Coaching soccer sessions for beginner and low level teams can be tough challenge. As a coach you need to plan around a range of abilities, personalities as well as making sure the players are fun and want to come back next week!
The 6 soccer sessions below with video explanations is what I have used when coaching my beginner and lower level teams. The sessions are in chronological order with the next session always building on the previous soccer session.
The sessions below will typically run for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Soccer Session For Beginner Teams 1 (Ball Mastery + Attacking 1v1s)
This first soccer session for beginners really focuses on ball mastery skills with no pressure and learning how to use those skills in 1v1 attacking scenarios.
Coaching points:
- Focus on small, light touches. Taking a step in between for every touch that they take.
- The skill should be performed at pace with a convincing disguise to hide the players intention
- The exit touch should be a larger touch (opposite side to the players fake) and into space, combined with a change speed.
For the the progression you can also divide the larger area into 4 sections so players stay within the boundaries.
Here are some more 1v1 Attacking Drills you can use with your beginner teams.
Soccer Session 2 (Scanning For Spaces To Attack)
The second soccer session for beginner teams focuses on players to lift their head up while dribbling. This encourages players to dribble purpose and ensures they are scanning for spaces to attack.
Sections in the session allow for players to re-learn and try skills taught in the previous session.
Coaching points:
- Players should be dribbling with their head up so they can see where the space is to attack
- Players need to be adding a disguise onto their skill to really fake out the defender. This could be as simple as making it look like you’re going to kick as hard as you can, or an over exaggerated shoulder fake.
- The skill and exit touch needs to be performed with a quick change of speed.
Soccer Session 3 (Improving Dribbling Decision Making)
Soccer Session 3 for beginner and low level teams focuses on the players decision making when dribbling. This will help players decide when to drive through a space with the ball or to turn away from pressure and look for another opportunity.
Coaching points:
- Focus on fast and light touches while scanning for a space to accelerate through
- Once a space has been found and explosive change of speed should combined larger touches to get through the space as quick as possible
- Use a combination of skills and turns with a disguise to move defenders away from the space players want to dribble through
Soccer Session For Beginner Teams 4 (Combining Skills and Turns to Beat Defenders)
The next soccer session will focus on combining skills to beat the defender but incorporating turns for quick changes of direction if a space becomes blocked off.
These are some of the turns you can teach your players:
- V-turn
- L-turn
- Drag back
- Cruyff turn
Coaching points:
- The first movements are always for the defender with the last movement towards the space you want to attack
- Skills, turns and body feints should be combined with a disguised and a change of speed (slowing down AND speeding up)
- Players should dribble with their head up to see what spaces the defender is leaving open
Soccer Session 5 (Body Position When Receiving the Ball)
A players first touch is always the most important touch!
This session will focus on how a player should receive the ball and the best body position to be in.
For the technical activity when players take their touch out of the triangle you can ask them to use a skill or a turn combined with a change of speed and direction before passing. You can reward players by highlighting them in a group setting or by giving them points.
Coaching points:
- The players should let the ball roll across their body and use the foot further from the ball to push the ball into space
- A player should have their chest and hips facing the direction they want to take their first touch
- The first touch should be a bigger touch out of the players feet combined with a change of speed to dribble into the space
These are some more Turning and Receiving Drills you can use
Soccer Session 6 (Receiving The Ball On The Front Foot)
Instead of receiving the ball on the back foot this soccer session for beginner teams will now focus receiving the ball on the front foot.
This is a great skill to have when a defender is pressing the player from behind or stepping into the ball and driving into space.
Coaching points:
- Players should be receiving the ball in a side on body position if the ball is coming from in front of them
- Encourage players to add a shoulder fake disguise in the direction opposite to where the player wants to take their first touch
- The front foot touch should be followed up by an explosive change of speed.
How should a soccer session be structured for beginner and low level teams?
This is structure I will follow when creating soccer sessions for beginner teams
Arrival scrimmage – 15 minutes
An arrival scrimmage is a great way to get the players engaged and arriving on time. A lot of the time kids have been a in classroom for most of the day and lots of energy to burn!
This is also a great opportunity to check the progress of players and how well they are progressing. You can reward players for using skills and ideas taught in previous sessions but also set challenges to get them thinking about the focus for the upcoming session.
Technical activity – 25 minutes
This is the part of the session where you want to get your players lots of repetition of the skill you are trying to teach. This should be unopposed allowing players to really focus on what it is they need to learning.
Different ways you can add pressure without including a defender would make it time based or score based. This encourages players to perform a skill but at a higher intensity.
Progression – 25 minutes
The progression will build on from the technical activity and now introduce pressure in the form of defenders.
Depending on your players level and ability you can make a higher or lower ratio of defenders vs attackers. The higher the ratio the easier it is with a lower ratio making it harder.
When planning a progression always make sure you implement a scoring system that rewards what you were trying to coach in the technical activity.
The defenders should also have a scoring system to incentives them to keep it as match realistic as possible.
Scrimmage – 25 minutes
As a coach I always make sure I finish my soccer sessions for beginner teams with a scrimmage. Not only do the players love it, it also gives me the opportunity to give more personalized coaching to players.
Similarly to progression you want to include a point or goal scoring system that rewards when players can successfully execute the focus of the session in a match realistic environment.