Leixlip United Sample EES Pro License Sessions

30 Jul Leixlip United Sample EES Pro License Sessions

Last week we told our readers about a unique opportunity whereby clubs could utilise the skills and knowledge of three professional Spanish coaches. Here, Carl Grehan gives his first hand view of the sessions which recently took place at Leixlip United.

On Tuesday the 26th of July European Elite Soccer’s pro license coaches worked with Leixlip United Under 9s and Under 15s teams. Their pro Licence goalkeeper coach, Jose Ferrer worked with the clubs goalkeepers aged u8s-18s.

We developed the sessions under the SmartFootball methodology, which was a new experience to the young players. The concept of the session was to develop the player’s decision-making process and understanding of the game around their movement to receive and transitional elements..

We worked for an hour with both teams, which allowed us to work on three out of the four problems from the SmartFootball methodology. In our first problem the player’s objective was to keep possession and focus on the transition when the ball was lost to establish possession or to win it back quickly. The objective for the team that won the ball was to secure possession and move to make the pitch bigger while the team that lost the ball must try to cut of passing lines and make the pitch smaller. This game is played in a small area and the players constantly making decisions, which develops the myelin in the brain.

In the next problem we worked on counter attacking with an overload and the finalization in the final third. As soon as the team attacking losses the ball they must quickly react and work on their transition to defend. This game is quick where they must make four or five decisions in a short space of time in real game situations. In this problem the players had plenty of repetition in this situation, which gave them a opportunity to improve each time and learn from the previous attack.

Finally, the last problem of the session was a match-situation designed to bring all parts together and what the players learned into a game situation with different rules and objectives for teams to ensure that the focus of the session remained the same. In this final problem the main rule was that before the team could score they had to pass to the two neutral players who played on either side. However, if the defending team wins the ball they can counter attack and score straight away without having to pass to the neutral players.

In our goalkeeper session we used our SmartFootball goalkeeper methodology, in this methodology the goalkeepers must be highly concentrated, make decisions all the time and understand the goalkeeper’s position. The topic of goalkeeper’s session was 1v1 and distribution. There were two games/problems and some variants. The first problem saw the goalkeepers making decisions in 1v1 situations.

This game is designed for the start of training session to begin to understand the most important aspects of 1v1 situations: reading the body, staying balanced and positioning. The second exercise was a real tactical situation where the goalkeepers must be in the best positioning and decide when to come out to close the space or wait until the time is right while still closing the angle of the goal.

We thoroughly enjoyed our session with Leixlip which have the perfect facilities and an open mind to work under our SmartFootball methodology.

Working with clubs is something we enjoy and are open to on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.