The different ways to structure a soccer training session

Planning and designing a session is arguably one of the most important roles of a coach.

A carefully designed session will both help maximise player development, and mean the coach is more prepared, which will, in turn, take away some concerns and stresses during delivery.

What does a well-planned session look like?

A well-planned session will:

• Run smoothly, helping to keep the players focused and reducing the amount of opportunities they have to lose concentration.
• Help you maximise the limited amount of time you have with your players, maximising their opportunities to learn. 
• Allow players to transfer their learning into matchday, taking pictures or scenarios from their session into the actual game.

Choosing a topic

One of the main difficulties we all face when we’re planning a session is knowing where to start.

The game of soccer comprises a large number of elements. It is understandable that we want to help the players with all of them. 

But, if we try and give players too much information in a small space of time, they can end up not learning anything at all. 

A good principle to work to is: at the end of each session, has every player been able to take away at least one thing they have learned? If so, we have done our job. 

A group of players may learn the same thing, while a few may take away a piece of information specific to them.

While it is important that players leave the session with something that helps them, it is just as vital that there is a theme to the learning.

To help achieve this, we need to have a clear focus for the session, in the form of a clear objective that you want the players to achieve.

For instance, it may be that you want your players to focus on improving their forward passing, retaining possession or understanding of how to defend in a 1v1 situation. This is sometimes called a session topic.

Once we have decided on the topic, we need to ensure that our focus stays solely on it when planning, and delivering, the session. 

Then, we must decide on what practices we are going to use, based on what the players will enjoy and find challenging, and what will support them in their development of the session topic.

Choosing a session structure

As important as the practices we use is the way these practices fit together into a session.

The most effective sessions do not just have good practices, focused on the chosen topic, in which the players both learn and have fun, but they also ensure that the topic runs through everything they do on the training field.

This means that what players learn and develop in one practice can then be used and developed further in the next.

There are three ways in which you might look to structure a session. Each structure allows for the exploration of a single topic.

1. Up the steps

This is a more traditional approach to training, where the level of difficulty increases throughout the session. 

Quite often, this takes the form of a warm-up; a technical, unopposed practice; a skill or opposed practice; a game; and then, perhaps, a cool-down, depending on the age group of the players. 

The session topic is explored through all of the practices, including the game.

2. Whole-part-whole

The session begins with a game, which usually has some sort of rule, constraint or points-scoring system that is linked to the session topic.

The players then participate in some form of practice, that, again, is linked to the topic.

Finally, the players return to the game, where they get an opportunity to apply what they have just learned.

The rule, constraint or scoring system that was added to the first game can be removed straight away, or after a short period of time, so that it becomes ’just a game’.

3. Carousel

A small number of practices, likely three or four, are set up, and the players are split into a number of groups. This number cannot exceed the amount of practices.

Each group of players begins the session within a different practice, before rotating around all of the practices throughout the session.