soccer coaching game shoot, score, win!

The variation of this soccer coaching game is also a great workout for your goalkeepers.

Experience: any.

Set up:

• Divide your squad into two teams of between four and six players. If you have more than 12 players, set up two games.

• Create a playing area about 30 yards long and about 20 yards wide.

• Place a team behind each end line.

• Make a goal in the centre of the playing area with poles or corner flags.

• Place a cone between each team and the goal to mark the point at which your players should take their shot

• Place a few balls at both ends of the playing area.

How to play:

1. To start the game, team A sends one of its players to be goalkeeper.

2. The first player in team B dribbles a ball (at speed) to the marker cone and shoots. This player follows their shot and shoots again if team A's goalkeeper drops the ball.

3. Team A's goalkeeper retrieves the ball and returns to her team.

4. The shooter from team B is now in goal and faces a player from team A who dribbles out and shoots. After taking their shot, this player takes over in goal and so on.

5. The first team to score X number of goals wins.

Key soccer coaching points: impress on your players the need to dribble at speed, shoot quickly and follow their shot. You can, if you wish, further encourage a "finishing" mentality by awarding two goals if a player scores from a fumbled shot.

Also, if the shooter does not follow her shot and get into goal quickly, the opposition will have an open goal to shoot at.

You probably won't need to, but make sure the next shooter doesn't wait for the goalkeeper to get ready. They should start to dribble at goal as soon as they have the ball.

Vary the distance to goal and the size of the goal so players can experience success then make it harder by increasing the distance to goal and making the goal smaller.

Encourage players to shoot hard.

Variation: choose one player to be the goalkeeper. The rest of the players take it in turns to dribble and shoot, ie. a player from team A shoots followed by a player from team B in quick succession. The goalkeeper has to work hard: save, turn, save, turn.

Note: although this game involves players waiting in line, the speed of the game means they should only be waiting for a few seconds.

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