Full Essential Technical Training Day | First Touch, Passing ...

Hi guys, welcome back to another video. So today is going to be a training day, so I'll take you guys along, show you everything that I do. We're starting off the day, it's about 7.15 now, we're going to go over to my team's training facility. The reason being it's undercover and I'm not sure what the weather's doing, it says it might storm. I don't want to get caught in that, so I'm going to head over there and train inside. And also they have all the equipment I need over there, so they've got footballs, cones, mannequins, so I can get everything set up and get a really good session in. A lot of technical work today, you guys are going to really enjoy it, a lot of good drills for you. Before we head over there, I want to say a huge thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video. Squarespace is where I bought 7mlctraining.com, my very own website. I built it about two years ago and it's been an absolute game changer for my brand because not only do I manage this YouTube channel, I also run an Instagram page, a podcast, I also have training programs. So it allowed me to put everything in one place so you can access all of those different things from my website. So if you have a brand or a business and you want to build your own website, I would recommend using Squarespace. They make it so easy to make it look professional with their templates and resources. You don't need to know anything about website design or coding. So check out the link in my description, www.squarespace.com. You can get 10% off your first website. So I'll be leaving in about 15 minutes, just going to respond to a few emails, drink my coffee and this multivitamin drink. Get my stuff together and then we'll head over. So I began the training session as I always do with about a 5-10 minute warm up. Just going through some dynamic movements, back and forth, some diagonals, some backwards, some side to side. Getting some dynamic stretches in there as well. I know I go through this in every session, but it is so important to warm up your body before your session. Not only to prevent injuries, you're lengthening out those muscle fibers, getting the blood flowing, but also actually helps you increase your performance during the session. Because if your muscle fibers are switched on, they're going to perform better and you'll get more out of your training session. So it's really important that you warm up, spend a good 5-10 minutes, even longer if you need to, at the start of the session. Then I always go into some activation work with this resistance band. As I've said before, they're so cheap, you can get them online. But it's good to wake up those hard to activate areas like your glutes, your groins, your hip flexors. All of these are so important to warm up because if they're not warmed up, another part of your body is going to have to compensate for it. And that's where you get these overuse injuries. And then I just went into some basic first touch work using this mannequin as a reference point. So I'm just playing the ball at the wall, taking the touch with the inside of my foot to begin with, just going back and forth from side to side, getting equal amount of reps with my right and left foot. Then I went into the outside of my foot, very simple stuff, getting warmed up, getting my touch nice and clean before I move into some more advanced and more intense drills. So then I'm using my sole of the foot as well, just trying to get touches with all the different surface areas of my foot. Then I finish with some back foot touches as well, letting the ball come across me, open up my hips, facing in the direction I want to push the ball, and using the inside of that back foot to push it behind the mannequin and across to the opposite side. So I probably spent about 10 minutes on these basic fundamental touches, and then I went into some turn work as well. So I've just set up the mannequin, and I'm playing the ball at the wall, the mannequin's on my back, quick scan over the shoulder, touch to either side, and I'm just trying to find the back of that small net. Just varying it up, sometimes I'll play it into the back of the net with the inside of my foot, sometimes I'll drive it with the laces, just varying up my striking, and also varying up my first touches as well. So sometimes I'll take it with the outside of the foot, the inside of the foot, the back foot, sometimes I'll spin on it, just trying to get creative with it and respond however I feel like in the moment. I'm not trying to plan ahead, just at the very last second after I've scanned over my shoulder, I decide which touch I'm going to take based on the way the ball is travelling towards me off the wall. And the reason I scan over my shoulder, even in these individual sessions where the mannequin's not going to move, the goal is always going to be in the same position, so I don't really need to check what's behind me, it's just good to get in these habits, because when it comes to a match, the picture is always changing, so you want to be taking in as much information as you possibly can, especially when receiving the ball on the turn, you want to see if there's a defender behind you, you want to see if one of your teammates is making a run, so that you can play the ball quickly, but it's just good to develop this habit in your individual sessions as well. I've noticed when I'm doing this in my own sessions, I'm automatically checking over my shoulder anytime the ball is on its way to me during a match, during a training session with my team, just because I'm used to checking my shoulder when the ball is on its way to me. So if you're someone that struggles to check over your shoulder, you don't do it enough, try and involve shoulder checks as often as possible into your individual sessions, and over time it should become second nature and it will translate over into those team sessions and matches. And also it's good just to gain confidence and be comfortable taking your eyes off the ball for a split second, so you can process information around you, and then return and focus back on the ball and take your first touch accordingly. So for this particular exercise, I went through 8 repetitions, just used up all those footballs I have, and then I went through 2 rounds of this one, trying to get an equal amount of reps turning to my right and turning to my left hand side as well, making sure my first touches are taken with both the right and left foot also. It's good to vary it up, but make sure you're comfortable taking your first touch with both feet. If you don't have access to one of these small goals to use as a target, you can set up a couple of cones, or you can just solely work on your turns and not even worry about a target. Then I went into a simple first touch and finishing activity, so all I'm doing is passing the ball into the base of the mannequin, it rebounds back, and then I'm taking my first touch out 45 degrees, and then with my next touch I'm finishing the ball. So I'm trying to get an equal amount of reps with my right and left foot, so I'm alternating the sides that I'm taking my first touch. Not only am I alternating which foot I'm shooting with, but also my passing and first touch. So if I'm shooting with my left foot, I'm also playing the pass and taking the first touch with my left foot. Trying to get equal reps today, a lot of first touch work, working on the angle of my body, setting up the right weight of the touch so that I can come onto it with my second touch and strike it straight away. If you use this drill in your own individual sessions, and this is the first activity of the day that involves ball striking, ease into it, so begin your first few strikes just using the inside of the foot and guiding it into those corners, and as you get more warmed up, then you can start putting your laces through it. But it's good to warm up gradually, not only from a physical standpoint, you don't want to cause yourself any injuries, so build up the power as you go along, but also from a technical standpoint. You want to get a few good clean strikes on the ball, find those corners, and then build that confidence and then start putting your laces through it. But I would recommend just trying to get an equal amount of reps on your right and left foot, especially around this area at the top of the box where you're going to be pressured very quickly by defenders, so you're not always going to have the time and space to get it onto your dominant foot. You might have to get those snapshots off quickly, and oftentimes it's not going to be on your strong side. If you don't have a mannequin like this, which I'm sure many of you don't, because I've actually never seen a mannequin with a base like this before in my life, but you can use a bench flipped on its side, or you can use a teammate that can just feed the ball in, or you don't even need to use a rebounder. You can simply roll the ball out of your feet 45 degrees, and it's a great way to just work on developing a clean strike and consistency, just really trying to find those corners as often as possible. Then I moved into this passing combination activity. I'm just using the mannequins as passing targets, so I'm just playing a 1-2 with the first mannequin, taking my first touch out of my feet, playing the second mannequin, and then trying to finish first time. The bounce is always very unpredictable off that second mannequin, so I'm just trying to adjust my feet and take it however it comes, so sometimes it might be in the air, just trying to guide it with the inside of my foot as often as possible and hit the targets. I'm more interested in my first touch during this little activity here, just trying to prepare that first touch, continue it going forward. You see this often when wingers, they drive inside, they're playing combinations with their strikers and their central midfielders, they relieve the ball just to get it back again, and then take their first touch forward so they can advance closer to the goal. I just did maybe 5-10 reps or so on the left side, then I switched over and just swapped the mannequins over and did 5-10 reps on the right side as well. Once again, just working that preparation touch, getting the ball out of my feet, playing the next mannequin, and finishing first time. Then I ended the training session just working on a few long passes. I took five footballs into the centre circle, and I'm just rolling the ball out of my feet, driving through the ball, trying to hit the back of the net without it bouncing. That's my target area. This is a great way to work on your long passing if you don't have a teammate to work with. Just give yourself a target with a good distance and try to hit it without it bouncing. I'm trying to generate as much backspin as I possibly can. You don't want to be swerving the ball or knuckling the ball. It's difficult for your teammate to control. I think this last one here was a bit of a shank. Yes, it was. Just try and build that consistency with this one. I went through it two rounds, so ten reps in total. You can do more. You can do less. All I'm doing is trying to generate as much backspin as possible. Notice the difference between this technique and my shooting technique. With my shooting technique, I'm really following through the ball towards my target. With this technique, I'm chopping down on the ball and keeping my follow-through short. I'm leaning back as well, really chopping through the centre of that ball and downwards on it to generate that backspin, leaning back so it travels through the air nice and high, and just trying to be consistent with it. Ten reps, and that was the end of the session. Really good session there, just working on a lot of the fundamentals, passing, receiving, and some ball striking. Those kind of exercises are applicable to every position on the pitch. No matter what position you are, you can take those drills away and you're definitely going to benefit from them. I just got home, so I'm going to have some breakfast. I've got some wholegrain toast with avocado, eggs, sriracha, and a little bit of seasoning. I've got some watermelon, and I've got some water as well. I'm just going to eat this, relax for a couple of hours, and then this afternoon I've got another training session. I'm getting together with one of my teammates and a goalkeeper who plays at the Division 2 level in college. We're going against a goalkeeper in some finishing drills, which I'm really looking forward to. I'll take you guys along to that, show you all the drills that we do. We're going to be working with Jordan Sullivan, who's been here on the channel before, a qualified F8 coach. He'll have some really good finishing drills for us. I'm going to eat this, rest, and then we'll get over to the training pitch. Hey guys, how's it going? Back on the old stomping grounds. I used to come to this school, played here for four years. Jordan's going to set up a few drills, we're going to warm up. Beautiful day, let's get into it. I'll just explain this finishing drill that Jordan set up. One player's working at a time and going through a variety of seven finishes. The first finish, you're playing a one-two with the player on the right. They're playing you through on goal, so you're one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Then you'll see the exact same thing on the opposite side. You can take one touch, or you can just let the ball roll ahead of you. Then it's another one-v-one. Then you're checking deeper into the space, taking the touch across your body. Then you're finishing outside the box. Then you check to the opposite side, and this time you turn on the ball and finish just at the top of the 18-yard box. Then the next two finishes, you're playing a one-two. You can see the player behind me is checking to create an angle. Then you're going to play a combination, so you can either play them through and they cut it back, or you can do a bounce pass like this next one. They play a little one-two, then you're finishing at the top of the box once again. Then the final finish, we retrieve the ball at the top here. Then it's a one-v-one, although we're not tackling each other. We're just passive defending because we're not trying to injure one another. We're just putting a little bit of pressure, and then you're pushing it into the box and finishing one-v-one. We went through this drill three times each, and there's four of us taking on this finishing drill. You can imagine just how many finishes the goalkeeper has to face. This is a drill that definitely favours the finisher. We don't have any pressure on us. We're just working through different finishes. We've got time and space to compose ourselves and really place the ball into the back of the net. Fair play to Jared, the goalkeeper, for facing all of these shots and still pushing through till the very end. We made it a friendly little competition. We kept track of our score to see how many we could finish within the seven shots. Then we tallied up all the way through till the end. It ended up being very close. It actually went to the final shot that I had to score, and I was tied with the guy in white just behind me. Always fun adding a little competitive element to these finishing drills, and it gives you a bit more incentive to focus with each shot. Really good session there. Loads of finishing, with some disguised fitness in there too. Really good quality work. It's always good working with other coaches. Jordan has different philosophies than I do, different training ideas. You always take away something new the more coaches and players that you train with. That was really good. I enjoyed that. It's always good finishing on a goalkeeper too. It always makes the training a little bit more match realistic because the goalies are out here trying to get training as well, so they're not just going to let in the goals. They're really working hard, so you have to find those corners and finish in a match realistic way. Really enjoyable. Always good to be back here at my college. That brought me here to the US essentially. This is the reason I came out on a scholarship. Obviously the facilities are top notch as well, so it's always good to come here and get a training session. Anyway, that's training done for the day, so I'm going to go home, get some food, recover and refuel. Right after training, I'll typically have a fruit smoothie with protein powder just so I can get that instant protein and get my recovery started. Then in an hour or so, I'll have my main meal, which is going to be rice, broccoli and chicken tonight. I'll have plenty of water with that as well, but I like to get that instant hit of protein just to speed up my recovery. I'll show you everything that I put in here. The first things first is a full banana. Then these are just some organic mixed frozen berries. I'm going to put some oat milk in. Then we've got some vanilla almond yogurt. Then I'll put a spoonful of almond butter. Then finally, I'll put a scoop of vanilla protein powder. Then I should probably get the blender out. That's my smoothie recipe. Cheers. I'm going to drink my smoothie, watch a little bit of television. I found this documentary on Amazon Prime about Cristiano Ronaldo that I wanted to watch. Then as I watch that, I'm going to do a bit of massage gun just to help with my recovery. I'll probably do this for about 15 minutes or so, just taking care of all the major muscle groups in the legs. All of those areas that would have been put through a lot of work today because even though we didn't do a lot of running without the ball, we did a lot of technical work. In that technical work is a lot of disguised fitness. You need to make sure you're still taking care of your recovery. I'll also do a full body stretch. Then I'll just get a good night's sleep and I should be good to go tomorrow once again. I hope you're enjoying this behind-the-scenes look at what I'm doing during this off-season period. Things are still a little bit up in the air in terms of when the league is going to start back up. Everything's still quite uncertain, but my philosophy is stay ready so you don't have to get ready. I'm going to still continue to train at a good level during this time so that when things do go back to somewhat of a normal, I'm ready to go. I hope you're enjoying it. Before I go, I just want to say another huge thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video. You guys know 7msetraining.com was built through Squarespace. It's the central hub of my entire brand. If you have an online brand or a business, I really would recommend Squarespace for building your website. They make it so easy with all their tools to build a professional-looking website. You don't need to know anything about coding or web design. Check out the link in my description, www.squarespace.com. You can get 10% off your first website. I hope you enjoyed today's video. If you did, make sure you smash the like button. Hit the subscribe button for weekly training videos. I will see you guys in the next video.