Player Development

There is a link between being skilful with the ball and being skilful with your body. The two things go hand in hand and if we want our players to be able to run at different speeds, stop and start effectively and to change direction quickly (and with deception) then preparing their bodies for actio

Here's a simple dribbling warm up that works even if you have a big group (our nursery squad has 30 players). Every player has a ball. And ask them to dribble across the pitch and back. Encourage them to keep the ball really close to them (ask what's the difference between running with the ball an

In an area or penalty area, everyone has a ball and 2 players are ready to enter with a car chamois, the aim is to hit as many footballs as possible in a time limit, take it in turns, exaggerate and make big bang noises if you hit a ball etc, players with a ball encourage them to maybe shield or acc

Having shared some information about the growth and scope of 3v3 across Europe in a previous post I got to thinking about the start of a new season and this took me back to my playing days (unfortunately for me, these were too many years ago). Pre-season was always a time of aching thighs and breath

Passing and receiving as part of development at the beginning of a player’s journey. Is there a priority order – a step by step approach OR, if players are at different points in their development, can we use this more as a checklist? No particular order although it would be worth discussing to se