Fair Call AWB, makes sense!Getting back to coaching, first session was hilarious. My squad size is now 12, 6 were away, 1 was lazy and the other 5 showed up. However I did manage to figure out who my strikers were, a right mid, a centre back and a keeper. Ended up doing a lot of passing and 3 v 3 (with coach trying to keep up) and it was good to watch them talking to each other!Maybe I should turn this into a blog, confessions of an amateur coach.....
lol. You got a bit of a workout yourself. Good on you. You could have a neutral player (either one of the strikers) to play with the attack team with the ball possession, or have 2v3 with the goal scorer of the 3 man team switching to the 2 two man so it would work on two man defending an overlapped situation. It keeps their head up. Just don't have the last man too far back and get him to be involved in the over lap and breakthroughs.
What age are we talking about here?
12 man squad? It might pay to combine with another team to get some full pitch games because they need it before the actual game. This way you can take a note of what you need to say before the game to keep them focus on the task on hand. Or the first half will be disjointed and you have to rely on your 1st half assessment for the half-time talk. By then it could be too late on goals.
Anyway, beside that, tell them in the pre-match talk to focus on accurate passing to feet, , when they pass the ball follow up and expect a pass back for 1-2s, find the free man always because it would give them more time to decide which direction the attack will go, don't be concern about which direction the ball goes because it is a multidirectional game and everyone knows where the opposite goal is to move towards, keep it down to 2 touches in the first half to set the tone, keep possession until you are near the edge of the box and then when any half chance opens up aim roughly a metre inside the post and let it rip. You be surprised the number of goals that happens.
On the last third, get a couple of shoots first outside the box, before attempting a run on into the penalty box or a wing attack. It builds confidence to the team on the outset and you are telling them you mean business by shooting at their goal. This will make one of the defenders to close the long shooter down and then would also create a gap for an angle run-on forward/midfielder for a dig at the goal.
In the middle third, the midfielders has to make a straight line in defence and in attack, make a straggled line for passing angles.
Just some general things to look out for.
You may have to pick a few obvious one to work with, it's a long time since I coached youth (not sure what age you are coaching) so I may have overloaded too much information with the above spew. So pick 2-3 general points for the team and then talk to each player (in the circle) what they need to focus on individually wise in the second half. That way they each have a personal direction that is slightly different to the main team objectives and will take a special note to lift their game.
AWB.
did someone mention robert sled? i like his style, & his moves !! 
