How to Coach the Art of Beating Opponents

Beating an opponent is a vital skill to teach your players, says Tony Carr, Academy Director at West Ham United.

Key Coaching Tip

Quick feet and change of pace as they go past their opponents.

It is important that you arm your players with the skills to create space by taking a player from the other team out of the game, by coaching them to wrong foot and beat their opponent. Using these two simple practices will give the players confidence to try it in games.

Get your players to use a trick

In figure 1, player A runs with the ball towards the mannequin (or one of your helpers), he performs his trick to beat his opponent, uses a change of pace to go past and passes to player B who repeats the sequence.

The technique or trick the players use is up to them - Soccer Coach Weekly tells you how to coach a trick every week. Get your players to use the trick that they are most comfortable with.

Progress as figure 2 by adding player C who acts as a wall. Player A runs at the mannequin as before but instead of a trick to beat his man, he passes to player C who passes first time back to player A. This simple wall pass achieves the same objective, ie beating your opponent.

Give the players a choice, either trick your opponent or play a wall pass. Let the player decide. Player B repeats the process from the other end.