Soccer is in transition. There is now a growing trend away from 'drills', towards sessions that are more variable and which involve more decision making. But coaches have one burning question - how?The 'Deliberate Soccer Practice' series shows coaches how to evolve their coaching sessions. It aims to ensure that players are 'cognitively engaged', with all players involved all of the time. It is about offering exercises which have players actively making regular contact with the bal...

Making the Ball Roll is the ultimate complete guide to coaching youth soccer.This focused and easy-to-understand book details training practices and tactics, and goes on to show you how to help young players achieve peak performance through tactical preparation, communication, psychology, and age-specific considerations.Each chapter covers, in detail, a separate aspect of coaching to give you, the football coach, a broad understanding of youth soccer development. Each topic...

In soccer, attacking sessions are loved by players. The chance to be creative, attack, and score goals is hugely prized by players at all levels of the game.The final piece of soccer is creating and scoring goals, and it has the reputation of being the most difficult part of the game – not many other sports can commonly offer results that do not involve a single goal or point being scored.Many coaching sessions are flawed when it comes to linking attacking practices to the ...

We are told that the art of defending is dying. We are told that even large academies neglect it, as it is not 'technical' enough.Based on the concept of Deliberate Practice, and extensive recent research into talent development, this book shows the coach how to organize and deliver effective exercises that teach players how to defend in all situations. With sound principles and an easy-to-understand approach, this book will help you teach your players to defend effectively by abso...

What if tactical success in football isn't about finding the "right" system but seeing the game differently?In Coaching Through Superiorities, leading coach educator Ray Power unlocks a fresh framework for modern coaching, built around five key pillars: Numerical, Qualitative, Positional, Cooperative, and Dynamic Superiority. Rather than prescribing formations or rigid playbooks, this book invites you to explore football as a fluid, problem-solving game – ...

Small-sided games are the epicentre of soccer improvement. Done right, they can play a huge role in the development of players. The environment created through these games makes it possible not just to 'let the game be the teacher,' but also to improve specific skills and tactics - all in the context of the real game. We do this by manipulating the secondary rules of the game, by either adding elements or constraining players in various ways.The ultimate alternative to the 'drill,'...

World Cups throw up unique tactical variations. Countries and football cultures from around the globe converge, in one place, to battle it out for world soccer supremacy. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was no different, arguably throwing up tactical differences like never seen at a competition in modern times.Contests are not just won by strong work ethics and technical brilliance, but by tactical discipline, fluidity, effective strategies, and (even) unique national traits.S...

Coaching Youth Football is the highly-anticipated follow-up to the international, best-selling soccer coaching book, Making The Ball Roll, by Ray Power.With the help of dozens of contributors from across the professional, academy, and grassroots games, best-selling coach educator Ray Power delves into the art and science of coaching youth football players, using up-to-date studies, methods, and ex...

Deliberate Soccer Practice: 50 Rondo and Positional Play Practices is the fifth title in the bestselling practice series by coach and author Ray Power.Rondos are a football training methodology in constrained spaces, where one team has an overload over another and attempts to keep the ball away from the opposition. It is a practical training approach that has been championed by legendary coaches Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola, and clubs like Ajax and Barcelona, amongst others. To t...

The events that Ray endured took place in rural Idaho in the mid-1980s and ’90s—where he has fallen prey to a secret predator who befriended him at a young age. Just after his teenage years of life, his world is about to change forever, as he is forced to grow up, leaving his childhood behind him when he is compelled to make a decision between love and deception. While it seems that all hope is lost and Ray has lost faith in humanity, a new beacon of hope emerges from the darkness to save ...

From the post room to the board room, everyone thinks they can be the manager. But how do you manage outrageous talent? What do you do to inspire loyalty from your players? How do you turn around a team in crisis? What's the best way to build long-term success? How can you lead calmly under pressure? The issues are the same whether you're managing a Premier League football team or a FTSE 100 company.Here, for the first time, some 30 of the biggest names in football management revea...

When it comes to building successful soccer teams, pre-season is a critical time. It's the perfect time for the coach to create a team identity, set standards, develop effective training habits, and reinforce winning behaviors. Get it right and you can set the foundation required to catapult your team towards an excellent season. Get it wrong, however, and your season might never recover.This book looks at how pre-season has changed over the past 10 years, and offers ways for coach...