Wayne Harrison is a former professional player and has been a highly qualified professional coach for many years.

Youth Soccer Training & Development Tips For Coaches

Wayne Harrison on the Coach's Corner: Focus on Developing Specific Peripheral Vision 

Wayne Harrison is a former professional player and has a wealth of knowledge of the game both as a professional player andcoach. A former Academy Director and professional player at Blackpool F.C. in the English Championship league, and Youth Director Al Ain Football Club in the UAE; he now writes and presents at coaching symposiums worldwide. Harrison holds a UEFA ‘A’ License, the NSCAA Premier Diploma as well as a bachelor’s degree in applied physiology and sports psychology.  Harrison has published numerous books on player development and coaching. Currently, Harrison coaches youth soccer at CV Manchester Soccer Club in San Diego, California.

A previous article introduced Awareness Training and explained how it helps players develop skills more rapidly than traditional training methods.  The second article explored the scientific background to Awareness Training and how the approach speeds up and improves decision making and the thought processes in soccer. This third article focuses on improving a player's overall game awareness.

Soccer is a thinking person's game.  Great soccer requires a cerebral approach. Developing a successful player necessitates teaching an understanding of the game of soccer and helping a player be aware of how plays develop on the field. Here are Wayne Harrison's recommendations to help player development: 

Just a few of the soccer books written by Wayne Harrison

The following activities can be used to improve the overall game awareness of individuals within a team concept.

Activity #1:

Set Up: A 40x30 area is organized as shown in Diagram (a) below. Six players are used within the activity.  Repeat the setup to accommodate the entire team.

Objective: Players pass and move inside the playing area.  After several passes ANY player may run out of the grid to receive a pass.  Teammates must recognize this player early and attempt to complete a pass to this player.  This player is the free player (unmarked).  The session goes as follows and letters are used as a reference only, the players can pass to anyone, in any order, but always looking for that vital penetrative run by a player to the outside area:

1. Player (A) runs outside the area (perhaps after several passes within the zone).
2. Player (B) on the ball sees the run and must pass to (A).
3. As (A) is about to receive (as the ball is traveling to him or her) (C) moves into a position to support (A) showing anticipation and awareness.
4. As (C) receives the pass, (D) makes a run out the area.
5. (C) has already seen the run by (D) and passes. (D) brings the ball back in and the game continues, (D) passes to (E) who has moved into position in anticipation and (E) passes to (F) who also has done the same.

NOTE: This is an indicator of how quickly players recognize the run and consequently make the pass. Hence players are beginning to look one and two moves ahead of the ball.  It doesn’t need to happen so quickly in terms of the next player running outside but it serves as an example.  The run can be likened to a penetrating run into the attacking third where the player hasn’t been picked up or tracked and is in a great position to attack and score if the passer sees them and makes that pass.

Coaching Points:

• Timing and coordination of runs
• Quality of passing
• Recognition of passing options
• Support play – angles, distance and timing

Coach’s Notes:
Further development: In an attacking overload situation.

Within the zone there are many choices of pass but as soon as a player makes the run outside that is “the” pass to make. Coach can determine the tempo of the game e.g. to avoid too many running out at the same time the coach can signal to an individual player to move out without the others knowing so only one at a time goes out.

Once the free player is outside and waiting for a pass see how many passes are made inside the zone before someone sees the right pass i.e. to the outside player. This is an indication of which players play with their heads up (and hence have good peripheral vision) and which don’t, (hence have poor peripheral vision or even none at all).

The fewer touches on the ball the player needs to get the ball there the greater their anticipation of the run. (One touch is the ultimate aim to develop where as the ball is traveling to the player, at the same time another player makes their run out; they see the run and make the pass at the same time).

More touches means more reaction time needed and in a game situation this may mean the player being caught in possession before they get around to making the pass.

Initially the coach may see several passes made within the area whilst a player stands and waits outside until someone sees them; this will happen less and less as you practice and as the players improve their peripheral vision.

The exciting part of this is when the coach sees one of their players make the right pass quickly in a game situation due to the work they have done in this session.

End Goal: Overall game awareness – can the players recognize the right moment to play?

CLICK for ACTIVITY #2

Related Article: Coach Wayne Harrison's Awareness Training and Myelin and Training - The Scientific Concept in Skill Development with Wayne Harrison

Wayne Harrison. All of his 10 books are currently in print through Reedswain and World Class Coaching and are recommended reading at coaching courses worldwide.  His most recent publication “COACHING THE 4-2-3-1” is nearly 300 pages of clinics aimed at developing this system of play with your team.  The book: Soccer Awareness: Developing the Thinking Player explains in full the importance of Awareness training such as this

Log on to www.soccerawareness.com or contact him on wayneharrison@soccerawareness.com for further information.

Wayne Harrison's Soccer Books are Available on Amazon.com