UEFA B

We have recently seen Chelsea do an outstanding defensive job on both Liverpool and Atlético Madrid and Crystal Palace, under Tony Pulis have built their impressive run of form on the basis of a solid and organised defence.

In football, one of the biggest dangers is on the turnover of the ball that happens when the attacking team lose the ball and have committed players forward. They are open to a quick counter attack and many goals are scored from this transition of attacking to then having to defend a counter attack. The problem for the defending team is that they are now outnumbered, disorganised and have lots of space behind them, which is difficult to defend. This is the football training subject of a question from one of our coaches:

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?

I had another question from a Grassroots Coaching fan regarding a key UEFA B Coaching topic:

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.

I recently received a question on a UEFA B coaching topic, one which is very relevant to the way football has evolved tactically. The question was how do you Coach a team to defend a counter attack.

Football coaching a team in a small sided game, with the coaching topic of defend as a team.

Who is the best creative player? A number of England players, such as Ashley Cole and Michael Carrick talk about how football is changing and players are becoming quicker and more creative. A leading England football coach explains that as the game has changed, players need to be able to be able to retain possession, be able to pass quickly and effectively over a range of distances, but particularly over short distances. As a result, football coaches need to understand how to encourage young players to think creatively. The FA Youth Award coaching course trains coaches to do this.