Giffnock SC Football Development

Dribbling and Beating An Opponent

 This week's blog takes a look at what dribbling is and how I train it. As ever, please leave your feedback in the comments section below.

Second only to scoring goals, dribbling is a skill players enjoy the most. For many fans of the game, passing, especially since the success of Spain and Guardiola's Barcelona, is the most important aspect of teamplay. However, dribbling has always been the essence of the game- since its earliest forms; football has been about dribbling the ball from one end of the field to the other. In football, the ball must be dribbled with the feet and for many the joy in dribbling is to dribble past another player.

Warm-up

As one of the core skills of the game, I ensure that all of my coaching sessions start with dribbling. Each player gets a ball each to familiarise themselves with the feel of the ball at their feet and I encourage them to get as many touches as possible. While dribbling around the pitch players are using other skills such as vision/awareness of event s around them and also working on their fitness as they move continually without stopping.

Players should be encouraged to use both feet so as to make it changing direction easier and also more unpredictable when facing an opponent. Next, I encourage players to dribble with each foot; so we'll do right foot only and then left foot only before alternating right-left-right-left for a couple of minutes each. Finally I finish my warm-up with some footwork patterns such as:

• Inside-outside on one foot/alternating feet
• Inside/outside only on alternating feet
• Laces-laces-sole-sole
• Inside-outside-laces-sole on alternating feet

These patterns encourage players to develop quick feet, familiar with the ball in a range of movements.

Key Coaching Points

When I work on a dribbling session at training I give these key coaching points:

• Keep the ball in 'your space' (the ball should be no further than arm's length from your body)
• Lots of little, soft touches
• Use both feet
• Keep your head up for awareness

And for dribbling to beat an opponent I encourage:

• Change of speed
• Change of direction
• Change of feet

*Dribbling at speed, with bigger and fewer touches, I distinguish as 'driving'. Dribbling should be about closeness to feet with lots of touches.

Drills

As with any coaching session I will avoid queues and straight lines of players. I like to throw down lots of markers and gates/slaloms for players to make their own way around. I tend to use two main dribbling sessions- the 'network' and one with gates for driving and slaloms for dribbling. I think that having these freeform sessions encourages players to make decisions for themselves while experiencing lots of repetition which helps to learn the skill.

Network

Gates and slaloms

Players may only dribble between cones of the same colour i.e. red to red Players may dribble between alternating colours i.e. red to blue Coach may use as many different colours as possible Encourage players to move in straight lines from cone to cone For younger players I let them be cars driving on the 'blue/red road' or bees going to 'red/blue flowers'

Players may dribble freely between obstacles but must use small touches to dribble through blue slaloms After each slalom players should drive through a red gate at pace Emphasise the change in pace between dribbling and driving

Game-related

As with any training practice I follow a drill with a game-related practice where player face opposition and have to then react as they would in a game. I often use channels where players must simply try and dribble past a defender to score a point. I also use a small 'rondo' game where the team must keep possession with passing before dribbling between two defenders to score. Both games encourage bravery and decision making on the offensive player's part.

   

Red player passes the ball to the blue player Blue player then attempts to dribble past the red defender to score a point Coach should use a broad, short channel to help the attacker enjoy more success, with a narrower channel increasing difficulty as required Remember to encourage change of pace, direction or feet

Blue team retain possession until the red defenders are drawn far enough apart A blue attacker should then attempt to dribble between the red defenders to score a point A bigger area will allow more success for attackers, as will more attacking players

Here are some more dribbling ideas:

http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottishfootball.cfm?page=2590

http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottishfootball.cfm?page=2591