Creating and finishing

This training session is all about creating and finishing from a variety of distances and positions in and around the box. The majority of chances created will be from crosses but scoring opportunities also arise from both through balls and combination play.

This session is good preparation for leading into tactical work, or to reinforce some coaching points before a game.

What we want to try to do is to build solid connections and relationships between certain positions and the players that play in those positions.

There is no better way to enhance the finishing technique of a player than to get him to repeat the gesture over and over, and moreover, finishing is the gesture that gives the most joy to the players.

They enjoy this session because even the warm-up is focused on finishing and it progresses into a realistic shooting drill without changing the size of the playing area too much…

To put it simply, this is a finishing session, but as it unfolds and progresses it becomes so much more than that. It allows us to devote time to all of the players – practising and repeating specific actions that will be asked of them in a match situation.

We can adjust how we use this session, as not only can it be used to work on specific movements, combinations and relationships within the team, but it can also be used on a more relaxed training day in order to give some more simple training time…

Work on improving penalty box anticipation and reactions, for both defensive and offensive players. This is crucially important because every game is decided by penalty box behaviour.