Coaches Club – Diamonds Are Forever
In this series of posts, we share with you some drills and session plans for you to apply to your training sessions.
Today we have a pretty well-known activity for you to try out with your team. This is a game that I came across whilst on my FA Level One course. I thought I’d share this one because it’s a fun and engaging game that some coaches may have missed during the number of updates and incarnations that the Level One course content has had.
One of the main challenges for this activity is with the attackers and their movements to lose their marker, create a bit of space and manage to work off a shot. That movement off the ball is incredibly important for a forward. Below I have included a video from Unisport which shows 3 things from Dortmund’s Haaland that aspiring forwards can learn. For this activity, I’d focus specifically on the first two points (around the 1:00 mark) which looks at his positioning and movement off the ball. The goal at 1:00 is a great example of a goal that can be scored in this activity.
The activity below requires numbers around a 6v6 situation. Personally I wouldn’t go much higher or lower in terms of numbers unless you introduce magic (neutral) players, because too many could see lots of players get barely any touches, and too less could see the activity become too easy because of the space available. In the set-up below, I have used a goalkeeper for each side, this is not essential, you could add cones into the goal and add a condition that attackers must score between the cone and the nearest post to count. If you do decide to have a player go in goal (that’s not a usual keeper) then feel free to rotate them every 5-10 minutes.
If you feel as though the intensity isn’t quite what you’re after and the ball keeps going out. I would then suggest that you start feeding the balls in from the side, instead of having kick-ins or goal kicks.
Ideally, try to get to a stage in the session where you introduce a magic player or start manipulating the numbers in each zone. Depending on the age group, e.g. an older age group, you may want to start with some progressions from the start.
Drop us a message in the comments section below if you’ve used this session before and let us know how it went.
Also if you have any great sessions that you’d like us to share or have found any online, then please let us know in the comments section.
Be sure to follow Half Time Cuppa on Twitter too @HalfTime_Cuppa and you can follow me on Twitter too @DannyCook1996
You can also check out our other Drill Share Sessions by clicking here
Please don’t take the drill sources as gospel, we’ve tried to credit drills, especially those we’ve seen elsewhere, alternatively if that’s not possible, we’ve credited the coach that has put on that version of that drill. Please get in touch, using the comments section below if there’s another source.