Description

Some people are destined to be fast sprinters while others aren’t born with tremendous speed. However, whether you’re short or tall, fast or slow, there’s still a place for you in the game if you train hard and take care of your overall fitness. Being great on the ball means little unless you can match it with the physical capabilities to stay strong throughout the whole game.

Adding some intensive work to the sessions will have instant impact to players performance.

Players will feel more confident with the ball, in a contact with another player, and will have fresh mind when needed to make decision in tough moments of the game.

The main focus in this manual is to encourage coaches to try and keep high intensity work during training sessions no metter what topic they are covering. Part of every session can be dedicated to developing this aspect of the game. Isolating conditioning without using the ball or incorporating the ball into conditioning exercises will improve endurance, agility, speed or strength, those being the abilities that players cannot make do without them.

Coaching points, that are important when considering proposing this way of training, are:

A session must be performed in maximum effort and concentration. Correct execution and proper movement must be a priority.

Improved endurance increases ability to perform a greater number of sprints, jumps or covering more distance during the match.

By improving speed we are developing ability to achieve high velocity. Sprinting form and technique must be learned and executed properly to achieve players’ genetic speed potential. Speed consists of reaction, acceleration, maximum speed and speed endurance.

All aspects must be taken into consideration when preparing various training sessions.

Agility and coordination are important attributes required of a successful soccer player.

Complex movement such as dribbling, turning, passing require changes of speed and direction. Correct execution of these skills needs good body coordination. Agility is ability to change the direction of movement without losing balance.

Strength work out in training will increase soccer speed and agility, improve overall performance and prevent injuries. Sessions shouldn’t be specifically for strength, but to encourage exercise for power effort.

Persistence in training requirements leads to a graduate improvement to a higher level player.