In Sweden there’s been kind of a trend to do a lot of long distance running during the first part of the pre-season, and then as you progress towards the regular season you start to decrease the distance the players are running.

When you first think about it, it looks like a pretty decent idea, right?

Well, it isn’t. I am so tired of hearing coaches talk about “creating a conditioning foundation for the players so they have base to stand on” when the season starts. But here’s where it gets weird in my opinion.

Here are a few basic footbag maneuvers you’ll need in order to excel in the sport, as well as one move that’s a bit more advanced. Practice these every day, and not only will you be ready for soccer season, you’ll have gained a valuable and impressive new skill.

Kick. This is the simplest footbag maneuver, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: Kicking the bag. There are three basic kicks you’ll want to learn: The inside kick, wherein you kick the bag with the inside of your foot; the outside kick, wherein you kick the bag with the outside of your foot; and the toe kick.

This incident was what sparked my interest in coaching; what if I hadn’t made that save and went on to have an absolute ‘mare? Who would support me at my new club? We didn’t have a goalkeeper coach as they were a rarity at professional level let alone at our stage of the pyramid. It would’ve been pretty certain that the gaffer wouldn’t have helped as his priority is to win games and not friends; even though he was the reason for me signing on I’m not naïve enough to know that football is solely a results business and the gaffer was certainly a big enough character to make the big decisions when necessary. My only route of support would have been the sub keeper, and that would have been limited as I’d stolen his thunder by signing on, but we are all aware that the keepers union does indeed exist and we eventually went on to create a good working relationship between ourselves. He was the first goalkeeper that I ever coached as I became increasingly frustrated later on in my career at the lack of options for the keeper that I made the decision of, rather than complain, do it myself. That has always been my way in life and, like everyone, I naturally moan and whinge in the vain hope that someone will listen but eventually I will have a go to rectify it myself. The gaffer was a top man and had no qualms in allowing us to train separately from the lads, although there was the inevitable banter when they were doing their circuits and fitness work and we were still working with a football. Looking back on it now, those early sessions were formative of my coaching ethos I’ve adopted now – every session shall include a football from start to finish.

I was simply a trainer back then as I had little knowledge of either how to coach or indeed what to coach so we simply did drills that I had seen in books or on the television. It was all ‘old skool’ stuff but very effective for the level we were performing at, and it served me well for my future career. I was fastidious about being able to catch the ball and this was possibly the strongest forte of my game. I attempted to catch absolutely everything possible in training, there are always the inevitable shots that require a palm or a tip away but anything in my proximity I would strive to get hold of, again this is something that I have taken into my coaching – I want to see an attempt to catch the ball in the first instance. It doesn’t overly worry me if you drop it in training as long as you react to the fumble, but if you didn’t try to catch then how would you know what was possible in a game? There are many mantras that I adopt for each and every session and the goalkeepers that I work with quickly become aware of the levels expected of them, I find that by setting not just targets but achievable targets, motivates the goalkeeper into upping their performance and development quicker than a simple pat on the back and a “well done”.

You need to be able to perform a lot of high intensity runs and recover quickly, and maintain you mental state and make good decisions when you are tired!

So by doing a lot of small-sided games where you play for instance 4 vs 4, you can make the drill more intense and demanding by having the players play man-to-man defense, meaning when they lose the ball, they have one player they should mark and follow all over the field, no matter what!

That’s a great conditioning drill, and best of all – it’s fun!

To sum it up – conditioning should be done on the soccer field (at the end of the practice) and it should be maintained all year round, even during in-season

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