Football Coaching Session: Playing wide & Getting Feedback

As I stated in my previous blog post I spent a chunk of the U17s pre-season working on getting the ball wide because in the previous season we’d attacked very well centrally but hadn’t always been able to stretch teams.

Not only did I want us to think about getting the ball out to our wide players and working with the wingers, I wanted us to look to think about changing the point of attack from one side of the pitch to the other and be more patient when in possession.

I spoke to the players at each session about the principles of width & depth and used a session one particular week which worked very well and which I’ve shared below.

The session was not just interesting from a players point of view but I also asked a local academy coach to watch the session and provide feedback, more on that below…

The session isn’t new and I’m sure others have used it but I always like to share sessions which work well as someone may see it and find it useful. The setup was a full pitch width and we played from 18 yard to halfway with the pitch split in to thirds with the wide channels narrower than the middle section.

We had two teams of 5/6 and then had two neutral wingers. The neutral wingers obviously played for whichever team was in possession and they were encouraged to be positive and attack either goal when they received the ball. We said that it would be 1 goal if a team scored in the central goal or two in the wide goal.

What works nicely with this session is because the pitch is wider than it is long it forces play to go wide naturally and importantly, there were lots of opportunities for players to provide support behind the ball. Being able to provide support behind the ball isn’t always a movement which comes naturally to players when their desire is to get forward and score goals so this session was great in that there were lots of examples of this happening.

It’s important the neutral wingers are rotated often because there may be periods where they’re inactive so you need to get them involved. In the session I put on one team in particular were having more success so I changed it and asked one or two of their players to try and play one or two touch so that they were challenged whilst also giving the other side a chance to get in to the game.

We played for around 15 minutes and then did some Q&A, allowed teams to reflect, change formation & decide if they wanted to press the ball higher up the pitch or not.

There were examples where teams tried to play repeatedly down one side without success so we spoke about changing the angle of attack and shifting the ball from right-to-left or vice-versa – again, this session gives lots of opportunities for that to happen.

If you’re looking for a session which gives plenty of chances for players to get the ball wide, look at overlaps and change the angle of attack I’d suggest giving this a go as it provides all of that.

Getting Feedback

I’ve attended coaching courses and CPD events but apart from when on the courses I’ve never had any direct feedback on my coaching style and as I was keen to get some input I asked a local academy coach if he’d do it after he’d run a couple of goalkeeper training sessions for our adults.

He came and observed the session above & the feedback I got was very good but what I noticed is it’s incredibly hard trying to manage a session when a) you’re getting feedback actively and b) you’re thinking as much about what the other coach is thinking as you are about what’s happening in the session!

What I noticed from the feedback was that when I coach a session I’m very much observing the topic and asking “are they getting it?” and “what do I need to coach?”. The feedback I had on the session asked “Is one team getting more success than the other?” and “if so, what can I do to change this?”. We spoke about making it harder for players on the team who were getting success (asking them “Can you try and play 1 or 2 touch?”) and also discussed how we could change the dynamics of the session such as topics you cover on L2 (space, equipment, players etc) to either make it more difficult for a team or easier for the other.

We spoke about communication and the need to be concise. Get in, get the point across and let them get back to playing!

The feedback also looked at how you can communicate directly with players on a one-to-one level to pull them out & praise them, ask them questions and perhaps if required, lift their motivation levels if you see them drop.

There was lots and lots I wrote down but to summarise my main take-away points:

Key notes:

• What’s the topic?
• Is there success? (For each team)
• If it’s easy, how can you challenge?
• If it’s hard, how can you adjust it?
• Communication, shorter – change of tone where required
• Individuals – pull them out, challenge them, congratulate them, question them

I’ve tried to take all of this in to the sessions we’ve had since the feedback and it’s been really useful so far. You have to be open and a little brave to want feedback but it’s only going to help you improve as a coach.