An essential element of finding success as a team is being prepared for competition through well-planned practices.

In this instructional soccer DVD, George Kuntz explains what every good practice needs and gives you some ideas on how to plan your practices based on the unique qualities of your team: age, tactical ability, experience, etc.

PRACTICE PLANNING
Coach Kuntz stresses how important it is to take out what isn't working, fix it through practice, and put it back in and analyze the results. He explains how practices should be balanced between immediate needs versus both seasonal and future development needs. You will learn Kuntz's four pillars of successful soccer and a simple, systematic tool for analyzing and improving the pillars.

Kuntz shares a process for how to take your goals and break them down to activities that take place during practice. Learn tips for:

• Measuring improvement
• Keeping your team in a competitive mode during practice
• How to organize an actual training session
• How to vary exercises based on your players' abilities and other variables

Keep your training sessions focused this season and learn how to effectively practice to meet your goals and your team's biggest needs.

WARM-UP
Warm-ups are a key part of practice. They get players ready for practice, but also need to reflect elements and scenarios of the game while maintaining a player's interest in the practice. Kuntz presents a number of activities to accomplish these goals:

• Dynamic Warm-ups - Moving stretches to loosen up players and prevent injuries.
• Warm-up Touches - Use window drills with light dribbling, juggling, and short passing to prepare for more demanding drills. This trains players to see the game as it develops, find windows to see the field, read the situation and adapt. Also improves timing, balance and agility.
• Passing Exercises - Incorporate triangle passing, open-field passing and variations of each to get your players to move off the ball and constantly looking for support (similar to a game). These exercises will help improve first touch, mobility and passing over increasing distances.
• Third Man Run & Shoot - This warm-up exercise will strengthens your players' technical skills and will get your players passing to space, running toward the goal and getting shots on goal.

In practice you can go through the motions or you can grow as a player. Playing the game is the best teacher. Set up practices with games that teach success and put your team in a competitive mode so they are encouraged and motivated to always do better.

Get your players excited about the day's practice by providing fun and creative avenues to work toward achieving your team's goals.

88 minutes. 2010.

The NCAA's all-time winningest coach, Dave Brandt, guides you through the philosophy that has helped him lead his teams to six NCAA Division III Championships. Sharing his building blocks for developing a championship culture, Brandt leads you through the ideas that you and your players need to for consistent success. Brandt's blocks focus on the team over the individual and having the team pursue relevance. He tells how this pursuit of excellence needs to be shown in what you and your organization do on an everyday basis. As a program, if you can have your players working towards a philosophy of perfection with every aspect of their game, they will never be satisfied by winning without perfection, and will always be striving to improve and never settle. Believing that every team can "ooze greatness and bleed excellence," Brandt teaches you in this soccer DVD how to motivate your team to aspire to greatness.

50 minutes. 2009.

The NCAA's all-time winningest coach, Dave Brandt, reveals proven drills, techniques and ideas for holding dynamic soccer practices. Setting the tone early, Brandt runs his players through a vigorous warm-up consisting of running and stretching and passing drills. Using a team passing pattern, Brandt works the players through various one-touch passes, two touch passes, and cut-back dribbles. Brandt then moves his team into a 7-touch speed passing drill where a group of players works seven one-touch passes focusing on working quickly but under control. Brandt includes two competitive practice games - the 4v4 and the 10v9 one-touch scrimmage. The 4v4 game emphasizes scoring in a small field drill where you as a coach can find out who you can rely on to score. His 10v9 one-touch scrimmage makes players think about where they are going to pass the ball before it gets to them to increase their speed of play. Using competitive drills during your soccer practices will increase intensity and get your players ready to play full speed during games.

45 minutes. 2009.

Making soccer fun is the most important goal of any U6 soccer coach. On this DVD, developed by the Iowa Soccer Association (ISA), U6 coaches are provided with the learning techniques to create fun and exciting coaching sessions for their young athletes. This instructional DVD includes over 35 age-appropriate training games and activities presented by ISA's Director of Coaching, Ian Bradley. Bradley uses real-life U6 player demonstrations, accompanied by graphical explanations of each activity as well as coaching considerations at appropriate times. With having fun as the key theme, the DVD guides coaches through creative ways to conduct organized, effective and entertaining practices that encourage and challenge your players. The number of activities and games shown on this DVD, and its fundamental approach to learning, make it an essential educational resource for any U6 soccer coach!

60 minutes. 2006.

Making soccer fun is the most important goal of any U8 soccer coach. On this DVD, developed by Iowa Soccer Association (ISA), U8 coaches are provided with the learning techniques to create fun and exciting coaching sessions for their young athletes. This excellent instructional DVD includes over 30 age-appropriate training games and activities presented by ISA's Director of Coaching, Ian Bradley. Bradley uses real-life U8 player demonstrations accompanied by graphical explanations of each activity, as well as coaching considerations at appropriate times. With having fun as the key theme, the DVD guides coaches through creative ways to conduct organized, effective, and entertaining practices that encourage and challenge your players. The number of activities and games shown on this DVD, and its fundamental approach to learning, make it an essential educational resource for any U8 soccer coach!

67 minutes. 2006.