Soccer Shooting Drills
Soccer shooting drills are an important aspect of a team’s preparation. A teams attacking ability is largely dictated by its shooting ability, and subsequently its ability to turn chances into goals. The key to shooting practice is to teach the correct technique and ensure plenty of repetitions for each player. Shooting drills should progress from technical practice with no defensive pressure, up to full game like resistance.
Technical practice
A simple shooting drill is to have shots taken on a goalkeeper with no defensive pressure. Reinforce the following coaching points when teaching shooting technique;
- Standing foot next to ball.
- Toes pointing down, contact ball powerfully with laces.
- Strike ball at midpoint, with knee over ball.
- Follow through with foot pointing to target.
- Aim for corners of goal, to increase the difficulty of the goalkeeper making a save.
When your team is practicing technical unopposed shooting you should keep groups as small as possible to avoid dead time between repetitions for each player. For example if you split a group of 16 into 2 separate lines, a player would shoot and then wait for a long time till he shoots again. This takes down practice time, and does not allow a player to get into a rhythm. It can also lead to boredom and lose the energy of a session. If possible split the group into 4 smaller groups, ideally with 4 goals facing inwards in a square.
Place a feeder 10 yards from the goal in a central position. Have the players in two lines a couple of yards outside each goal post, and five yards in front of the feeder. The player passes to the feeder, the feeder then passes the ball back, the shooting player then takes a touch out of her feet and shoots on goal. After shooting on goal the player joins the line at the opposite goal post. Have plenty of balls available for this drill, to avoid chasing missed balls. Also a player should not go into the net to get a ball after scoring, this is a safety issue with other players shooting on goal. View the drill designed with Coachfx
Click here to view the drillVariations you can incorporate into technical practice using the same setup are;
- Left foot shooting.
- Right foot shooting.
- One time shooting.
- Bouncing ball shooting.
- Volleyed shooting.
Award 3 points for a goal and 1 point for a shot on target that is saved, this still gives some reward for accuracy. You can add competition by splitting the group into 2 and having times races between teams.
Passive Defensive Pressure
Adding passive defensive pressure can reinforce the urgency to shoot quickly when under defensive pressure. It also teaches the concept of shooting ‘around’ defenders, to get a shot on target without defenders blocking it. Diagram A illustrates how to work against defensive pressure;
Diagram A
In diagram A the goalkeeper (GK) makes every attempt to save a shot, and the defender (D) can pressure but not go past the dotted line, which should be marked clearly using cones. This pressure forces the shooter into a few adjustments even though the defender will not tackle them;
- Their first touch cannot be too heavy as if the ball crosses the dotted line it will be lost.
- The shooter may be close and the shot must be aimed around them but remain on target.
- The quicker the shot gets away the further the defensive pressure will be.
- Asking for a leading pass, and timing the run to meet the ball at a good point. IF run starts too early the ball will be behind shooter or over line.
When doing this drill, have the shooter take 10-20 shots before rotating to feeder, the goalkeeper becomes the shooter and so on. If you have 4 goals you can have a fun 4 way competition. Split into 4 teams and for the first round have team one as the goalkeepers, team two defending, team three feeding and team four shooting. Give team four 1 minute and have the feeder keep score for each of the 4 goals, awarding 1 point per goal. Players shoot and then move clockwise for the next goal. After 4 rounds the team with the highest total score is the winner. The competition gives incentive to the goalkeeper and defenders to limit the opposition teams. Designed with Coachfx
ACTION PLAN
- Dedicate 2 or 3 sessions to goal scoring.
- Progress from technical practice with no resistance, up to game situation against full defending.
- Aim to give every player 50-100 shots each in a whole session.
- Maintain an upbeat and positive coaching methodology. No fear of failure should exist in shooting on goal, players must be aggressive and confident.
