Soccer drill to kick start training sessions

Make the first 15 minutes of your soccer training sessions something to look forward to with a soccer drill that lets players organise themselves.

Training time tip

Giving your players the responsibility of looking after their own ball and getting them to start each soccer training session with 15 minutes of passing is key to their development and the key to your soccer training drills.

The first 15 minutes of your training session are very important. This time sets the pace for the rest of the soccer training session. I bet there are times when you’ve just got home from work and the prospect of facing 18 boys - who have been pent up all day in school and are just raring to go - is a daunting one. And how are you going to set out the soccer drills when the boys need supervision?

What I do is make sure it is their 15 minutes, so that they are raring to get to training because they know how good the first 15 minutes of drill time is. Make it their time.

players pass between pairs using each foot

Drill set up

This is how I set up the drill:

Split your squad into groups of two and have a soccer ball for each group. Let them put their names on the ball so they know at each training session which is their ball.
Tell them that when they turn up at training, the first 15 minutes is a warm up drill time when they can use the ball between the two players. Give them a target number of kicks that they have to make with their feet in that time. Perhaps 150 with the right and 75 with the left.
The ball stays at the club and the boys must get it out and put it away at each session. It will also stop you losing so many soccer balls during a season as your players will be keen to make sure their ball is in the bag for next week.

This is good soccer drill to warm up your players and the more they practise the drill, the more they will benefit and improve their skills. You can set up the next stage of training while they are occupied with these quick touch soccer skills.

Click here for another warm up drill to work on passing skills.

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