Coaching Tips

The best players can pass the ball accurately over long and short distances. There are two simple ways to help your players become better passers, particularly with the frequently used side foot short range pass. 1. Get their head up prior to the pass, so they can see who they want to pass to and "picture the pass" 2. Use the correct side foot passing technique.

I recently presented this as a topic at a Football Coaching Seminar in Porto, Portugal.

We hear a lot about possession play. Brendan Rogers at Liverpool has developed and evolved a very successful playing style based upon possession based football - although it does help that you have Suarez in your team at the sharp end of all the possession based play!!

Question: My football coaching philosophy is to keep possession through short passing and good support. But the reality is that my players don't seem capable of doing this and the play keeps breaking down and they are loosing confidence in what I am trying to achieve. Can you help with some coaching sessions that can develop these short passing and support skills and increase my players confidence?

Question: My players seem frightened of shooting from distance. I want to develop their confidence, belief and technique. Do you have any football training sessions that can help me coach this skill of long range shooting?

Question: I have a FA Level 2 Support Day coming up and have to coach "Improve the Skill of running with the ball". I have some ideas, but they all seem a bit forced and unrealistic and I am not sure they are right, do you have any realistic run with the ball football coaching videos that could help me?

Proving the potential of people power During Liverpool FC’s heyday, the “Kop”, a raised terrace at the Walton Breck Road end of the Anfield stadium, gained mythical status as the clubs 12th man. The support of 27,000 devoted souls, standing shoulder to shoulder with their team, inspired the club to reach the top of the domestic and European game.

Following on from the previous blog article, we now look at how to coach a team to defend deep and then counter attack. In this UEFA B coaching topic, the defending team are giving up ground and defending deep, in and around their own penalty area. Typically, this might be an away team who are 0-0 or winning the game.