Midfield Rotation

Here is a practice to introduce midfield rotation to your players.  It works with markers to introduce the positions with your squad. Most of the practices I have shared so far have given lots of ownership to the player, this practice is more structured so you get specific patterns, over and over. The practice is developed later to become more random, and challenges the players to create a solution. In general I don’t like drills that ask players to stand on a cone, as it can take the thinking out of football, this however is very good and players will be happy to play for 30 minutes with all these progressions.

The set up (above) works with 14 players all working together with 2 balls.  The yellow cones at either end can be introduced and explained as; full back to centre back to full back.  These 3 players are working with a midfield 3, who are standing on orange, blue and red cones respectively. The practice starts with the 2 full backs (on yellow cones) who pass the ball into the centre back, throughout the practice the players PASS and FOLLOW their pass. This means each player will experience the practice from every position.


PLAY 1: MIDFIELD RUNNER

This picture shows the pass across the back 3 (yellow cones) into the midfield triangle.  The full back now passes into the blue (1), who sets the ball to red (2) who plays the ball into the path of orange (3).  This player now passes into the other end, and the practice continues. As throughout the practice all players follow their pass and move on to the next marker, so yellow to blue, blue to red and red to orange. Sounds complicated, its not!!


COACHING POINTS

• Communication – Players call to SET the ball and to receive the ball on the ball
• Weight of pass – Can we play with 1 touch where possible, without losing quality?
• Speed of play – movement and passing at match speed
• What’s next? – Ask where do you go? Where does the ball go?

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I have changed the colour of player 3, which should make this diagram easier to understand.  Now the player on yellow marker changes his pass in to the feet of the player on orange (1), he returns the pass (2), the player on yellow now plays into blue (3) who sets (4) and plays on to the runner (5). I call this 1-2 spin, as the player now plays a 1-2 with the full back and spins in to the space.

COACHING POINTS

• Realistic movement of players towards and away from the ball
• Passing to feet (1-4) and into space (5)

PLAY 4: INTRODUCE A LONG PASS

Now the player on yellow changes the pass into player on his right (1), he lays into the blue (2) who plays back to yellow (3), the yellow play spins out to fake to play put the full back knocks the ball long into the end player.

COACHING POINTS

• Movement of player in yellow, towards the ball and away
• Passing quality – especially with the long “PING” yellow to yellow

PLAY 5: YOU DECIDE

On the pitch you can’t use markers.  Football doesn’t always follow patterns 1 to 2..etc. So now let the players decide how to move the ball (and players) from end to end. This will allow you to observe who understands, and how the players communicate with each other.

As a coach if it went wrong I was encouraging players to “TIDY” or “FIX IT“, otherwise they can freeze when it breaks down.  Explain that “thats football, lets fix it and continue”.

This is a practice I was introduced to by James Welsh, follow him on twitter Here. James is a UEFA B coach who works with players aged 8 – 15 at professional academies.

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