Click here to join the England Football Learning group and chat with other members
OPTIONS
DETAILS
  • State Suggested Answer
  • Replies 21 replies
  • Answers 1 answer
  • Subscribers 366 subscribers
  • Views 4659 views
  • Users 0 members are here
RELATED

Ball Mastery in the Foundation Phase

Cameron Moulton

Hi all hoping to get some clarification on what good ball mastery practice looks like for foundation phase players. I currently work with an U8s grassroots team and I want to help my young players to master the ball. In every training session, part of our practice is dedicated to every player having a ball and I would like some guidance on the type of practice that is effective at improving players' technical skills

Is effective ball mastery the coach showing the players different skills/moves for them to repeat and practice? Or can effective ball mastery be a playground game (tag for example) but with a football and the players being dribblers?

I have tended to use a game of tag as our ball mastery practice instead of practicing skills (turns, 1v1 moves) and I am worried that as a result, I am not achieving my goal of helping the players to master the ball.

 Any opinions on how other coaches approach ball mastery or what I should do would be really helpful

Parents
  • 0

    Used some of the other suggestions, used to also just have them in a marked square and if you called 1 they had to cut, 2 to roll the ball with the sole of the foot, 3 to do a turn, 4 was free choice option, nice warm up and activation activity. The other thing we used to do was make up almost a football assault course and assign skills to each task. So for example, dribble in an out of cones on the way out might be only the outside of the foot, and on the way back with the inside. Or a series of diagonal runs where you had to roll the ball with the sole of the boot to change direction. Big turns at the end of the series to practise different cut techniques. Maybe a cone maze to navigate. Once they'd done the skills we had asked them to do we gave them a few runs to do it with free choice but encourage each player to experiment. My group are a bit older but love a game of "one bounce". We also tended to do it smaller focused groups, so maybe split into 2/3 groups with one set doing something quite intensive and the other group on skills, which lets you focus more on the technique of every player.  

  • 0 in reply to Euan Pirie

    I like it Euan. I want to push the players out of their comfort zone, everyone says that the younger ages are a golden age for learning I don't want to waste it. How did the players respond to this type of activity? Were they excited to learn new skills? Or did they want something more like a match?

Reply Children
  • 0 in reply to Cameron Moulton

    Our group love it as they've seen the skills they've developed over time. For a session with this in it, we'll run a consistent session formats so the boys know if we're doing this, it'll progress into a match like situation where they put it into practice. It's a good activation session, getting them properly warmed up and they can focus on the skills before they're tired and get sloppy. We have a bit of fun with them in it, it's fairly relaxed. We sometimes ask one of them to lead a trick they've been practising and let the others have a go at it too so they have some control over it too.