Awareness and Decision Making Training | Drills To Improve Mental Sharpness

hi guys welcome back to another video so I'm at the training pit I want to say thank you to everybody for being so patient last week I know it an uploaded video and the reason being I actually sprained my ankle thankfully wasn't too bad by just needed a week off to recover I am training with Omar today he's just running late we arranged to meet at 11:00 and time is 10 past 11:00 so I'm gonna have to find him he's got the vending machine get himself a Gatorade and then after double is fine that'll be a $50 fine pay the man Hayden bruh there you go a lot of you do ask me I'm low on confidence I'm good in training but when it comes to a match I kind of panic on the ball and things like this so if you're only training by yourself and you're really good technically and everything like that but when it comes to a match you're panicking the reason being is because there's also a mental stimulus during a match as well when you're training by yourself just dribbling in and out of cones you don't have pressure from anything else going on so it's a lot easier to focus but during a match you've got to be checking your surroundings when you're receiving a pass not only do you have to worry about your first touch but worry about your first touch taking away from your opponent so some of these drills today you can take away work on them with one of your teammates and it's just gonna make you mentally sharper so that when it comes to a match you're going to be more prepared and you're gonna find yourself not panicking on the ball as much so it should be a really good session today let's get into it so I'm just gonna throw this out there and say that this is by far the best training session that Omar and I have done together we incorporate some really good drills than this I'm not going to take your game to the next level really challenge you physically and mentally so you're going to want to write some of these down so we began the session as always without dynamic warmup then we moved into the first technical portion of our warmup so it's just a simple passing drill to warm up our feet but we also incorporated a bit of a mental challenge in with it as well so I'm actually leading this drill so all I'm doing is feeding the ball into Omar with one touch then as the ball is mid-roll towards him I'm calling out a number so if I call out the number one he has to return the ball in one touch if I say the number two he has to return in two touches and so on and so forth so not only is this a great technical warmup working on those clean passes but it also works on a decision-making element as well because when the ball is in mid-flight and your partner calls out a number you have to process that information quickly and make the right decision Accord so this really applies to the gaim gonna have to make decisions all the time and process information really quickly then we did the exact same thing but this time actually throwing the ball in the air so this one was even more difficult because when the ball is mid-flight and you're calling out a number you really have to adjust that body if you're coming on to prepare to volley it back the first time and then suddenly your partner calls out two or three you then have to take that first touch in the air so definitely adding a lot more of a mental challenge to this technical warm-up and trust me even though it's a very simple drill try this one out with one of your teammates and you realize it's a lot more difficult than it seems try and leave those cause as late as possible so the brain has to work overtime to process that information as quickly as possible you're not doing your teammate any favor if you're shouting out the number before you've released the ball in the air you want the ball to have completely left your hands before you shout out the number so they're really having to work on their mental sharpness and adjust to the decision-making and it's going to benefit them more in a match right then we moved into another passing and decision-making trail adding even more of a challenge element to it this time so what we're doing we're passing back and forth I'm leaving the drill on Mars doing the work for this set and what we're doing is just passing back and forth and if I say man on he has to play the ball back to me first time just like he's got a player on his back so he's trying to keep the ball but if I say a color as you can see we've got three gates there we've got a yellow gate a red gate and a blue gate so if I call out a color he has to take his first touch towards that gate so the key is with the player working in the middle is to be checking their shoulder at all times even when I'm passing and saying man on so that they're always aware of where those colored gates are so that when I do finally call out the color they've already got it memorized in their brain so they can take the first touch towards that direction if you're always aware of your surroundings so you can be more efficient with your touches you're going to be a much more effective player so the key is to call out the color mid-flight so the player has to react to it and make a decision but the player working in the middle with every single pass as you can see always checking over your shoulder really in graining it in your brain where the different colors are this is what you need to be doing on a pitch scanning the field at all times knowing where your teammates are so if the ball does come to you you've already got different passing options ingrained in your mind so you can play them a lot quicker I do get a lot of questions asking me how you can make decisions a lot quicker on the pitch how you can improve your awareness and it's doing things like this drills that are going to improve your mental sharpness but also just developing the habit of checking over your shoulder at all times even if you're training with no other players and you're just passing off a wall just checking your shoulder every time the ball is in mid-flight towards you that's just going to develop that habit that will translate over and to the match then we did the exact same drill but this time we're throwing the ball in the air so that the play of working has to return it with the inside of their foot on the volley also checking your shoulder each time in between each rep and then as the player calls out the colored gate you're getting the touch on the ground taking it towards that game you're going to receive passes at all different angles in a match sometimes we get on the chair and the thigh in the mid flight so if you can take your touch out there and be efficient enough to take it in the direction you want to go it's just gonna serve you so much better you can have a lot more time on the ball it's going to give you more time to pick out the next pass or it's going to allow you to get a shot off it's just going to make the game so much easier for you if you can save yourself time and then we moved into a final exercise the exact same drill but this time taking the touch with the chest so as you'll notice as Omar calls out the color I'm trying to actually angle my chest square it towards the direction I want to go so that's the key here with all of these first touches is to angle your body in the direction that you want to be traveling you're gonna save precious seconds they're going to make you far more effective and efficient on the ball then we worked on an even more challenging decision-making drill so what we're doing is playing the ball at the wall so it returns it to us and then our partners standing behind us with the cone this time so up until now we've been working on listening to our partners commands and reacting off that this time my partner's staying completely silent and using visual cues to guide us so as you can see I'm playing the ball and as it comes into the square Omar's even holding the cone up to the right to the left or above his head if he holds it up to either side I've got to take my touch to that side if I hold it above my head like this you've got to turn and play a one-two with your partner so this is really forcing you to having to check over your shoulder instead of listening to the commands you're only reacting of what you see when you check over your shoulder then we worked on a tight control dribbling drill and I absolutely love this one so all we're doing is starting at one gate dribbling towards the opposite boots or down a tight channel and our partners just firing balls along the ground trying to distract you hit the ball hit your feet to try and put your off-balance and dispossessed you so the key with this one is you have to keep your head up while you're dribbling I see too many young players when they're dribbling their head is down and they're not checking their surroundings and not seeing what's going on with the pitch so this drill is really going to force you to keep that head up keep tight control of that fall and react every time a ball comes your way as you can see I'm always moving from side to side trying to make myself a hard target so that's what's going to translate into the game if you dribble in just straight lines all the time it's going to be very predictable if you can move either side it's just going to be a lot harder to defend so as you can see wait till the last minute just dodging those balls sometimes the ball is hitting my leg and I'm just trying to keep balance and keep going retaining possession of that ball oh my did a good job they're really firing them in close but I got my chance to have my revenge as well so not only is this working on your dribbling and control but also the person firing the ball is working on your passing accuracy as well I think I've finally got over at the end but you did very well to keep it balanced throughout that drill then we moved into a final touch and passing drill so we moved into one of the smaller pictures that had surrounding boards so that we can have a flat surface to ping those balls in so all we'll do with this one is that working on opening up our body so we're firing the ball at the wall all outs and anger so it comes between those cones then we have to take that touch outside the cone and return it then we moved into it another passing drills but this time Omar's leading it so I'm having to mimic everything Omar dose so if Omar receives the ball takes touch to the left then my touch has to go to the left and then I'm playing it back at the wall so it comes between those cones so it's a bit of follow-the-leader so I'm having to react from what he does he's trying to catch me out if you can and then we can only do it in two touches so working on a bit of awareness bit of decision-making and also some technical work as well and this is very tiring after you do it for a minute a minute and a half at a time then we worked on a final to touch drill and this is an excellent game to try out with one of your teammates one of your friends really works on that tight control and you're trying to catch each other out so we've built a square here with four cones and the ball can only travel through the square street so we can't go diagonally through the cones it can only go in a straight line so there's two options as you can see it's got to go either from the side or forwards like we did just there or to the side so that you have to take your touch diagonally to set you up for your next pass through you only get two touches and the key with this one you're trying to offset your opponent here so make it seem like you're gonna take your touch one side drop the shoulder and then take it to the other side so it really works on that sharp touch you control and you're trying to catch each other off guard we had a really good rep this round we went for probably a minute but it's good that we went for this amount of time the legs are really burning at this point because we did a lot of short sharp work today really putting some pressure on those calf muscles those short sharp checking in and out movement staying light on our toes but this is the stuff that's really going to help you in a match always being light on your feet checking into spaces having clean first touch and being efficient with your touch with it so as you can see here this is about the time where I believe I mess up my touch and as you can see absolutely knock it at this point went for a long time legs are burning but that was a really good round lots of good quality touches in there and that was the end of the session all right guys really good session that with Omar once again these little things are going to be the difference between making you a good player and a great player so make sure you take some of these drills work on them with your teammates with a friend also want to mention I knew Footwear so as you can see from the bottom these are actually turf they don't actually have studs or anything on them these are the mercurial superfly 's i actually think part of the reason that I injured my ankle was because I was wearing the incorrect Footwear these are off the firm ground because there's no kind of give on the outside when I put all my weight on here it kind of locks into the ground but with these because of the rubber sole plate and the ground is actually got rubber in it as well when rubber rubs against rubber it creates friction but because it doesn't have those firm ground studs it's not going to lock your foot in when you're trying to push off make sure you're wearing the right Footwear and I know I'm not always a great example of that sometimes I'm wearing firm ground on here a lot of boots these days are hybrids and they're half firm ground half artificial they're really ideal for this or wet turf shoes and that's going to really give you a better chance of coming away from the training session or that match avoiding injury proto Rex sucker check out the link in my description if you want to get these but if you did enjoyed today's video and you want to see more videos like this make sure you smash that like button hit the subscribe button for weekly training videos and I will see you guys in my next video [Music]

Channel: 7mlc

Views: 724,985

Keywords: how to improve visual awareness, how to improve reactions, how to improve decision making, passing drills for footballers, first touch drills for soccer players, first touch training, professional soccer training, how to become a better soccer player, how to improve dribbling, how to improve tight control dribbling, how to keep your head up in soccer, how to play like messi

Id: pXS8tEaz1zI

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2019