Unopposed practices: should we use them?

Over the years, there have been many conversations about the use of unopposed practices, often with a clear divide between coaches who are for and against them.

 

But, as with most things, the reality lies somewhere in the middle. If delivered effectively, unopposed practices can provide great benefits to players.

 

We often talk about the basics needed to be a good player, but we often don’t allow players the time to develop these skills before we move on to advanced practices. Unopposed practices allow a player’s full focus to be on the technique in question.

 

For example, I put on a 5v5 game-based practice, asking a group of young, inexperienced players to show me receiving on their back foot and passing with their opposite foot. 

 

However, without visiting this unopposed first, how can I expect the players to execute the technique? 

 

They would have to think about opponents and their pressure, where their team-mates are, where the space is to play into, and focus on the technique itself. Naturally, when we are under pressure, we rush, so the intensity goes up and the quality goes down.

 

When delivering an unopposed practice, we want minimal interference. You may look to use a small number of cones for visual aids, but keep it simple. 

 

A passing and receiving practice I delivered at Birmingham City Women’s academy, with U10s and U11s, consisted of three players, 12 yards apart, in a triangle.

 

Play started with a punched pass in from a player (focus point 1) to the next player, who receives by opening their hips, receiving on the back foot (focus point 2), in a continuous cycle around the triangle.

 

Unopposed practices can be adapted and are easy to progress or regress. This will help with coaching differentiation in your team.

 

We can break the example practice down with multiple progressions and adaptations. 

 

I can change the conditions to receiving on the right and passing with left, receiving with right passing with right and vice versa. These can fit to what tour players need to develop their technical ability.

 

What is tactically desirable must be technically possible. By allowing players to develop technical skills in an unopposed environment, with a high level of repetition and low level of pressure or additional decisions to make, we can move them into a more technically and tactically demanding environment and get greater rates of success.