Teamwork Skills

Formula for Success | Practice Organization
Individual Skills | Teamwork Skills

Teamwork skills enable your players to negotiate soccer's phases or parts. Offensively, your team must keep possession, breakthrough the last line of defense, and finish. Defensively, your team must contain the ball to prevent a breakthrough, and pressure the ball to win possession back. Corner kicks and free kicks involve all these parts a bit; they make up the Restart Part.

To learn more about each part and the activities that strengthen it, click on the part below!

Teamwork skills encompass what is usually called the "tactical" side of soccer, or the "thinking" side. In most coaching courses, they're taught as a larger number of separate "tactics."

Here's the challenge. The larger the number of "tactics" to be taught and strengthened, the less frequently you'll get to each one. Do soccer's "parts" provide enough things to practice?

Here's the best answer. Imagine you're watching your team play. Most of the time, your players have possession of the ball. Once they get the ball forward, they continually break through the defense. They successfully finish many of their scoring chances, and they're dangerous in restart situations. When they finally lose possession, the other team can't create scoring chances and struggles to keep possession. What more could you ask of your team?