of goalkeepers who are good with their feet at the end of last season, and Barça's Victor Valdés has become the prime example. Valdés often invites his defenders to drop extremely deep in order to exchange passes with him, thereby dragging opposition forwards down the pitch and subsequently freeing up space in midfield. It is a tactic that can appear brazen in its disregard for the conventions of sensible play, but Valdés's ease in possession is an integral component of his team's approach and enables Barça to create space even against teams who are reluctant to abandon their defensive shape. 3) Every team needs a hard manWho is Barcelona's hard man? For all his robustness, it surely cannot beSergio 'Peek-a-boo' Busquets, and one of the most obvious candidates, Javier Mascherano, spends more time playing as a classy centre-back these days than clattering into opponents like the midfield terrier of yore. Carles Puyol represents the rugged rock at the heart of the European champions' defence, but a career of wear and tear means that the 33-year-old has become an infrequent name on the team-sheet. He has started just four of Barça's 14 league games to date this season and featured in only 45% of their league matches in 2010-11. In the absence of a bruising enforcer to set the tempo for Barça's attempts to win the ball from their opponents, Guardiola's players get stuck in all over the pitch. In the coach's famous phrase, "We're a horrible team without the ball so I want us to get it back as soon as possible and I'd rather give away fouls and the ball in their half than ours." The fact that Barça press their opponents so high up the pitch also has a convenient side-effect – when they commit fouls, they are not in the kind of dangerous areas liable to yield punishment with a booking. In the three seasons since Guardiola took over as coach in the summer of 2008, Barcelona have finished first, second and first in La Liga's fair play table. After 14 games of the current campaign they are second, behind Málaga, and the only side in the division yet to receive a red card. 4) Indulge your flair players"You can have players who don't run," proclaimed José Mourinho, then manager of Chelsea, in Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti's The Italian Job, which was published in 2006. "In our team at Chelsea we have three attacking players but I don't want them chasing full-backs and making themselves tired … So, for example, [Arjen] Robben might not defend when their full-back comes forward with the ball. That's OK, because [Frank] Lampard will then go across and challenge him and the other two midfielders will cover for him." So comprehensively have Barça's pressing tactics changed conceptions of the game that such a comment would today be almost unthinkable from a coach at a major club. Mourinho had realised as much by the time he arrived at Internazionale, where his team's commitment to recovering possession was typified by Samuel Eto'o, who had learnt the value of aggressive pressing under Guardiola. Mourinho's current Real Madrid team display even greater dedication to winning the ball back as high up the pitch as possible, which is perhaps the most eloquent testament that can be paid to Guardiola's impact. Gone are the days when a player, like Ronaldo towards the end of his time at Madrid, could be absolved of defensive responsibilities. Today, everyone is expected to get their hands dirty. 5) The full-backs' principal responsibility is to defendAttacking full-backs are nothing new – you only need to read the bewildered testimonies of England's players following their 1953 annihilation by Hungary to realise that – but Barcelona have taken things to a different level. Barça's high pressing means that Dani Alves is almost completely liberated from having to defend in conventional positions and the way the centre-backs pull wide when the team have the ball enables him to push forward with even more confidence. As a result, Alves spends more time in the opposition half than in his own, and in that respect he is the archetype of the modern full-back. For a glimpse of what the future holds for the full-back, consider Luis Enrique's Roma. The Spaniard has taken the principles he learnt during his time as coach of Barcelona B and upped the ante even further, converting midfielder Simone Perrotta and winger Rodrigo Taddei into full-backs and encouraging them to attack with almost reckless abandon. This article was written by Tom Williams for the Guardian Sports Network So do you agree/disagree? |
Beast Mode SoccerDavid Copeland-Smith is a UEFA 'A' Licensed soccer trainer with a unique outlook on how players should learn the game... Archives
January 2013
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