This drill is my personal drill (well it's not the most original) and it concentrates on turning, dribbling past obstacles and change of direction, after a few sets of it, you really begin to feel the ball and be comfortable with it.
A proper execution of the drill will definitely help any player improve on their speed with the ball, its particularly useful for wide players, because they have more space to attack and to accelerate.
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| Messi, changing direction in a game situation. |
The drill is simulating the way Messi dribbles, in particularly the change of direction in rather then to a skill to beat a player.
Now, I'm warning you, you'll have to put up with my bad Paint skills, because that was the most convenient way for me to present the drill, since there is not a video to show it.
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| Drill #2 |
I tried to make it as clear as possible -
The red circles represent a cone
The white circle is the ball
The black lines represent the movement
The gray lines and rectangles represent each stage of the drill.
Now back to the drill, for a start its not necessary to actually use cones, you can use shoes (if you've got enough pairs), bottles, rocks, anything really that can be used as a marker.
Stage 1: For this stage you either need to kick the ball against a wall and receive it or pass to a partner and receive it. After receiving the ball you turn and proceed to stage 2, it's crucial to learn to turn properly, I advise you to spend some time learning how to turn, if you are not on a reasonable level already. Try not to only turn with your legs but your body too, later when you're comfortable with a standard turn you can get creative and try to turn with a chop or maybe faint before a turn.
Stage 2: After you've covered stage one, you need to go in and out of the cones, the number of cones is by your choice, but for me 5 is the minimum you should cover, but not too many, try to put them on a distance of around 1 feet between each other, similar to any drill, before you try to do it as quick as possible, you first would want to be confident with doing it. So try it slowly and when you are confident you can start progressing. Also try out different dribbles, for example only inside, only outside, inside and outside, roll, one foot and so on.
Stage 3: While stage 2 was concentrating on close ball control, stage 3 is more about body faints and change of direction, this part you should try to cover quickly, the ball and you must go around the cone, concentrate on the way you change the direction, imagine the cone is a defender and do your best to beat him.The distance between each cone should be around 5 feet, throw in a skill if you want to make it harder.You can use between 5 and 8 cones.
Stage 4: Together with stage 5 at this point you need to start hitting full speed with the ball and turn as quick as you can and accelerate towards the next cone. For the setup, place the cone 7 or 8 feet away from the last cone from stage 3.
Stage 5&6: It 's by far the simplest part of the drill, you need to make a full circle around the cone and accelerate to the finish line which is where you started from.The cone should be around 7 feet away from the previous one.
This drill is quite simple and you can easily vary it by putting a goal to shoot at at the finish like to practice finishing as well or try with a different size ball. Time it to try and beat your previous score, which is guaranteed to help you take the most out of training. Remember put thought into how you do everything you do, imagine how it applies to a real game and think how a defender would act.
Good luck and see you tomorrow!
Difficulty : 7/10
''Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.''
-Aristotle
> Drill #1
