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Last week I talked about what you should and sometimes shouldn’t say during your team talks. Planning that episode made me realize that most of my effective pregame, halftime and postgame team talks followed a similar pattern.

If you didn’t have a chance to listen to the show last week I’d suggest that you go back and listen if you can.

This week’s question is from Tony

Tony says:

“One aspect with my team I’ve been having trouble finding consistency is with the pregame warmup/drills. We have a set FIFA 11 warmup with dynamic stretching but I want to know your thoughts on effective drills to prepare the boys for the pace of the the game as well as to mentally engage them from the start. We’ve done rondos, offense v. defense, passing patterns, etc but i haven’t found something i consistently like.

Should there be consistency in the pregame warm up or should we switch it up each time to keep it interesting? How does the level of the potential game affect what drills/warm-ups to do?”

Here is my response to Tony’s question:

I like to use a pre-planned routine for at least part of our warm-up. That include a movement pattern that includes individual and small group technical work.

In the fall we used the Cogi Movement pattern shown in this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/1RpQSP6dd50 This got the players moving, working together as well as passing and dribbling. We could do this even in small spaces that were all that was available so it worked out very well.

Once we were able to get on the field we would play a 5 v 5 line game to create a game-like environment so we were ready right from the whistle.

I think having the start of the warm-up planned but then adapting the last 10 minutes or so to the game situation is the best way to go.

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All coaches want their team to play faster but it’s not enough to just tell them to play quicker, you have to put them in an environment that brings this out of them.

This week I look at how you can use circle drills to get your team dribbling, passing and combining quicker and in more creative ways.