After two weeks of training my teams are getting ready for their first games. I’m starting to get an idea of how the teams fit together.

The formations I use for small-sided soccer keep it pretty simple. I always use a 2-3-1 for teams playing 7 v 7 and 4-3-1 for playing 9 v 9 games. I’ve found that these formations are effective, easy to teach and create a great pathway to the 11-a-side game. They allow me to teach the principles that the players will use playing different variations of the 4-3-3 which is the most common one used by the teams in our club.

This week’s question is from Nick

He’s asking about pre season friendlies.

Nick says,

 “I wanted to ask about friendlies, I coach a high school girls team and we have four friendlies or scrimmages against varying levels of competition before our actual season begins.

I know there are two schools of thought when it comes to friendlies and wanted to know which you recommend. The first being,   If you want a winning culture and to start the season with positive momentum you should play to win as much as possible (obviously accounting for player health and fitness), the other being, it’s a friendly, the result doesn’t matter, but the way you play, your ideas, and getting players time and exposure is the real value.”

Thanks for the question Nick!

I focus on different aspects of play when I’m doing preseason friendlies or scrimmages with other teams during the year. If we’ve been working on building from the back then that’s all I coach and I base our success on whether or not we’re keeping the ball well.

You have to sell this to the players but if you do then the players will be looking at their success as something different than the score and it will help them prepare for the games that really matter.

In This Episode

I’m sharing the way I decide what to work on with my teams at the beginning of the season. If you just watch your team play you’ll see that there’s a lot to work on. If you try to cover too much in a short period you’ll just overwhelm them and not get anywhere. Today I also share a couple of sessions that I’ve used with my own teams of different age groups

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Future Episodes

Next week I’ll talk how important it is that coaches have the courage to be patient in order to develop great soccer players.