Coaching: Training sessions with COVID-19 restrictions

With the UEFA Champions League finals in the books, most professional teams are either returning to play or in their preseason.

At the youth level, many clubs have returned to play, many under some form of restriction. Speaking with coaching colleagues, the range I’ve encountered goes from zero cross-contamination to full contact. While the later isn’t an issue, the former definitely complicates a coach’s session. Even if some level of contamination is allowed, restrictions have reduced many coaches to passing patterns and ball manipulation work.

This coaching article is a tactical analysis of sorts. Rather than focusing on the tactics of the game, our concern is improving our coaching tactics under COVID-19 restrictions. This article offers exercises for three levels of restrictions, zero cross-contamination, ball contamination without person-to-person contact and soft contact.

Zero cross-contamination

Just a few weeks ago, a friend from California was describing the coaching during COVID-19 at his club. His club’s tactics were to cut off all contact and use the “pod approach”. What’s that? Taking inspiration for a whale pod, a social group that travels and acts together, this approach is ground-zero for football training. Each player in the small group had a specific cone for their participation location, ball and water bottle. The advantage here is that if one player comes down with the virus, you’re not shutting down the entire club, just one pod.

Since there’s a zero-tolerance policy for cross-contamination, the obvious downside is that you won’t do any football training. Sessions require one ball to one player (no sharing) and strict enforcement of social distancing. With these strict requirements, ball manipulation and fitness are the only “on the pitch” training you can run. If you’re coaching under these conditions, ball manipulation coaching programs like Beast Mode Soccer offer some high-intensity, advanced level drills.

If you’re in the pod format, ball manipulation and fitness are best since you’re required to keep movement limited. For teams with more leniency of movement, maybe having a spatial occupation requirement like eight players to 1/8^th of the pitch, then these exercises are for you. Note that if you have hurdles, rings and agility pole at your disposal, this is a great time to use them.

Optimizing movement mechanics is one of the most rewarding coaching interactions you’ll have at this time. An expert in the field that I highly recommend is Shawn Myszka. You can find his work on YouTube. He works primarily with American Football players from the NFL and collegiate ranks, helping them achieve greater movement efficiency and analysis of the opponent’s movement. As a coach, you’re objective is helping your players to become movement problem solvers.

If your club is in this stage of return to play, the need to supplement with tactics homework is very important. One thing my coaching colleagues and I are noticing is that many players, after six months without play, have shown staggering regressions in spatial awareness and scanning. Play is narrower than before the lockdown and we’re retraining the players to look for longer distance, line-breaking passes.

During my club’s absence from the pitch, my teams finished tactical homework assignments related to phases of play, three for attack and one large assignment for defending, as well as a match analysis assignment.

Another idea is to play a game of Tactics Wars. Create the scenario, create two or three teams, and let the players vote for the winner. I had two teams of two, allowing the players to pick their favourite teams, Manchester United and Arsenal in this instance. The players then determined the lineups and tactics, then presented the ideas to teammates. This is a great chance to practice life skill as research, analysis, presentation and public speaking all factor into the outcome.

If your club is in this stage, creativity and adaptability, especially away from the pitch, are essential. For younger teams, you might even take inspiration from the earliest phases of play. Think of the many foundations phase games that require a 1:1 player to ball ratio. Take those games and adapt the skill level for your players. After the inevitable eye-rolls, which of those games would your players enjoy? With your players having so little face-to-face contact with the outside world, even laid-back, borderline goofy games will be a welcome relief.

Exercise 1 – Dribbling matrix

Organization

• Field measures 20v20 with each player in a five-yard square. Feel free to increase distances or create two separate grids to increase the space between players.

Gameplay