How the First 15 Minutes are Key to Your Training Sessions

Giving your players the responsibility of looking after their own ball and getting them to start each session with 15 minutes of passing is key to their development and key to your training sessions, says David Clarke.

Make the first 15 minutes work for your team

The first 15 minutes of your training session is very important. It sets the pace for the rest of the 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 just raring to go - is a daunting one. And how are you going to set out the session 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 is. Make it their time.

Give your players their own soccer ball

This is how I do it. 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 it is their ball. Tell them that when they turn up at training the first 15 minutes is theirs to 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?

They look after the ball

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 they will be keen to make sure theirs is in the bag for next week. This is good practice for your players and the more they do it the more they will benefit. You can set up the next stage of training while they are occupied with quick touch soccer.

Key coaching tip: Set the number of kicks with each foot depending on the ability of your player.