Youth Soccer Drills – Combination Passing as a unit 8 v 8

The idea of this drill is to get all the players to pass the ball quickly and in combination. The drill starts off simple but gradually becomes more intensive. This is a very useful drill for working vision, awareness, control, and passing ability. This should be used as a common drill in your coaching calendar.

Implementation

For this drill you will need 8 small cones, 8 players (red bibs), 8 players (yellow bibs), 30 x 30 yard pitch, several footballs. and 4 small goals as two cones in each corner of the pitch. This drill is technically demanding so I recommend you only try to coach this with children aged 11+

A player from the yellow and red team stands in each goal. Several spare balls are placed around the ends of the pitch. Starting at opposite corners, a player begins by passing the ball from a goal into a team mate (1) and then follows the ball into the area. The receiving player then sets the ball up for a facing player (2) and immediately moves into space.

 

The player with the ball then makes a pass into one of the corner players (1) and follows the ball into the corner (2). The receiving player then passes the ball to the opposite corner player (3) and follows it in (4). The drill begins again. Players can vary the drill by moving and passing the drill in 2 or 3 passes and working overlaps or the wall pass. This way the players can add creativity to the drill and naturally improve the passing. Players can also play the ball to different corners

Coaching Points

The importance of this drill is to improve the player’s first touch, movement, control and visual awareness. Ensure each player receives the ball on the back foot and opens up to see the play. They must take the ball into space on receipt. When passing the ball each player must move into space and make sure there available for the next pass.

Make sure all the players help each other by providing good communication. This can be in the form of pointing where they want the ball or shouting commands like set, turn out, square, line, overlap etc.

Progression

To make the drill more intensive, progress the drill to one touch football. At this stage It is very important that you ensure players off the ball make themselves available to receive the pass, otherwise the drill will begin to fall down. Good communication skills will make it easier for the player with the ball to know where to pass.
 
Once both teams are comfortable with the passing advance the drill to make one team the passing team and the other 4 players the defending team. Players on corner cones stay where they are but can help by making themselves available during passing

Ensure players have plenty of breaks as the drill can be very demanding and will loose its intensity as players become tired