innovative equipment and player development 2
FIVE REASONS INNOVATIVE SOCCER EQUIPMENT IS ESSENTIAL FOR PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Building Speed and Agility
There’s a big difference between dribbling around cones and dribbling around poles. With poles, of course, you have to get your whole body around them, making the dribbling more realistic and the strength training more intense.
Side-step drills can be done without hurdles but having the hurdles stops players from cheating. Getting your feet above the hurdles on every repetition is what builds strength and agility.
Then there’s the science. Drills like “spatial illusion” can only be done properly with low hurdles. The concept is simple: spacing a number of hurdles two meters apart, you sprint from one end to the other. In the beginning you feel like you have plenty of stride space, but as you pick up speed, the spacing will feel smaller and smaller. This forces players to increase their heel recovery which is essential for building both acceleration and stopping power. This drill simply cannot be done correctly without hurdles.
Allowing the Necessary Repetition
Improving your ability to trap the ball takes practice. In the past, you needed someone to lob you balls. This was not exactly the most stimulating experience for the person doing the lobbing, so players tended to not get enough repetition. With innovative equipment like the Pro Ramp, players can work on it as long as they want. You don’t need a huge space. You don’t even need a team-mate.
But the latest innovative soccer equipment is not just for basic ball control drills. This type of equipment can be used to develop more realistic game-situation performance. Let’s take one of the most effective in-game combinations (and commonly practiced drills): the give and go. This is how it’s traditionally done in practice:
The challenge of the give and go is perfecting the weight and accuracy of that 3-yard pass to the correct foot of your team-mate who will one-touch it back to you, again with perfect weight and accuracy. You need to do this thousands of times until it’s second-nature, but running this drill is not the best use of time when you have all members of your team gathered for practice. Better to engage in more dynamic “real-game scenario” drills when everyone’s present. That’s where innovative equipment like the rebounder comes in. A player can now practice the give and go without team-members.
Allowing Effective Individual Practice
And efficient use of players during full practice
For positioning drills, players need to see the placement of defenders. Cones are not realistic because they are too small; they don’t accurately simulate the space taken by real players, including the fact that real players block the view. Coaches without the right equipment will have a player stand in as a passive defender. This is effective for the attackers but a waste of time for the defenders. In cases like this, mannequins are the solution. Running this drill using actual players rather than mannequins is a waste of time for the defenders. But with mannequins in place, the players running the drill can experience the necessary heads-up, real-game player positioning that will truly develop game-awareness.
Shooting through defenders results in a significant percentage of all goals scored and is therefore an essential skill for developing players. How do you train for that? Nobody wants to stand in front of someone taking shots just so the shooter can feel like it’s a more realistic game situation. Here’s another case where mannequins are better than actual players.
Game realistic solo drills
A rebounder used in combination with mannequins and a sniper net allows a player to run a solo drill that encompasses several game-realistic elements. Starting with a rebounder give and go around a mannequin, dribble around another mannequin, shoot threw three more mannequins, and hit the crucial spot on a goal blocked with a sniper net. A motivated player can run this drill as long as they want.
Forcing Improvement of Game-Specific Skills
How to develop that goal-scoring instinct and drive? Practice of course. But the reality is, in the full-size game, a player rarely gets a chance to take on another player. So typically players practice in smaller areas like 3 on 3 games with mini-nets. These go-to exercises give players more chances to shoot, dribble and pass. They are effective for building game-specific skills.
A recent piece of innovative equipment called the tri-goal is the center piece of an even more attacking focused, perhaps revolutionary drill/game called “circular soccer.” Played effectively with as few as four players, the centrally placed goal can be attacked from all angles. This forces players to attack towards the center, building that goal scoring instinct faster than ever.
Motivation
Equipment like the tri-goal allows for a higher tempo style of soccer that encourages creativity and enjoyment. You don’t need a large space. You don’t need many players. You can even play it on a beach.
Having professional equipment like hurdles, cones and mannequins makes players more motivated to do the speed and agility training they need. Psychologically, the simple addition of a piece of equipment can make the difference between doing that drill and skipping it: the right equipment is there so we do the drills. It looks professional so we are professional.
