Finishing session finishing fun | England Football Learning

Session

Key objectives

This session will help players:

work out how to score
try different ways to score.

England Football Learning

0-3 mins - Sep 26, 2022

Finishing fun

0/0

Session plan

Want to try this with your team? Download the session plan to your device and give it a go.

Organisation

Set up an area that is appropriate for your players’ age and developmental stage. For young players, half a 5v5 pitch would probably work well for this practice, and it might even be slightly narrower and shorter than usual to increase the chances to finish. Place a goal at each end of the half and a few balls in each goal. Where possible, make sure each team starts with the same number of balls.

For this practice, we used ten players split into two teams of five. We had a goalkeeper and four players on one side of the pitch – and the same on the other side. You can adjust these numbers to suit your team.

How to play

The aim is to score a goal past the goalkeeper.

To start, a player from one team takes the ball and tries to score against the opposing keeper. Their ‘turn’ ends if a goal is scored, the goalkeeper secures the ball, or if the ball goes out.

When this happens, two players from the opposing team take a ball and try to score against the first player and goalkeeper. This creates a 2v1 overload. The player who has the ball can pass to their teammate or take on the player to try and score.

If the goalkeeper secures the ball, they should pass to the single player who can then try to score against the two opposing players. This play finishes if a goal is scored by either team or the ball goes off the pitch. When this happens all the players go back to their teams, and the process is repeated with a new 1 v goalkeeper and 2v1 with the goalkeeper.

Once all players have had a go, teams swap sides and repeat the practice.

Progression

If your players master your activity – or find it too hard – try adding a progression.

If this session is too easy, add an opposing player to the first activity to make it 1v1 plus the goalkeeper. You could also add another player to the second game to make it 2v2 plus the goalkeeper.

If the session is too hard, remove the defender from the second part of the practice. This means there's no opposition when the 2 attackers are trying to score past the goalkeeper.

If you have an uneven number of players or one goalkeeper, rotate the goalkeeper and ask someone to go more than once.

Whatever you do, remember that learning takes time. So, do not alter your activity too quickly – or too much. Try using the STEP framework (Youth Sports Trust, 2002). This helps keep things fun, engaging, and appropriate.  