FineSoccer Drill 65

Today's exercise is a fun way to work on crossing, runs in the box, finishing, conditioning and goalkeeping.

Break your team into groups of three or four players.  The game is real simple.  One player from each group starts with a ball out wide and must take the ball down to the end line and cross the ball into the box.  There are no defenders (except for the keeper).  The other players in the group will make near/far runs (if there are four people in a group, they will make near/far/12 yard runs).  The ball must be scored first time.  If the ball is played on the ground and scores, it counts as one point.  If it's scored off of a volley, it's worth three points and a header is worth 5 points.  The game goes on for a predetermined time (I usually do it for 8 minutes) and the group with the highest number of points wins.  The key here is that while there are no defenders, there is also no set order.  If the red team can get two balls served before the blue team gets one served, it increases their chances of scoring.  This gives the players an incentive to get their ball and get back to serve.

The only rules are that you can't kick another groups ball, you have to try not to get in other groups ways, a player can only serve three times in a row before one of her teammates serves and the player who is only going to serve the ball must start be beyond the 18 (both in terms of being wide as well as being 18 yards from the end line) and take the ball down to the end line to cross.  Also, the runners should start outside the 18 as well in order to recreate the correct runs from a game.  

A team of good finishers will be able to score an average of 1.8 points per ball served.  Give it a try and let me know what you think at the FineSoccer Forum.

Have a great day!

Lawrence