Football out on the playground this week at EF Sportability

With the weather slowly improving we managed to get outside on to the playground for a session of football this week. It wasn't the warmest of days but with all the running around it was good enough to get out in to the fresh air. The session started with some warm up drills, running around on the playground. It was then out with the footballs for some skills practice starting with dribbling the ball.

As always, as the session progressed ​the more complex the drills became. So after some basic dribbling of a football around the playground we moved on to a traffic lights game. Similar to when we play the game for other sports when the leader held up a red marker it meant stay still with the ball. A yellow marker meant move the ball from side to side while standing on the spot. A green marker meant go and to dribble the ball around the playground. The last to react to the change in colour each time is out. 

The next progression involved using cones to move and dribble the ball around them. Then passing the ball was introduced so some moving the balls around and between cones before passing to a team mate who was waiting for the ball to take their turn.

Alan and the coaches then laid out a course in the shape of a figure of eight and the kids had to dribble the balls between the cones as they went around the course, trying to not go outside the cones along the path.
The last skill left to practice was shooting and so the kids did that by firstly dribbling around the cones and then shooting at the goal. Sometimes it would be an empty goal and so it was just about the accuracy of shooting between the posts. At other times we had Callum, our resident goalkeeper, between the sticks adding an extra challenge to the shooting practice. 
The second shooting drill was called "Rapid Fire Shooting". This involved 3 balls placed on coloured spots and a cone which was the starting position. Each competitor had to run from the cone to the first ball and shoot at the goal, then they had to race back around the cone and to the second ball, shoot and back around the cone once more before shooting with the ginal ball. We had three sets of balls arranged at the same time so three kids could go at the same time. It was fast and mixed speed with accuracy in shooting.

After the main break, to recuperate with a drink, snack and small talk, we rounded off the session with a small sided match (about 6-a-side). Putting to good use all the skills practiced throughout the session and making full use of the whole playground it was a great way to end the week.​

There was no post for last week's session which centered around cricket but I am reliably informed that Pranav was the star performer last week. A belated well done to Pranav.
The Star of the Week award this week went to Zakaa for all his efforts and involvement throughout the session. He certainly looks happy with his award in the photo on the right.
Join us again this coming Saturday to see what sports are on offer - and pray that the sun stays out so we can get outside once more.
See you then!

Our Star this week was Zakaa - pictured with coach Ray