A Great Way to Coach Passing and Receiving

Constant passing using match-like situations and a bit of competition to give it an edge is the best way to coach your players to be ready for soccer matches. And it should be fun too, says David Clarke.

Great for passing, agility and building fitness

We’ve covered passing and first touch a lot in Soccer Coach Weekly, and it is indeed one of the most important things you can teach a young soccer player. I came across a little exercise recently that I just had to share with you. It is great for passing and agility but it also has a little bit of fitness in there too.

Run, pass, receive, control, pass

Use two players and four cones. In the diagram the player at the bottom runs left to right and gives a square pass to the player on the opposite side. The top player does the same thing from right to left. Both players must keep up with play to receive, then pass. So it is a constantly moving exercise with first touch and good passing vital to its effectiveness.

It has proper soccer-like situations

If your player makes a bad touch, he will have to work a little bit harder to get it back which is exactly what he would have to do in a game.

Making the exercise competitive

You can move this exercise on by bringing a bit of competition into it by combining skills with fitness and whenever you can do that in an exercise it adds to its value.

After 10 touches get your players to sprint to the 18 yard line and see who can get back to their positions first.

You will see that by adding a little bit of competitiveness to it, the pace picks up and the skill level goes up a notch because they are doing it in competition with each other, so you’ve created a skill building exercise.

Key coaching tip: First touch is vital coupled with a good inside foot pass.