Dribbling Sessions for u8

The below u8 drills from PDP focus on the children's ability to dribble and manipulate the ball. It might look a bit chaotic at times, but learning is often messy.

 TIPS

• Encourage small touches with various parts of the foot

• Encourage being quick but keeping the ball under control

• Encourage the children to get their heads up whilst dribbling

 

Game 1: Dribbling in a Circle

Each player starts on a cone.

On whistle 1 the children start to dribble around the circle.

On whistle 2, the players race back to their own cone.

Encourage close control, getting their head up, using different parts of their foot & running into space.

To progress you can:

• make the space small/bigger

• introduce a defender to apply pressure

• introduce traffic light cones to encourage kids to get their head up

Game 2: Gate Races

The 2nd practice encourages players to be a bit quicker whilst keeping the ball under control.

2 players start in each gate (1 working, one resting)

On the whistle the first player tries to dribble through as many gates as they can in 1 minute.

On whistle 2 they stop and swap over.

Encourage fast, positive dribbling, twists and turns and close control.

To progress this you can:

• Make it a race between each pair, who can get the most gates? Winner moves to another winners gates and repeat

• Make gates bigger/smaller

• Stipulate gates must be empty, encourages looking for space

• Add a defender who cannot stand in 1 gate for longer than 5 seconds

 

Game 3: Dribble and Shoot

This session builds on close dribbling and adds the end product of a shot.

On the whistle players dribble through the slalom and shoot.

 To progress you can:

• Add goalkeepers

• Make it a relay race between both red and blue teams

• Make the cones closer/further apart

 

Game 4: Dribble Duel

This is the end product and its a 1v1 dribble.

One red player dribbles out with the ball and 1 blue player must try and stop them scoring. If the tackle, they can then score.

Encourage positive dribbling by both players if they have the ball

To progress this you can:

• enforce that you can only score once inside the end zone

• make it a 2v2 / 2v1

• intro goalkeepers

 

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