Pleasant Hills Soccer Association
Footskills Progression for the Winter Season, January 05, 2003
 
 

Introduction

The winter indoor season is a nice environment to concentrate on fundamental ball movement skills and shooting for the U8 and U10 age groups. The ideal conditions of the surface, although fast, enable the players to be successful in almost every aspect of moving the ball. The contained area and the use of the walls help provide for repetitive practice sessions on shooting. Ofcourse it is expected that we will  transfer the training of these skills to the outdoors in the Spring as well.

For the U8, we are introducing them to fundamental movement of the ball using the various surfaces of the foot. For the U9 and U10, which have already gone through the fundamental movement skills, we concentrate on the more advanced footwork, turns, and moves to beat a defender.  In both situations, retention of the skills can be maximized if the skills are introduced in related sequences or groups over the expanded period of time of the Winter season's eight weeks.

Bombarding the players with a lot of different ball movement skills in heavy doses does not give them enough time for experimentation. Therefore, the approach we will take is to concentrate on about four related ball movement skills each session.  Each week we will introduce two or three new skills after reviewing two or three skills from the previous week's session.  Therefore, over the course of eight weeks, the players are introduced to about twenty different moves or skills. Again, I want to repeat that we will continue the ball movement skills outdoors in the Spring where the environment is less than ideal.

There are different ways to touch and move the ball. Many of these ball movement skills and foot work were compiled and popularized by Weil Coerver, a noted Dutch coach. Coerver's popularization was sparked by a series of videos. These videos have evolved and have been refined to a three volume set which your club can make available to you.  See www.coerver-coaching.com for the Coerver Coaching and see www.reedswain.com or www.soccerlearningsystems.com for the purchase of the videos. In soccer circles, you will hear the common phases of "doing Coervers" or "Coerver exercises" in references to  presentations, training drills, and exercises to improve ball touch. Our U9 and U10 introductory skills sessions are design around Coervers. However, we will not cover the fast footwork exercises and will not fulfill the more motivated and skilled U9 and U10 players. Our sessions are just introductory and it is highly recommended the more motivated and skilled players receive additional training such as the "Magic Moves" sessions offered by PA West (see www.pawest-soccer.org) or ask your coach to set up additional skills sessions for your team.

For the U8, however, Coerver skills are a little technical and advanced. For these players we concentration on fundamental ball movement skills. All of these skills prepared for the U8's are introductory in nature. They deal less with the fine motor skills of some of the more technical Coerver skills. Instead we will deal more with the gross motor skills and agility movements required by the Coervers. These fundamental movements were compiled by Tom Goodman and also presented in video (see www.worldclasssoccer.net). In addition, the presentation is more along the lines of "try this"; creating an environment of experimentation and creativity with success. As mentioned many times before, we want to use the natural task orientation of the U8 players.  That is, introduce a ball movement skill, get them to try it and experiment, and then motivate them to do better by challenging them in some manner. These U8 players aim to please the coach and love personal success.

We will do the introductory ball movement skills for the U8's and U10's at the beginning during warm-up. Let me quickly add that this portion should not last longer than 20 minutes. The remaining time is spent with one or two additional group activities related to ball movement or shooting followed by a 15 to 20 minute game. This is less than ideal, but we are limited by indoor time and restrictive space.

What remains is the progression of fundamental ball movement skills or Coerver skills for the eight week indoor session. Here we present the skills separated by age group. The first section is the U8 progression and the second section is the U10 progression. Again, let me add that each week we are reviewing two or three items and presenting two or three new items.  These progressions list each item by name. The third section contains a description of each of the fundamental ball movement skill or Coerver skill by name. The names are more along the lines of descriptive names. These names help the younger players more easily remember the item. Coerver names for similar items were gleaned from soccer players who made the moves famous.
 

The Fundamental Ball Skills (for U8 players)


    Session 1: Sole of the feet, top rolls, and top touches

    Session 2: Inside of the foot touches
    Session 3: Using the inside and outside of the laces
    Session 4: Inside and outside touches with lunges
    Session 5: Outside stopovers
    Session 6: Inside stopovers
    Session 7: Near and far foot V moves
    Session 8: Check moves and chops

Foot Skills and Moves (for U10 players)


    Session 1: Top Rolls

    Session 2: Inside Stepover
    Session 3: Inside and Outside Chop
    Session 4: Inside Outside Cut
    Session 5: Outside Stepover
    Session 6: Outside Stepover Turns
    Session 7: V Moves
    Session 8: Inside Out (Cruyff)
Description of Ball Skills and Moves

Many of these descriptions come from the Soccer-Coach-L Basic Coaching Manual at www.usc.mun.ca/~dgraham/manual

Toe Touch Stop: If you are going to go forward at speed, then you are going to have to stop.  The toe touch stop is a very useful move to help keep the ball from going out of bounds or as a basis for other moves and turns (Magic Hop). With the ball moving forward, put the plant foot beside the ball and lightly tap the top of the ball with the opposite foot.  Do not put any weight on the tapping foot. A slight tap on the ball will cause it to stop.

Magic Hop: With the ball moving forward at speed, do a toe touch stop by planting a foot beside the ball and lightly tapping the top of the ball with the opposite foot.  Your momentum will force you to continue forward and land on the tapping foot. As you are landing, turn your body sideways.  Once your tapping foot is planted, push off and back to get the stopped ball in the opposite direction.

Inside Top Roll: Roll the ball to the inside across your body with the inside and bottom sole of the foot.  Try to position the sole of the foot on the ball so that the ball rolls. At the same time, the rolling foot is planted so you can continue moving in the same direction without interfering with the rolling ball.

Forward Top Roll (Skip): The is movement of the ball is very similar to the inside top roll.  However, instead of rolling the ball to the inside across the body, the ball is moved forward away from the body. Position the ball slightly to the side ust outside the foot.  Position the front sole of the foot on the to of the ball so that the ball rolls forward by pushing the ball across the sole of the foot from the front to the heal.  Plant the rolling foot to the side of the ball so you can continue moving forward without interfering with the ball.  As you continue rolling the ball forward, you get into a skipping motion each time the foot used to roll the ball is positioned onto the top of the ball.

Hat Dance: Lightly ta the top of the ball using the front sole of the foot, alternating taps with either foot.  Try to keep the ball from moving by tapping gently from the top.  When the ball can be kept still, try "Around the World" by taking slightly larger steps as you come down from each top so that you manage to circle the ball.

Backward Top Roll: Alternating feet and using a skipping  type of step, pull the ball backwards with light touches on the top of the ball using the front sole of the foot.  Very similar to the motion made using the Hat Dance except the ball is drawn or dragged toward you with each step.

Shooting The Gap: Perform a sequence of top rolls with the same foot by rolling the ball across the body using the inside to outside sole of the foot.  Then, after a top roll touch is performed, instead of planting the foot, touch the ball forward away from the body with the outside of the same foot. This is called shooting the gap since it may be used to quickly split or move through the space between defenders with the ball.

Side to Side (Tic-Toc): Using the inside front edge of the feet, knock the ball back and forth rapidly between the feet so that the ball is in constant motion and the ball is redirected with every touch.  THis movement forms the basis of many of the Coerver fast footwork exercises not covered in our introductory material.

Forward Push: Using the front laces of each foot, alternate light touches of the ball with a forward push. Attempt to touch the ball with each foot and each step.

Snake: A series of easy cuts or taps with the inside the outside, then inside, ... of the same foot so the ball snakes its way along. Repeat the snake using the other foot.

Inside Outside Cut: Similar to the Snake except here we try to exaggerate the moves so as to stretch and reach to cut the ball back and forth.  When done properly, the ball has tremendous lateral movement and little forward movement.

Lunge: Also know as a Scissors behind the ball.  Step behind the ball as if preparing to take the ball with the outside of one foot, fake and plant the foot past the ball and then take it in the opposite direction with the outside of the other foot.  In its refined form involving a dipping of the shoulder with the outside fake, this is sometimes referred to as a Reverse Matthews.

Scissors: Position the ball slightly to the outside and side of one foot. Circle in front or over the ball with the outside of the foot from inside to outside, planting the foot beside the ball and on the other side of you.  Take the ball away to the opposite direction with the outside of the other foot.

Double Scissors: Make alternate scissors steps and take the ball with the outside of the first foot. Not effective if this move is not done quickly or if done to close to the opponent.

Inside Top Roll to Inside Chop: This is an intermediate exercise leading toward the Inside Stepover Turn.  Here you perform an Inside Top Roll.  Plant the foot used with the top roll slightly ahead and inside the rolling ball, then immediately pivot on the planted foot and swing the opposite foot so as to cut or chop the ball back in the opposite direction.

Inside Stepover Turn: WIth the ball moving away, swing a foot from inside the foot to outside the foot in front of the ball, planting the foot ahead of the ball as the ball is running to the outside of the planted foot.  Then pivot on the plant foot and swing the opposite foot in front of the ball so as to perform an inside cut or chop back in the opposite direction.

Inside Stepover to Outside Chop: This is sometimes called a Rivolino. With the ball moving, lightly plant a foot in front of the ball by taking a big inside to step over the ball as if to pass the ball with the inside of the foot.  Then quickly pick up the same foot and outside chop the ball back in the other direction. A second and third outside chops may subsequently be performed to continue an outside circle turn, also called a Becenbauer.

Stop and Go (Pull-Push): This is sometimes call a locomotive or a Gascigne.  With the ball moving forward, use the front sole of the foot to pull the ball back, then immediately use the front laces of the same foot to push the ball forward.  Sometimes the push forward with the same foot is performed after a slight shielding step if performed by the plant foot.  With this variation, the ball is really pulled or dragged forward and not exactly pushed.

Near Foot V Move: With the ball moving forward and shielded to one side, reach with the near foot and tap, pull, or draw the ball back towards the center of the body with the front sole, turning, then push the ball in the other (forward) direction with the front of the same foot.  The path of the ball makes a V shape.

Far Foot V Move: With the ball moving forward and to one side, reach across the body with the far foot. Tap, pull, or draw the ball back in a similar fashion as that performed using a Magic Hop toward the center of body, turning, then push the ball in the other (forward) direction with the front of the same foot. The path of the ball make a V shape.

Near to Far Foot V Move: With the ball moving forward and shielded to one side, reach with the near foot and tap, pull, or draw the ball back towards the center of the body with the front sole as with the Near Foot V Move. Now plant the tapping foot, turn, then put the ball in the other (forward) direction with the inside or front of the opposite foot. The path of the ball make a V shape.  The advantage of this move over the single foot moves is that the ball can be immediately shielded after the turn.

Inside Chop: With the ball moving forward, reach over the ball by planting the pivot foot near the ball, swiveling the hips, and cutting the ball back sharply toward the center of the body with the laces of non planted foot. When done in a refined fashion, the ball should end up near the planted foot, setting up the next touch.

Outside Chop: With the ball moving forward and lined up with the middle of the body, reach over the ball by planting the pivot foot slightly away from the ball, going over the ball, turning, and cutting the ball back sharply in the opposite direction with the outside of the non planted foot.

Check (Hip Swivel): Fake with the inside of one foot by swiveling the hips toward the ball. The ball may be touched or stopped and the fake may include dipping the shoulders in the direction of the fake.  Then quickly reverse directions from the fake by taking the ball with the inside of the other foot.

Moving Matthew: With the ball moving in one direction, fake or dip the shoulders in the direction of the moving ball, planting the foot ahead of the moving ball.  The other foot is positioned to reinforce the fake with a slight inside touch, followed immediately by a cut back in the other direction with the outside of the foot. Exploding as you go into the second touch.

Outside Stepover Turn: With the ball moving, plant the foot in front of the ball and to the outside by performing a scissors type of outside stepover move.  As the foot is planted, pivot and turn on the plant foot, and, at the same time, use the other opposite foot to pull or draw the ball back under the body in the inside direction of the plant foot.  Once the body is fully positioned in the other direction, the ball should be to the inside of non plant foot, which not can be used to tap the ball back in the opposite direction with an inside touch.

Outside Stepover to Outside Chop: With the ball moving, plant the foot in front of the ball and to the outside by performing a scissors type of outside stepover move.  Once the foot is planted, turn back in the other direction by chopping the ball with the outside of the other foot.

Inside-out (Cruyff): Set up a passing position with a foot, fake the pass or kick, then circle around and in front of the ball with the foot and inside touch the ball back in the other direction under the body and behind the plant foot. Explode in the other direction with the outside of the planted foot.

Moving Inside-out (Cruyff): With the ball moving in a forward direction and shielded to the outside. use the near foot to tap, pull, or draw the ball back toward the body behind the plant foot. At the same time, lean back in the other forward direction and touch the ball out from under the body in this direction with the inside of the same foot. Explode in the other direction with a touch of the plant foot.

Walkover: With the ball moving forward, take a step with the near foot slightly over to the top of the ball and turning the body in the direction of the step. Continue turning the body while planting the stepping foot. While using the newly planted foot, continue pivoting and use the other foot to drag the ball in the same direction as in the start. Finish the walk over the ball by planting the dragging foot, completing a full 360 turn, and pushing the ball forward with original foot that initiated the step.

Spinning Outside V Move (Maradona): A somewhat complex move. With the ball moving and being shielded to the outside and front, fake with the near foot like you are going to kick the ball forward with the laces. Instead, row the front sole of the foot up over the to of the ball, and spin toward the opposite direction while dragging the ball back using the foot touching the top of the ball. After finishing the spin, you will end up positioned in the other direction, the foot used to touch and draw the ball back is planted, and the ball is in position to touch forward using the originally planted foot.