03-20-2008, 10:12 PM
Before the attacker gets into shooting range, his main job is to hang onto the ball. As long as he has possession of the ball, the other team cannot score, so it is to his benefit to do what needs to be done to keep possession of the ball - but only until he gets into scoring distance of the opposing goal. Once in a good shooting position, there is little risk in taking a shot - and a lot of potential benefit to be gained.
While this is obvious to adults, it is not always obvious to children. Many children are very literal-minded. If the coach tells them to make sure to always try to hold onto possession by passing the ball around to open teammates, it is not uncommon to see them pass the ball around in front of the goal - and never attempt to put it in the net. Furthermore, if the coach spends lots of time on drills which have them carefully placing their balls on the ground, then backing up to take a net-breaking shot on goal, they will often pass up open chances to simply roll the ball into the goal in favor of trying to score "the way that coach taught us". As a result, it is very important to explain to young players when it is okay to take risks, and when it is better to play safe. It is also important to give them permission to score (which also means giving permission to miss, because the easiest way for a new player to avoid getting yelled at if he misses is to never take a shot).
The first thing to teach the attackers is that very little actual space is needed to get the ball around a defender or goalkeeper so that it can roll into the net. The ball just needs to clear the legs of the defender by an inch or less on either side. It is important to illustrate this idea to young players, so that they understand that it is possible to score goals in very tight quarters - and that they should try to do this.
The second thing to teach young players is that, to score goals, the best place to send the ball is to the place where it will be hardest for the defenders to get to it. Usually, this means that the safest place to send the ball is to the corners of the goal. However, if the middle of the goal is wide open, it is fine to send the ball there.
The third thing to teach young players is that you want them to score a lot of goals - and the very best way to do this is to pass the ball into the net as soon as they see an opening to do this, because passes are more accurate than shots and are easier to get off quickly. As a result, players should be encouraged to score goals using simple passes with the inside or outside to put a MOVING ball into the net. The coach should strive to create game-like situations in practice. As a practical matter, no defender or goalkeeper is going to allow your attackers to put a ball down in front of the goal, back up, and then run at it to blast it into the net. Scoring drills which involve long lines and stationary balls do a poor job of duplicating game conditions, and do not tend to create players who are comfortable in scoring goals with a moving ball by putting it around the feet of vigilant defenders.
The fourth thing to teach young players is when and where to take a shot. In other words, to introduce them to the concept of when they have entered "scoring range" - and should start to think about taking a shot.
Understanding Finishing Angles
For players and keepers to understand shooting angles, one of the easiest things to do is to purchase two long pieces of brightly-colored plastic rope. Yellow ski rope is perfect. Tie one end of one rope to a goalpost, and one end of the other rope to the other goalpost (if you only have one rope, tie both ends to the posts). Then, put an attacker on the field in front of the goal and intersect the ropes so that the attacker is standing on the intersection. Now, take the goalkeeper and put him between the ropes so that he can touch the rope on either side if he dives to that side. Show the players out in the field that they can get a pretty good idea of whether the goalkeeper is in proper position by just holding out their arms so that their hands are pointed at each goal post - and seeing whether they think that the keeper is centered on the angle and is out far enough. Initially, put all of the players behind the attacker, so that they get an idea of what you are doing.
Next, divide the players so that half are behind the keeper and the other half are behind the attacker. Set up sample angles, starting at the middle of the goal and working towards one side. Put a cone where the keeper needed to stand to be positioned properly. Once you get to very narrow angles towards the sides, have the groups change places to see things from a different point of view.
From this angle-mapping exercise, the players will see quite easily that the best approach on goal is dead-on towards the center of the goal. This approach makes the job of the keeper more difficult, because he must come very far off of the goalline in order to be able to cut down the shooting angle of the player. Because he is so far out, if he misses, the attacker has an easy shot on goal. Once attackers have learned to accurately chip the ball, it becomes even easier to punish a keeper who comes off his line - by simply lifting the ball over his head so that it can roll into the net behind him. Although you probably won't work on chips until later, it can be fun to point this out to the players to get them started thinking on scoring opportunities. Another thing that the players will learn from this exercise is that, once the ball can clear the inside of the near post (even if they are coming in from an angle), the keeper has so much territory to cover that it becomes much easier to slot the ball around him.
With this basic information on angles, they are ready to start to learn how to finish. This is a life-long process which involves some rapid processing of information, so miscalculations are inevitable (even among pros). Even the very best strikers in the world, who are playing at the highest levels, score only about once out of every six tries - which is one of the reasons that it is so important to encourage players not to get discouraged if the first few do not go in. There are 3 basic finishing options which they will need to learn. These are central finishing, and angle finishing to the near and far posts.
Central finishing
When coming in centrally, it is usually best for the attacker to come in at speed. Indeed, in general, it is a good idea to teach players to finish at speed, as there always will be breakaways in games and it is a pity to see a player who cannot capitalize on these chances.
To finish at speed is really quite easy - but, like anything, there is a knack to doing it. Because the player is going at speed, and his momentum will transfer to the ball, a "pass" at speed will be as hard as many shots. This pass also will keep the ball on the ground, which will force the keeper to make a difficult save (ground balls are harder to save than air balls).
There are three things that the player must do as he approaches goal at speed. The first is to get the ball under close control, which means that he is going to need to pull/drag the ball along with his dribbling foot to keep it right in front of him (see practice plan on straight-ahead dribbling for more details). The second is to pick the corner of the net where he wants the ball to go. The third is to turn the dribble foot at the proper angle to put the ball there - and to keep running as his foot strikes the ball so that he arrives at the net just a bit behind the ball.
While working on this technique, the best approach is to make a bunch of cone goals and let the kids experiment with making scoring runs. It is fine to let them just make hard passes thru the goal; keep on running; then turn around and come back the other way.
Until they get the technique down, there is no point in working with the opposition of a keeper. However, once they have the basic idea down, it is time to add a keeper. Of course, the easiest keeper to finish on is a keeper who freezes in goal. At younger ages, this is quite common (and sometimes happens for various reasons, even at higher levels). So, this is a good place to start.
Make several goals so that only 3 players are working on finishing at any one goal - which permits you to have one who is getting his ball, one who is getting ready to go, and one who is heading back to set up for another run) - and put a parent in goal with instructions to stay in the goal, but to move to make the save if the player send the ball early. Players will soon learn that, if they shoot too early on a stationary keeper, they will give him too much time to get over for the save. As a result, they will learn to hold the ball until they feel certain that they can get a shot/pass into the chosen corner before the keeper can get there. As players gain experience, they will want to start experimenting with fakes (and keepers also will want to try some fakes of their own to try to get the player to shoot with a non-favored foot or otherwise disrupt the shot).
After learning to shoot on a stationary keeper when coming in centrally at speed, the players will need to learn to finish on a keeper who is coming off his line. This is harder to learn, but is an essential part of their finishing tools. There are three basic ways to beat a keeper who is coming off of his line with the intent of diving at the ball. The first is to shoot early (taking the shot as soon as you see that he is coming out). The second is to shoot just before he arrives (by using a quick sidestep to get space just as he dives at the ball). The third is to use a feint to cause him to dive to the wrong side, then pass the ball around him for an easy finish. Most players will opt for the first and third options, as the chances of being taken out by the keeper are fairly high in the second option (although courageous older players may use this to try to draw a PK in situations where they held the ball a bit too long and seemed likely to lose the ball anyway). This is NOT something to teach younger players, however. Besides, they will have plenty to do in working on the first and third options - particularly since the coach will insist that they alternate using their dominant and non-dominant foot for finishing (as there is nothing worse than to see a player miss an obvious scoring chance as he wasted time trying to use the favored foot for a shot).
Now, in all of these scenarios, the situation was set up so that the player had plenty of time to go 1v1 with the keeper. While this often occurs in games, the most frequent situation is that a defender will be rapidly closing from the side or the back, so that there will be a smaller "window" of opportunity in which to shoot. Thus, the next thing which the coach will want to do is to add a defender who has instructions to run at a steady pace about 6 feet behind the attacker. If the attacker slows down, the defender will gain on him (and this is exactly what you want to have happen in order for realistic pressure to be applied). The attacker has to learn to be aware of the defender - but to leave his real focus on the keeper.
The next phase is to work on situations where a defender is coming in from the near side. Before the defender gets within slide tackling range of the ball (10-15 feet), it is important to move the ball to the far foot - which is the foot farthest from the incoming defender. This is one of the reasons why it is essential that players learn to dribble with both feet - as defenders have an aggravating habit of coming in from different sides, so attackers have to be prepared for this. Indeed, as defenders become more skilled, they will quickly figure out when an attacker is one-footed and will take advantage of this information by heavily guarding the favored side.
Once the ball is on his far foot, the attacker effectively has ruled out the slide tackle as an immediate option. However, the slide tackle is still an option to clear away a shot. Given the incoming angle of the defender, a near post shot is usually not available. Furthermore, as soon as the defender gets his body inside the posts and can help to cut down the near post angle, there is a high likelihood that the keeper will charge the attacker - with pretty good confidence that the attacker will be trying to put the ball in the far corner. So, what are the options? One option is to go for the far post early. Another option is to look for timing errors on the charge and split the defenders with a neat pass to the central/near area. An additional option (for more advanced players) is to fake a shot at the far post, then chip the keeper or slot the ball towards the near side as he dives towards the far post.
From this discussion of the multiple options just for central finishing with one or no defenders, it should be clear to newer coaches why attacking is harder to teach new players than defending. Likewise, it is obvious that training attackers takes considerable amounts of time, observation and encouragement. These factors often cause youth coaches to decide to focus their efforts on just 2-3 attackers who show some natural talent/affinity for goal scoring. However, all players need to be introduced to these basic concepts - and it is not as hard as it might seem to provide this training to all of them.
Angle Finishing To Near/Far Posts
Of course, there are going to be times when the player is not able to come at the goal from a central position, and will be forced to come in from the side. Until the ball clears the inside of the nearest goal post, the far post is likely to be the only real shooting option. However, once the ball clears the first goal post, either option is available - and, in most instances, a shot should be made on the near post as soon as the ball clears the post. Why? Because the goalkeeper typically is moving backwards towards the central area of the goal so that his body will cover more of the goal - and the near post is most often wide open (unless an alert defender has moved in to block shots to that post).
When coming in at an angle, with the ball not yet clear of the near post, the goalkeeper knows that there is only one area of the goal which is available - which is the far post area. In order to try to block this option, the keeper often will station himself somewhat more centrally, so that he can block both high and low shots on the far post. However, against an attacker with good take-on skills who seems to be penetrating well, the keeper may prefer to stand just off the near post - expecting to charge the attacker if he gets close enough to goal that there seems to be a risk of the ball clearing the near post side.
The attacker should watch carefully to see which option is chosen by the goalkeeper. If the keeper is already cheating towards the back post (in soccer, the term "cheating" simply means to be moving more in one direction - it does not carry moral overtones), then it may prove to be productive to fake a kick towards the back post to cause the keeper to rapidly backpedal when you are a few feet from clearing the near post, then to quickly accelerate and slot the ball to the open near post area. with the outside of the foot nearest the goal or with the inside of the other foot.
Another option is to fake a high shot, then to shoot low and hard at the keeper's ankles. In general, low hard shots near the ankles are some of the most difficult balls to save. It is almost impossible to get down in time, so the only real option is to kick the ball away. However, if you have gone dead-leg on kicking leg, or have shifted your weight backwards, it usually is impossible to get to these balls at all. On the other hand, if the keeper is standing even with the near post, this means that he is vulnerable to shots on the far post, as well as in the central area if the attacker can get the ball inside the posts. For younger players who have inaccurate high shots, this keeper strategy is often successful - as the window which is open for the high shot is rather small. Moreover, a taller keeper often can jump and deflect the shot. So, what should the attacker do in this situation?
In general, the attacker should try to bring the ball as central as he can, and should take the keeper on in much the same fashion as a field player. Because most keepers expect a far post shot, they will tend to hold their charges on the ball until the attacker is right on them. This works to the advantage of a patient attacker, as he can often induce the keeper to go dead-leg on his near post leg by a feinted attempt at the far post (then slip the ball between the ankle and the near post); or get close enough to the keeper that he can "nutmeg" him (the ultimate gotcha of an attacker); or fake a pass to the near post, then pass the ball to himself centrally and do an off-balance pass to the far post; or, by being patient, end up with an open teammate on the far post who can accept an easy drop pass which can be slotted into the far post netting.
Once again, encourage creativity in this finishing. Some players develop all sorts of tactical feints and "smooth moves" to handle these situations - including back-heeling balls into the net, or doing behind the heel tucks, and so forth. These moves are exciting to players, and are fun to watch for the crowd, so let the players spend occasional time on perfecting their "moves." Usually, it takes considerable experimentation in practice before a player will find the courage to try new moves in games, so do not be surprised if a player will not use a move in a game which he has done well in practice. Especially in early adolescence, where "coolness" is highly important, it is fairly common for many players to wait on showing their new moves until they are CERTAIN that they will not make fools of themselves in the process. Contests sometimes can help to break this fear - but the best cure is time.
During training on angle finishing, you will need to add a defender who is coming in from various angles, so that the attacker will be exposed to realistic game situations and learn the best ways to adjust to these additional obstacles. Encourage players to learn to pounce on scoring chances and take the half-shot. There is an old saying in soccer that "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." As a coach, you want to make sure that you don't inadvertently punish players for taking the risk of shooting by criticizing their failure to pass the ball to a teammate. It is very easy to inadvertently train players to never shoot (so that the entire team is passing the responsibility and the ball around an open net).
In the next section, we will discuss group attacking, starting with basic 2v1 attacking. However, coaches are well-advised to spend most of their time with new players on development of take-on skills and on development of individual finishing skills, for two reasons. First, young children are inherently "me" focused. As a result, until around age 9, many will not want to share the ball with somebody else or even give much thought to the needs/positioning of other members of their own team. Therefore, during this self-centered developmental stage, kids are ripe for learning individual skills. Secondly, in order to be ready to use a teammate well, players need to understand the basic angles involved in finishing.
For example, in a situation with the keeper standing on the near post to stop an angled scoring run, one of the options available to an individual attacker who is fairly close to the inside of the near post is to pass the ball to himself towards the central area of the goal, then quickly try to slot the ball to the far corner. When a second attacker is added into this equation, this supporting player needs to realize what the positioning of the on-ball player and the keeper is telling him, so that he gets into position to accept the pass; holds his run so that he connects with the pass at the right moment; and then finishes the pass for the on-ball attacker.
This example illustrates why players who well-trained in individual scoring options already will have many of the tools needed to work in combination with other players, and underscores the importance which the coach must place on the acquisition of these skills.
While this is obvious to adults, it is not always obvious to children. Many children are very literal-minded. If the coach tells them to make sure to always try to hold onto possession by passing the ball around to open teammates, it is not uncommon to see them pass the ball around in front of the goal - and never attempt to put it in the net. Furthermore, if the coach spends lots of time on drills which have them carefully placing their balls on the ground, then backing up to take a net-breaking shot on goal, they will often pass up open chances to simply roll the ball into the goal in favor of trying to score "the way that coach taught us". As a result, it is very important to explain to young players when it is okay to take risks, and when it is better to play safe. It is also important to give them permission to score (which also means giving permission to miss, because the easiest way for a new player to avoid getting yelled at if he misses is to never take a shot).
The first thing to teach the attackers is that very little actual space is needed to get the ball around a defender or goalkeeper so that it can roll into the net. The ball just needs to clear the legs of the defender by an inch or less on either side. It is important to illustrate this idea to young players, so that they understand that it is possible to score goals in very tight quarters - and that they should try to do this.
The second thing to teach young players is that, to score goals, the best place to send the ball is to the place where it will be hardest for the defenders to get to it. Usually, this means that the safest place to send the ball is to the corners of the goal. However, if the middle of the goal is wide open, it is fine to send the ball there.
The third thing to teach young players is that you want them to score a lot of goals - and the very best way to do this is to pass the ball into the net as soon as they see an opening to do this, because passes are more accurate than shots and are easier to get off quickly. As a result, players should be encouraged to score goals using simple passes with the inside or outside to put a MOVING ball into the net. The coach should strive to create game-like situations in practice. As a practical matter, no defender or goalkeeper is going to allow your attackers to put a ball down in front of the goal, back up, and then run at it to blast it into the net. Scoring drills which involve long lines and stationary balls do a poor job of duplicating game conditions, and do not tend to create players who are comfortable in scoring goals with a moving ball by putting it around the feet of vigilant defenders.
The fourth thing to teach young players is when and where to take a shot. In other words, to introduce them to the concept of when they have entered "scoring range" - and should start to think about taking a shot.
Understanding Finishing Angles
For players and keepers to understand shooting angles, one of the easiest things to do is to purchase two long pieces of brightly-colored plastic rope. Yellow ski rope is perfect. Tie one end of one rope to a goalpost, and one end of the other rope to the other goalpost (if you only have one rope, tie both ends to the posts). Then, put an attacker on the field in front of the goal and intersect the ropes so that the attacker is standing on the intersection. Now, take the goalkeeper and put him between the ropes so that he can touch the rope on either side if he dives to that side. Show the players out in the field that they can get a pretty good idea of whether the goalkeeper is in proper position by just holding out their arms so that their hands are pointed at each goal post - and seeing whether they think that the keeper is centered on the angle and is out far enough. Initially, put all of the players behind the attacker, so that they get an idea of what you are doing.
Next, divide the players so that half are behind the keeper and the other half are behind the attacker. Set up sample angles, starting at the middle of the goal and working towards one side. Put a cone where the keeper needed to stand to be positioned properly. Once you get to very narrow angles towards the sides, have the groups change places to see things from a different point of view.
From this angle-mapping exercise, the players will see quite easily that the best approach on goal is dead-on towards the center of the goal. This approach makes the job of the keeper more difficult, because he must come very far off of the goalline in order to be able to cut down the shooting angle of the player. Because he is so far out, if he misses, the attacker has an easy shot on goal. Once attackers have learned to accurately chip the ball, it becomes even easier to punish a keeper who comes off his line - by simply lifting the ball over his head so that it can roll into the net behind him. Although you probably won't work on chips until later, it can be fun to point this out to the players to get them started thinking on scoring opportunities. Another thing that the players will learn from this exercise is that, once the ball can clear the inside of the near post (even if they are coming in from an angle), the keeper has so much territory to cover that it becomes much easier to slot the ball around him.
With this basic information on angles, they are ready to start to learn how to finish. This is a life-long process which involves some rapid processing of information, so miscalculations are inevitable (even among pros). Even the very best strikers in the world, who are playing at the highest levels, score only about once out of every six tries - which is one of the reasons that it is so important to encourage players not to get discouraged if the first few do not go in. There are 3 basic finishing options which they will need to learn. These are central finishing, and angle finishing to the near and far posts.
Central finishing
When coming in centrally, it is usually best for the attacker to come in at speed. Indeed, in general, it is a good idea to teach players to finish at speed, as there always will be breakaways in games and it is a pity to see a player who cannot capitalize on these chances.
To finish at speed is really quite easy - but, like anything, there is a knack to doing it. Because the player is going at speed, and his momentum will transfer to the ball, a "pass" at speed will be as hard as many shots. This pass also will keep the ball on the ground, which will force the keeper to make a difficult save (ground balls are harder to save than air balls).
There are three things that the player must do as he approaches goal at speed. The first is to get the ball under close control, which means that he is going to need to pull/drag the ball along with his dribbling foot to keep it right in front of him (see practice plan on straight-ahead dribbling for more details). The second is to pick the corner of the net where he wants the ball to go. The third is to turn the dribble foot at the proper angle to put the ball there - and to keep running as his foot strikes the ball so that he arrives at the net just a bit behind the ball.
While working on this technique, the best approach is to make a bunch of cone goals and let the kids experiment with making scoring runs. It is fine to let them just make hard passes thru the goal; keep on running; then turn around and come back the other way.
Until they get the technique down, there is no point in working with the opposition of a keeper. However, once they have the basic idea down, it is time to add a keeper. Of course, the easiest keeper to finish on is a keeper who freezes in goal. At younger ages, this is quite common (and sometimes happens for various reasons, even at higher levels). So, this is a good place to start.
Make several goals so that only 3 players are working on finishing at any one goal - which permits you to have one who is getting his ball, one who is getting ready to go, and one who is heading back to set up for another run) - and put a parent in goal with instructions to stay in the goal, but to move to make the save if the player send the ball early. Players will soon learn that, if they shoot too early on a stationary keeper, they will give him too much time to get over for the save. As a result, they will learn to hold the ball until they feel certain that they can get a shot/pass into the chosen corner before the keeper can get there. As players gain experience, they will want to start experimenting with fakes (and keepers also will want to try some fakes of their own to try to get the player to shoot with a non-favored foot or otherwise disrupt the shot).
After learning to shoot on a stationary keeper when coming in centrally at speed, the players will need to learn to finish on a keeper who is coming off his line. This is harder to learn, but is an essential part of their finishing tools. There are three basic ways to beat a keeper who is coming off of his line with the intent of diving at the ball. The first is to shoot early (taking the shot as soon as you see that he is coming out). The second is to shoot just before he arrives (by using a quick sidestep to get space just as he dives at the ball). The third is to use a feint to cause him to dive to the wrong side, then pass the ball around him for an easy finish. Most players will opt for the first and third options, as the chances of being taken out by the keeper are fairly high in the second option (although courageous older players may use this to try to draw a PK in situations where they held the ball a bit too long and seemed likely to lose the ball anyway). This is NOT something to teach younger players, however. Besides, they will have plenty to do in working on the first and third options - particularly since the coach will insist that they alternate using their dominant and non-dominant foot for finishing (as there is nothing worse than to see a player miss an obvious scoring chance as he wasted time trying to use the favored foot for a shot).
Now, in all of these scenarios, the situation was set up so that the player had plenty of time to go 1v1 with the keeper. While this often occurs in games, the most frequent situation is that a defender will be rapidly closing from the side or the back, so that there will be a smaller "window" of opportunity in which to shoot. Thus, the next thing which the coach will want to do is to add a defender who has instructions to run at a steady pace about 6 feet behind the attacker. If the attacker slows down, the defender will gain on him (and this is exactly what you want to have happen in order for realistic pressure to be applied). The attacker has to learn to be aware of the defender - but to leave his real focus on the keeper.
The next phase is to work on situations where a defender is coming in from the near side. Before the defender gets within slide tackling range of the ball (10-15 feet), it is important to move the ball to the far foot - which is the foot farthest from the incoming defender. This is one of the reasons why it is essential that players learn to dribble with both feet - as defenders have an aggravating habit of coming in from different sides, so attackers have to be prepared for this. Indeed, as defenders become more skilled, they will quickly figure out when an attacker is one-footed and will take advantage of this information by heavily guarding the favored side.
Once the ball is on his far foot, the attacker effectively has ruled out the slide tackle as an immediate option. However, the slide tackle is still an option to clear away a shot. Given the incoming angle of the defender, a near post shot is usually not available. Furthermore, as soon as the defender gets his body inside the posts and can help to cut down the near post angle, there is a high likelihood that the keeper will charge the attacker - with pretty good confidence that the attacker will be trying to put the ball in the far corner. So, what are the options? One option is to go for the far post early. Another option is to look for timing errors on the charge and split the defenders with a neat pass to the central/near area. An additional option (for more advanced players) is to fake a shot at the far post, then chip the keeper or slot the ball towards the near side as he dives towards the far post.
From this discussion of the multiple options just for central finishing with one or no defenders, it should be clear to newer coaches why attacking is harder to teach new players than defending. Likewise, it is obvious that training attackers takes considerable amounts of time, observation and encouragement. These factors often cause youth coaches to decide to focus their efforts on just 2-3 attackers who show some natural talent/affinity for goal scoring. However, all players need to be introduced to these basic concepts - and it is not as hard as it might seem to provide this training to all of them.
Angle Finishing To Near/Far Posts
Of course, there are going to be times when the player is not able to come at the goal from a central position, and will be forced to come in from the side. Until the ball clears the inside of the nearest goal post, the far post is likely to be the only real shooting option. However, once the ball clears the first goal post, either option is available - and, in most instances, a shot should be made on the near post as soon as the ball clears the post. Why? Because the goalkeeper typically is moving backwards towards the central area of the goal so that his body will cover more of the goal - and the near post is most often wide open (unless an alert defender has moved in to block shots to that post).
When coming in at an angle, with the ball not yet clear of the near post, the goalkeeper knows that there is only one area of the goal which is available - which is the far post area. In order to try to block this option, the keeper often will station himself somewhat more centrally, so that he can block both high and low shots on the far post. However, against an attacker with good take-on skills who seems to be penetrating well, the keeper may prefer to stand just off the near post - expecting to charge the attacker if he gets close enough to goal that there seems to be a risk of the ball clearing the near post side.
The attacker should watch carefully to see which option is chosen by the goalkeeper. If the keeper is already cheating towards the back post (in soccer, the term "cheating" simply means to be moving more in one direction - it does not carry moral overtones), then it may prove to be productive to fake a kick towards the back post to cause the keeper to rapidly backpedal when you are a few feet from clearing the near post, then to quickly accelerate and slot the ball to the open near post area. with the outside of the foot nearest the goal or with the inside of the other foot.
Another option is to fake a high shot, then to shoot low and hard at the keeper's ankles. In general, low hard shots near the ankles are some of the most difficult balls to save. It is almost impossible to get down in time, so the only real option is to kick the ball away. However, if you have gone dead-leg on kicking leg, or have shifted your weight backwards, it usually is impossible to get to these balls at all. On the other hand, if the keeper is standing even with the near post, this means that he is vulnerable to shots on the far post, as well as in the central area if the attacker can get the ball inside the posts. For younger players who have inaccurate high shots, this keeper strategy is often successful - as the window which is open for the high shot is rather small. Moreover, a taller keeper often can jump and deflect the shot. So, what should the attacker do in this situation?
In general, the attacker should try to bring the ball as central as he can, and should take the keeper on in much the same fashion as a field player. Because most keepers expect a far post shot, they will tend to hold their charges on the ball until the attacker is right on them. This works to the advantage of a patient attacker, as he can often induce the keeper to go dead-leg on his near post leg by a feinted attempt at the far post (then slip the ball between the ankle and the near post); or get close enough to the keeper that he can "nutmeg" him (the ultimate gotcha of an attacker); or fake a pass to the near post, then pass the ball to himself centrally and do an off-balance pass to the far post; or, by being patient, end up with an open teammate on the far post who can accept an easy drop pass which can be slotted into the far post netting.
Once again, encourage creativity in this finishing. Some players develop all sorts of tactical feints and "smooth moves" to handle these situations - including back-heeling balls into the net, or doing behind the heel tucks, and so forth. These moves are exciting to players, and are fun to watch for the crowd, so let the players spend occasional time on perfecting their "moves." Usually, it takes considerable experimentation in practice before a player will find the courage to try new moves in games, so do not be surprised if a player will not use a move in a game which he has done well in practice. Especially in early adolescence, where "coolness" is highly important, it is fairly common for many players to wait on showing their new moves until they are CERTAIN that they will not make fools of themselves in the process. Contests sometimes can help to break this fear - but the best cure is time.
During training on angle finishing, you will need to add a defender who is coming in from various angles, so that the attacker will be exposed to realistic game situations and learn the best ways to adjust to these additional obstacles. Encourage players to learn to pounce on scoring chances and take the half-shot. There is an old saying in soccer that "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." As a coach, you want to make sure that you don't inadvertently punish players for taking the risk of shooting by criticizing their failure to pass the ball to a teammate. It is very easy to inadvertently train players to never shoot (so that the entire team is passing the responsibility and the ball around an open net).
In the next section, we will discuss group attacking, starting with basic 2v1 attacking. However, coaches are well-advised to spend most of their time with new players on development of take-on skills and on development of individual finishing skills, for two reasons. First, young children are inherently "me" focused. As a result, until around age 9, many will not want to share the ball with somebody else or even give much thought to the needs/positioning of other members of their own team. Therefore, during this self-centered developmental stage, kids are ripe for learning individual skills. Secondly, in order to be ready to use a teammate well, players need to understand the basic angles involved in finishing.
For example, in a situation with the keeper standing on the near post to stop an angled scoring run, one of the options available to an individual attacker who is fairly close to the inside of the near post is to pass the ball to himself towards the central area of the goal, then quickly try to slot the ball to the far corner. When a second attacker is added into this equation, this supporting player needs to realize what the positioning of the on-ball player and the keeper is telling him, so that he gets into position to accept the pass; holds his run so that he connects with the pass at the right moment; and then finishes the pass for the on-ball attacker.
This example illustrates why players who well-trained in individual scoring options already will have many of the tools needed to work in combination with other players, and underscores the importance which the coach must place on the acquisition of these skills.