Suggestions For Girls Football Team

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surf_chick

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i have just accepted the opportunity to train an under 16s girls football (soccer) team.
i already have exercises and drills to use but would like some new and fresh ideas in order for me to get the best result from these girls.

i used to play for this team so i know what to expect from the girls.
their previous coach worked them hard and did a good job but i know personally that the girls were bored with the same activites each week with rarely any changes.

they are at an intermediate level and are eager for a change in their training sessions. relatively simple but highly affective activites/exercises would be the most apporpriate for these sessions
any suggestions or ideas will be very much appreciated
thanks in advance...
 
hmmmm.... I don't know about soccer specific exercises, but core stregnthening is always good.

Cartwheels, handstands, wheelbarrels and stuff like that are fun and they can work together for relay races and stuff to keep it fun!

Considering they are sixteen if you can get them off the cell phones, and texting it is a great accomplishment- at least here in the states.

Oh, and give them some nutritional advice. That is something "we" at my age, got very little of in high school and city league athletics.
FF
 
thanks alot for the ideas!

i totally understand about the texting thing :) its the same in England!
again thanks for the response and i will keep your ideas in mind!...
 
1. (has good drills they give you through the week)
2. coaching clinics
3. contact other coaches and see what they are doing
4. get feedback from your athletes-what did they/didn't they like about the drills/training session

Do you have specific conditioning days? If so, what are you doing? I loved using the agility ladders and hurdles for my guys and girls. I conditioned them to a 't'. We didn't do a lot of the long distance running; we did a ton of sprints and intervals with changing of directions and changing of speed. I'm also a firm believer in strength training even if it's with push ups, pull ups, and various bodyweight leg movements. You can always make sandbags for them to work with for $10 each. Easily done by asking for donations from the parents.

You have to really start hitting on where each athletes weaknesses are-I know a ton of coaches that play possession every single practice. It's fine for a warm up, but it doesn't have a lot of carry-over to the game since so many elements of the game are missing.

It's hard to show specifics of drils over the net.
 
I've also trained a lot of soccer players, and the one thing that I stress most often is injury prevention, especially with girls. I can't remember the exact number, but girls are 8 times more likely to suffer a knee injury than are boys in soccer. Working on cuts, angles, and stuff like that will help tons!

There's an online magazine that offers TONS of different exercises that you may be looking for to change their routine. The URL is: .

Hope this helps you and good luck!
 
thanks for all this advice im definatley going to use it!

i havnt got the exact details about it all yet but i think im doing a 2 hour session once a week then matches on weekends.
i will be training them at the footballs clubs private area which has 3 football pitches and also there is plenty of equipment and facilities to use.

i dont think that i will be able to include long distance running as of the timescale but i will definatley use the strength training in these sessions.

injury prevention is a big factor as there is around 18-20 who are in the team so i want to keep them 100% fit for as long as possible.

thanks for the links to they seem to be very helpful and i will look into them both further...

so have evo and chrisgillette done anything similar to what im about to do?
what worked oout for you personally?

thanks in advance...
 
I don't want to sound rude but from what I've seen of ladies football you need to spend a lot of time on close control and one touch football. Womens teams never seem confident enough with the ball to feet, they either play route one or try running down straight down the middle in a small pack. Get them using the width and running to space rather than the usual defensive stategies employed by ladies teams
 
i appreciate the advice and your opinion but i do find that quite offensive as i used to play football at a high level myself and do not recall my whole team running in a small pack in the middle of the pitch.
these girls are at the imtermediate level and play regular match and win the majority of them and their skills/techniques and team play are very impressive and a few of the girls have had trails for sunderland, blackpool and blackburn so i think they know what they are doing when walking onto the pitch.
putting that aside thanks for your post...
 
I worked for a sports performance company, and almost 100% of the girls played soccer. How did you arrive at 2 hours once weekly? In my experience, a lot of people will only get their exercise while at practice. Is there any way of having 2 sessions of an hour and a half?

You could also try to incorporate sprints, angles, stopping, accleration. If you have any questions about specific drills for any of these, just let me know.

Glad to help!
 
surf_chick said:
so have evo and chrisgillette done anything similar to what im about to do?
what worked oout for you personally?

thanks in advance...
Click to expand...

I coach high school varsity boys and girls soccer. I'm also working with a 91 competitive boys team. The 91 boys have training twice a week for 2 hours. My high school boys and girls have 2 hour practices M-F except the day of a game and teh day after. Teh day after we watch what we recorded to see what worked well and what didn't.

We will typically start pre-season conditioning as the main emphasis but keeping a fair amount of time with touches on teh ball. Then as teh in-season starts, we move to less conditioning and more sport-specific practices.

I found that there's really not one specific way. Some practices we'd spend more time working on passing, some days more on defensive shape, etc. We spent a fair amount of time working with corner kicks as we had some trouble with that last year.

The break down for practices I run is warm up 10-15 minutes. 2-3 drills@~15ish minutes each...adjusting accordingly if not working or athletes getting bored or if it's working great, keep going. A 5 minute break between each drill. We then scrimmage for ~45 minutes. I like to play with neutral players for the numbers up/numbers down impact. I also like a lot of stuff with 1 big goal on one side and a couple to a few smaller goals on the other side. I do for the most part try and keep the drills as realistic to what happens in the game as possible.

You're going to want to spend more time with straight practice and less conditioning if you're only going to meet once a week. I don't think that's near enough time for their age group.

For my conditioning we use sandbags, weights, low-intensive plyometrics, ladders, hurdles, and circuits.

An example of a bodyweight circuit would be sprint 30 yards, jog 30 yards, 20 push ups, 20 crunches, 20 supermans, 30 sec burpees, 10 yard lunges. No rest between movements, 1 min rest between circuits.

A warm up game is similar to possession only with hands. The kids have to pass the ball to each other with hands. No one can keep the ball more than 3 seconds and 5 successful passes is a point.
 
surf_chick said:
i appreciate the advice and your opinion but i do find that quite offensive as i used to play football at a high level myself and do not recall my whole team running in a small pack in the middle of the pitch.
Click to expand...
I really didn't mean to cause offense, I've trained with women before and watched a fair amount of Ladies football and what I said is the truth. Women don't use the flanks enough and retain possession in the middle of the park for too long. This goes right down all tiers of Ladies football. If you find that observation offensive then I'm sorry
 
chrisgillette - i agree with one 2 hour lession isnt the best combination to use so im going to try and see if some changes can be made to the schedule. i will will send you a PM the minute ive got time about the specific drills if that ok...

Evolution- ive planned to use something very similar to the bodyweight circuit you used and explained so thankyou for elabarating on that for me. you have given me some great ideas, i really like the activity with one big goal and smaller goals for the opposition. i will definatley include that and also i let you know what the girls thought of it!

CCR - theres no hard feeling here and i too apologize because i read my post back later i thought that i went way over the top its just some people are very narrow minded and you were only giving advice on have to improve things that you have witnessed yourself. again my apologies...

i dont mean to go on i just wondered if anyone had any diagrams/plans which they could email me???
thanks alot...
 
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