Soccer coaching warm-up to improve heading to score
Warm-up exercises should be quick, lively and all-action. Heading is a skill sometimes overlooked, yet this drill gets players quickly involved and, given the short distance to goal, encourages intentional placement of headers which can be replicated in match scenarios.
The use of the two-sided goal also means that there’s no wasted time in retrieving balls, because any successful goalscoring headers end up near the feet of the team on the opposite side.
How to set it up
- Set up two cones or flags eight yards apart to create a goal.
- On each side of the goal, 10 yards back, set up lines of players.
- Nominate one player to begin in goal.
Getting started:
- Serve a ball for the first player in the second line to head at goal.
- Immediately after doing this, the player reacts and takes the place of the keeper, who goes to the back of the queue from which the heading player started.
- Then serve a ball to the opposite team and repeat the process.
- The practice is repeated for five minutes.
- Each player should be told to keep his eyes on the ball at all times, using his arms and twisting his body so as to head with maximum power.
This article is taken from The Ultimate Soccer Warm-ups Manual by Michael Beale.
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