Pleasant Hills Soccer Association
Summer Session, July 7 - July 13, 2002
Header Training: Session 1 of 2 (Under 9's and up)
Suggested summer session for week 3 of U9's and up. The
theme of the summer session is "Its in the Air" and striking the ball with
the head is within this summer theme.
Warm-up and Skills: Elbow Tag
Let me say up front that this warm-up has nothing to
do with the topic of the session. Sometimes you can just start off doing
something fun. Since this session has a long technical portion, I
decided to sandwich the technical portion between two games.
With Elbow Tag, have all the players pair up without
a ball. Each pair is to lock one elbow with one another. Select two
pairs (or one pair and one player if the number of players is odd). From
the three or four selected players, pick one to be "it" and give this player
a ball to carry in his/her hands. The remaining are trying not to get tagged
with the ball (the ball cannot be thrown). The paired players with locked
elbows are "safe" and cannot be tagged.
The players trying not to get tag may run around to
get away or they can lock elbows with one of the pairs. When this happen,
the outside player must unlock from the elbow, is no longer "safe", and
can be tagged with the ball by the "it" player.
Technical Training in Pairs
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Head Snapping
With the player standing about five yards apart. A player with the
ball must raise it to head height, arc his/her back backwards with one
foot slight ahead of the other for balance. Then the player brings
the ball toward the head at the same the player is snapping the head and
back forward to strike the ball toward the partner. Technically,
most of the power comes from the hips and back. The player must try
to maintain balance and not lunge forward onto one leg.
Have the players do this six or more time while you check their technique
and success.
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Self Serve Header
After the players have obtained a degree of success, have them serve
themselves headers toward their partner. Basically, they are using
the same head snapping technique as above, except now they are serving
the ball up to strike out of the air on the way down.
Again, have the players do this six or more time while you check their
technique and success.
-
Partner Service Header
As the final portion of the technical training in pairs, have the players
head the ball to their partner from their partners service in the air.
Again, have the players do this six or more times. If the success rate
is good, then have a time competition to see which pair of players can
get the most number of successful headers to each other.
Game Related: 2 v 2 Catch, Recieve, and Header to
Goal
Divide the players into teams of two's to play 2 v 2
on a fairly long (say 20 yards) and narrow field (in fact, there is no
need to mark the touch lines. At each end of the fields, put a 5
yard goal. In each field of 2 v 2, have one team in possession with
the ball in hand. The other team must lock elbows and stand on their
defensive goal line. These players can play keeper, but they cannot
move off the goal line. In addition, they can only use their free
hand to stop the ball.
The other team in possession of the ball must run
down the field toward their offensive goal, tossing and catching the ball
as they move down the field. They cannot run more than one or two steps
with the ball in hand. As they get close to their offensive goal,
one player serves up the ball to the other, who attempts to head the ball
across the goal.
One a goal is scored or crosses the end line, the
other team gains possession and IMMEDIATELY attacks the other goal as described
above. Please realize that the team that does not have possession
of the ball cannot defend the goal until they get back to their defensive
goal, elbows locked, and standing on the goal line.
The rules of the game call for scoring by headers
only. In addition, quick immediate counter attacks are to the advantage
of the team in possession of the ball. Let them play for five minutes or
so and maybe switch some teams around to start another game of 2 v 2 Catch,
Receive, and Header to Goal.
Game Related: 4 v 4 or 5 v 5 to Goal with Servers
Divide the players up into three teams (hopefully this
will give you a 4 v 4 plus 4 servers as the ideal situation). Place the
servers, two to a side, on the touch line of a 40 by 30 field. These
player will be servers. The other two teams will play regular soccer
to goal. If the ball is kicked out of bounce, the nearest server
will pick up the ball and serve it in the air to the appropriate team.
The players must receive the ball out of the air with either their head,
chest, or thigh or else the other team gains possession from the servers.
In addition to the servers playing the in bounce service,
they may also receive a pass from a field players. When a field player
passes a ball to a server, the server picks up the pass with their hands
and serves the ball in the air to the team that have him or her the ball.
The receiving team must try to gain possession out of the air with the
head, chest, or head as described above.
Play continues to goal as usual. Allow play to continue
for a fixed set of time and swap the service players in and a playing team
out for service.
Game to goal:
Play the normal game to goal with no restrictions.
Since we did not work on services in the air, the frequency of using
a header is not there. That is, there may not be many opportunities
to see if the header training has succeeded.
Warm down: Head - Catch
Have the players line up in a circle around the ball.
The coach stands with a ball in the middle of the players. At any
given time, the coach moves to a player at random. The coach lightly serve
the ball up to the player and says either "Catch" or "Head". Upon the command
"Catch" the player must head the ball with a ball back to the coach. Upon
the command "Head" the player must catch the ball with their hands. If
the player fails, they must sit down. The last player standing must be
able to do the challenge three times in a row without a mistake to be called
the winner.