Sunday 22 May 2022, 07:00

Train like a pro with the FIFA Training Centre: attacking combination play

Do you spend Sunday afternoons playing football with your children in the garden? Maybe you are a passionate educator who dedicates all your free time to coaching kids at your local club? Do you jump for joy when they score a goal or master a particular skill and swell with pride when you see them progress? If so, then the new series of FIFA.com articles and resources from the FIFA Training Centre are tailor-made for you.

The FIFA Training Centre (FTC), which launched last November, contains a wealth of technical information, analysis and resources designed by renowned experts and coaches, available to all football enthusiasts. If, despite your best intentions, you sometimes find yourself lacking the requisite knowledge or imagination to make your sessions as exciting as they are useful for the development of your budding champions, then you will find what you are looking for in the "Practice" section, thanks to numerous videos and descriptions of training sessions, all focused on developing individual skills or tactical mastery. In the section entitled "The game", you will find a whole host of analysis and resources developed by sports experts which will help you get a more in-depth understanding of the game, while the "Environment" section tells you more about how to create a more high-performance environment in football. In "Match library", you can watch hundreds of videos from FIFA tournaments arranged by specific moments within matches, with options to refine the filters based on the coach’s requirements. The first two parts of the series were dedicated to children aged 4 to 8 and 8 to 12, while this session is aimed at the 12-to-15 age group. As you will see in the following video, each exercise will enable you to achieve the two goals that coaches the world over, regardless of their level, aspire to: to make progress and have fun.

Over to you: attacking combination play

As well as a demonstration video, each basic football section within the FTC gives tips for warming up, ideas on how to make the exercise more or less difficult, more entertaining or competitive, as well as essential safety instructions. Today’s session encourages players to work on combination play in finishing attacks off. A team of four attackers takes on three defenders, with two other players stationed on the line, one on each post. To score, the attacking team has to come up with a combination play involving one of these two players. You can make the drill more or less complex in a number of ways: allowing players only one touch when playing the final ball or finishing; adding one or two defenders; or by telling players to finish with their head, on the volley, or with their weaker foot. As ever, the possibilities are endless. All you have to do is use your imagination. It’s up to you!

Hungry for more...

If this presentation has given you ideas for your next training session, then feel free to explore the treasure trove of videos and advice at your disposal in the FTC. Whatever the age category, and whatever aspect of the game you want to improve, you are bound to find the right exercise for your needs. The entire "Practice" section is available HERE. To learn all about the FIFA Training Centre, click HERE.