Another week, another fantastic session at Manor Futsal Club.  With some of the Year 7s away on a school trip we had a couple missing, but that didn’t stop the rest from giving a 100%.

After a fun warm up in which most of the teams managed to cheat at some stage, note to self – we must look into this, we went straight into a game based exercise.

Click here to see some images from tonight’s session

The players were split into 2 teams and started on the court with 3v3 plus goalkeepers.  They played for 1 minute or until someone scored.  The team that scored stayed on and the opposition replaced the 3 outfield players.  If neither team scored, both sets of players were replaced and we started another 1 minute game.  Goalkeepers could be changed at anytime.  We progressed this to removing a player from each team if no one had scored after the minute, and continued to do so until we got to 1v1 with goalkeepers.  From the effort all the players put in, we think they really enjoyed this session and we must revisit it!

Click here to download a copy of this week’s session plan

We moved onto a session head coach Chris Collins had seen delivered on his Futsal UEFA B course.  It involved getting defending players to get the ball from the goalkeeper in the defending third and passing it back to a serving player.  Before the defenders could get the ball, they had to recover from outside this zone, and move into positions away from an attacker.  This was progressed onto having the defenders make 3 passes before returning the ball out of the zone, and finally progressed to marking the attacker before making their defending runs.  In what seemed a very easy exercise on paper, was a real challenge for the players, but they concentrated very hard and by the end the outcomes had greatly improved.

Click here to watch a short video of Ruby and Jacob playing out from the back

The comment of the night came from one of the boys, who said, ‘Why am I rubbish at this, when I am so good at football?’  The players have to realise it is a different game, and embrace it as that!

Girls’ player of the week – Ellen – all she has done since she started with us this year is smile!  She tries so very hard and has made some great saves in goal.  Keep on working hard and we know you will improve lots!

Boys’ player of the week – James – he worked so hard all night, very impressed by his attitude and commitment.  He is a very good footballer, who has adapted very quickly to futsal.  Well done, and keep on working James!