**disclaimer** It is difficult to make a solid assessment of a coach or a program based on observing one isolated session. Context, as always, is key. I know that many coaches are interested to see what other teams, especially high level ones, are doing, and that is my main reason for sharing. For the purposes of comparing and contrasting I will also post a training session from FC Barcelona’s youth academy that I observed in the Spring. This will be posted in the near future. I will try to establish context for both sessions.
8/21/14 Local U18 USSDA academy training session
Context: The academy team just started their preseason on 8/19, so this is their third training session together for the new season. They are training just once a day this week. I am standing at an elevated position near the field, but am too far away to hear every single coaching point. I will include direct quotes of comments I was able to hear for clarity.
Session:
As coaches chat and finish setting up cones, players start an informal 9v2 rondo, with a one touch restriction. There is no coach supervision or feedback. The remaining players not included in the rondo form small groups of 2-4 players and just stand facing each other and do some one touch passing.
After 5-7 minutes the coach signals for the players to bring it in and start the session.
Coach’s pre-training talk (3:00pm) – I am too far away to hear much of what is being said, however I do hear the phrase “crossing and finishing” several times.
Warm up – Players go on a jog around the field, except the goalkeepers who jog to a nearby field and do their own warm up and two players that go work with a fitness coach (I’m assuming they are recovering from injury).
Players meet Assistant Coach at far corner of field and begin a technical warm up that consists of “Come-to” passing lines and periodic rest periods for stretching. They are way too far away to make out coaching points, though I do hear him say “keep it one the ground” a few times.
They start off with basic “Come-to”, lines appox. 10 yds apart, facing each other. One touch passing, follow your pass. Back and forth.
Work/rest periods are timed by coach. Rest periods are for players to stretch.
Next “Come-to” pattern is two touch, receive then pass, and still follow your pass.
Rest/stretch
Players continue two touch passing but this time they do not follow their pass and instead back pedal to end of same line.
Rest/Stretch
Final pattern has a lot of moving parts and is back to one touch. Four players involved at all times, long pass to lay off, repeating, back and forth.
Water break
First phase – “Crossing and Finishing”
Entire team (including GKs) returns to Head Coach. Coach sets up a crossing and finishing exercise at one of the goals. Keepers in goal, 3 lines spread out along top of 18, two wide lines at corners of 18, one central line.
Two players from central line are involved, one as a CF with back to goal, and one as an AM. They touch the ball back and forth, one touch, a couple of times and then the AM plays a through ball into the corner for the winger to run on to. The AM and CF must make runs into the box – one to the near post, one to the far post (it varies who does which) and the winger must serve the ball as quickly as possible. Conditions: Crosses must either be on ground or in air, but CANNOT bounce. Poor cross = 10 pushups for winger. Ball must be finished one touch. If AM or CF shoot off target then they must fetch the ball.
After a period of time the coach backs the lines up and spreads them out further. There are now 3 CMs involved, so it looks like this:
Now the AM and CF touch the ball back and forth a few time, one touch, then the CF plays back to one of the DMs. The DM plays the through ball for the winger on their side and then players attack the same way as before.
Coaching point: “cross as early as you can wide guys”
Water break (3:35pm)
Group is split into two groups (attacking and defending).
The Assistant Coach takes the goalkeepers, defenders, and a few DMs go to opposite goal and works on playing out of the back on goal kicks. Again, they are too far away for me to hear many of the coaching points though I do observe that the CBs are not asked to get much depth and consistently receive the ball at top of 18, and are never wider then the corner of the 18. The coach does ask the DM to “support at a good angle” from the CB.
The Head Coach takes the CMs, Wingers, and Forwards and works attacking patterns. Early in the exercise the coach makes the point that wingers should receive the ball with their back foot to encourage “forward penetration.” The team was set up like this:
The coach really emphasized the interchanging of the AM and the CF depending on where the ball is and how it is circulating. CF was to go toward the ball (winger), and the AM was to shade off the CF’s back shoulder. Coach did not want anyone in the same horizontal line, however CF can and should be in the same vertical line with ball side DM.
In the next phase of this activity the players can combine to get into box (in behind an offside line marked by cones) and shoot on an empty goal. Players start doing it every time, within the first 3-4 passes. Coach says to “keep the ball a bit before going to goal.”
Next, they work on switching the field during the build up to set up the same crossing and finishing pattern from earlier.
Water break (3:56pm)
Entire group comes back together. Set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation on a full field. Ball starts with GK, must play out of back, working the ball into attack. Condition: “switch the ball outside of 18 three times before attacking goal” and “get there however”
At this point there is approximately 20 minutes left in the session, but unfortunately I had to leave. I assume they did the exercise for another 10 minutes or so and then did their cool down. This is what I have observed in other sessions
Next in this series I will post a session observed at FC Barcelona’s La Masia this past Spring with a comparable age group….
Christopher Cramer 
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