Finishing drills for U13-U14

Offside is a timing skill wearing a rules problem's clothes. Break on the pass, not before it, and bend the run to come from behind.

One touch is a rhythm, and a single control touch breaks it for everybody. That fragility is what makes it worth practising.

The player who plays the first pass is the one who finishes. That single rule turns a passing pattern into a running exercise, and it is what makes this drill hard.

Only chip a keeper who has committed and left his line. Stab under the ball for height and backspin rather than scooping it.

Read the flight early, get into the line, lock the ankle and strike through the middle. Getting under the ball is why volleys end up in row Z.

No pass in this sequence is longer than six metres. Two one-twos inside a mannequin diamond, then a finish from the penalty spot.

The controlling touch has to stay inside a three metre box, so the ball cannot be pushed somewhere comfortable before the strike. That constraint is the drill.

Most lay-off practices contain one bounce. Chaining several means holding the shape through a longer sequence and still arriving with the shot on.

The finisher is not the player who started the move, so nobody can time their run off their own pass. That is what makes a third man pattern hard and worth practising.

The opening exchange here is two metres, close enough to the mannequin that a heavy touch ends the move. Everything after it depends on getting that one right.

Most sessions rehearse phases in isolation. This joins four of them, because in a match they arrive with no reset in between.