Practice should be Fun: Skill Oriented Games to Improve Soccer Practice
Practice doesn’t have to be boring! Here are a few games for coaches and players that will sharpen skills in an exciting and enjoyable way.
“Money in the Bank”
Mark off two adjacent 30’x30’ boxes with practice cones, it’s fine if they share a boundary. One is the Red Team and the other is the Blue Team. Four Red Team players in the Red Team box basically play keep-away from a single Blue Team defender. If they’re able to connect 5 passes without the blue defender stealing or the ball going out of bounds, they win “$100” and play stops.
Once they win, they have two choices: They can either keep going and try to make more “money” with a new Blue Team defender at the risk of losing all the “money” they just made, or they can bank the “money” and pass to the Blue Team box where they will have the chance to make “money.”
You can make play more or less challenging by adjusting the size of the boxes or adding to the number of offensive and/or defensive players.
Money in the Bank focuses on fast judgment and accurate passing.
“Tug o’ War”
In the soccer version of Tug of War, the Blue Team and the Red Team face off from behind their boundaries across twenty yards of “no man’s land”. Practice cones are set up in a war line just beyond and parallel to the team boundary lines.
In the very center is a uniquely colored soccer ball. Each team attempts to hit the one unique soccer ball with low, hard passes from kicked balls until the unique ball passes the opposing team’s war line.
This game focuses accurate and powerful passing.
“Killer Whale”
Set up cones in a large circle and designate two players in pinnies to be the killer whales. Everyone else (4-12 players) is the seal. The killer whales run around trying to “eat “ as many seals as they can by kicking soccer balls out of the boundary.
The seals try to protect their soccer ball by dribbling and blocking, but once a seal gets their ball kicked out of the boundary, they retrieve it and re-enter the ring as another seal. The killer whales keep track of how many seals they’ve eaten, and just like in the wild, they can work together for their dinner.
Play lasts for about a minute or two before a new pair of killer whales gets a turn.
“Killer Whales” focuses on dribbling, stealing, and ball protection.
Practice these drills with a small soccer goal like Rukket's El Diablo or Grasshopper line of practice equipment, www.rukket.com!
