Dribbling gates

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Soccer drill · Under-6 and up

Scatter six gates of two cones in a 25-yard square, give every player a ball and let them dribble through as many gates as they can in a minute. Nobody waits in a line, everybody gets a few hundred touches, and the youngest players learn to look up because every gate has team-mates coming through it.

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Time
10 minutes
Players
6 to 12, each with a ball
Equipment
  • 12 cones for six gates, plus 4 for the corners of the square
  • 1 ball per player

Setup

  1. Mark a 25 x 25 yard square. Make it smaller for six players and bigger for more than twelve.
  2. Inside it, set out six gates: two cones about 4 yards apart, some facing up the square and some across it.
  3. Every player has a ball and starts anywhere in the square.
  4. On the whistle, dribble through as many gates as you can in 60 seconds, counting out loud. Rest 30 seconds and go again.

Coaching points

  • Keep the ball close: lots of little touches with the laces and the inside of the foot, so it never runs away from you.
  • Head up between gates. Look for the next gate before you go through this one, and for the team-mate coming the other way.
  • Change speed. Slow into the gate, then a big push out the other side.
  • Use both feet and every surface: inside, outside and the sole to stop and turn.

On the run sheet: Little touches, head up between gates, never the same gate twice in a row

Progressions

  1. Name a surface: left foot only, outside of the foot only, or sole rolls through each gate.
  2. After each gate, stop the ball with the sole and turn back through the same gate the other way.
  3. Add a coach or two players without a ball as taggers who try to knock balls out of the square.
  4. Pairs with one ball: pass through a gate to your partner, and they dribble to the next one.

How it runs

Every player has their own ball, and the square is full of gates pointing in different directions. On the whistle they dribble through as many as they can in a minute, counting as they go, and they may not go through the same gate twice in a row. The animation follows three of them: the one with the ball weaves up through one gate, turns across the square and down through another, then cuts back sideways through a gate set the other way. In the real drill every player has a ball, so the square is busy, and that is the point.

Play it in short bursts. A minute on, half a minute off to get their breath back and shout out their scores, then go again with a new rule.

Why it works for young players

Small children learn to dribble by dribbling, and a line drill gives each of them a few touches a minute. In this one nobody waits, so a ten-minute warm-up is hundreds of touches each. Because the gates point every way and other players are coming through them, nobody can dribble with their head down for long. They learn to look up without being told to, which is the hardest habit to coach into a five-year-old.

The mistakes to watch for

Big kicks that send the ball five yards ahead, so it is lost in traffic. Players who only use their stronger foot, and players who queue at one favourite gate. Move a gate or ban it for a round to break the habit.

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