U-8 Boys and Girls Week #4

Well done on your dribbling, passing and ball control skills so far this season. This week we will be focusing on SHOOTING.

A reminder that Super Soccer Saturday is happening this upcoming Saturday morning. A great opportunity for your players to further develop their individual and team skills and of course have a lot of fun. Check the blog for an update for when your age group will be playing. Please encourage your players to get their parents to sign them up for Saturday. Details on the website.

U-8 Boys and Girls
Focus skill:  shooting

Feel free to include your favourite shooting activity.
By the end of the session we hope the players have a good understanding of the mechanics of shooting a moving ball and have had many opportunities to practice the skill. 


Coaching points:
-planting foot pointing at the target
-planting foot next to ball
-striking ball with laces,
- toe pointed down ankle locked
-knee over ball (of striking foot)
-shoulder over the ball (head down as striking)
-quick snap and follow through
- best to strike a moving  ball

Warm up- 5-10 minutes
Agility - Set up agility ladders, hurdles and/or cones. 
Clean Your Room - 20X30 m grid. Separate players into two teams and split grid in half.  Teams must stay on their own side of grid. Players are told to keep their room (their side of half) clean, so they must kick any balls that are in their room to other grid (other team's room). After a period of time you count to see which room is cleaner. 

Game: 5-10 minutes
A short scrimmage focusing on shooting. You may want to have coach (or perhaps a player) play on both teams (whichever team has possession of the ball) to create more goal scoring opportunities. Have small nets set up for players to shoot on and encourage them to shoot whenever they are close to net. 

Technical Team Activities: 15-20 minutes
Spend some time teaching them the skill of shooting. Quickly explain and then demonstrate. 
Shooting practice. Two players 10 m apart. Players practice kicking ball between cones to their partner using proper technique explained above. Coach to observe and compliment and correct as needed. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wi0tehvIw&feature=relmfu

Lightning:  Coach passes ball to player positioned about 10 meters from net.
Player takes one touch of ball then shoots to score on net. Player must shoot before the penalty area or area designated by coach. The player then goes in net. Keep players moving by having them quickly receive and shoot ball then become goalkeeper. 
Progression: if you get scored on you go behind net. If you catch a ball that goes over the net you get to come back into the game. If someone hits the crossbar then everyone behind net can join in game again. Kids love this game. Be careful it does not cut into game time. 
Focus on players properly kicking a moving ball. 

Four corners shooting drill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuz6JGaEYtY&feature=related
A good activity to work on accurate passing and shooting.
Keep players moving. You will want to introduce a second ball as last player is taking a shot.

Skill- numbers game
Set up a small grid with goal at one end/use penalty area.  Separate players into 2 teams lined up on each side of goal.  Place two cones just a bit further than shooting distance even with corners of goal, and place yourself between with a stash of balls.  Number players 1,2,3,4,5 etc. Call out a number. That numbered player on each team must race around the cones into the field where a ball is played. Players are trying to both defend and score on the same net. Encourage celebrations after a goal! Progress to 2 or 3 players. Add a goalkeeper

Game: 5-10 minutes
Two teams, two nets, one ball, lots of fun