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Football Training to improve close range finishing session # 1.

This is a football skill challenge that the players can facilitate on their own without the need for a football coach.

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.

How can we coach players to play with their heads up and improve their “spatial awareness”? Good players are always aware of what is happening around them, they have pictures in their heads. They play one, sometimes two or three steps ahead of everyone else. They are aware of where the space is on the pitch, where their players are, where the opposition are. They focus not on where the ball is, but where it is going next.

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

The 1962 European Cup Final was played in Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium between Real Madrid, the masters of Europe and precocious newcomers from Portugal, Benfica, who were the holders of the European crown.

This video biography highlights football superstar Thierry Henry’s fantastic talent and goal scoring ability. Henry ran at an incredible pace and with perfect balance, yet it all seemed effortless. He glided over the ground, taking yards off defenders. When he drifted in from the left wing and got the ball onto his right foot, invariably the outcome was a shot on goal. He scored an incredible 228 goals from 377 starts for Arsenal over an 8 year period, with many of the goals so very memorable.

In 1990 Graham Taylor became the England Manager. This documentary follows Graham and the England team during the ultimately unsuccessful World Cup Qualifying campaign for the 1994 World Cup Finals in the USA.