📋 Session Plan
U13 Pre-Season — Week 1 Reactivation
First week back from summer. Players have rust, lower fitness, and forgotten teammates' names. 60 minutes designed to reconnect — not test, not push, just
First week back from summer. Players have rust, lower fitness, and forgotten teammates' names. 60 minutes designed to reconnect — not test, not push, just
Use the full team builder drill — names, positions, who's new, who's grown. Spend the time. The 12 minutes invested in social rapport here pays back across the entire season. Don't rush this just because you're impatient to start playing.
Light technical reps to get touches in without fitness demand. Run rounds 1-3 only — no defenders, no pressure. The point is to feel the ball again. By minute 12, you'll see the squad starting to look like a football team again.
Long SSG block (25 min). Run two parallel 4v4 pitches if you have 12+ players. NO conditions, NO tactical instructions, NO pressing rules. Just play. The squad needs to FEEL like a team again before you start asking them to think like one. Rotate teams every 5 minutes so everyone plays with everyone. End with a 4v4 'finals' that gets a bit competitive.
Generous 8-minute cool-down. Light stretches, then the circle: 'one thing you missed about football this summer'. Each player answers. The shared moment of speaking aloud rebuilds the team identity faster than any tactical work. Some players will say 'scoring goals'; some will say 'seeing my mates'. Both are wins.
Clear demonstrations and high energy. Keep the session moving with minimal queuing, and reinforce one or two key coaching points rather than overloading players with information.
Players standing in queues (set up enough stations to keep everyone active) and the session running too long on one activity (keep blocks tight and move on while engagement is high).
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Coaches tip: Post-session recovery nutrition matters as much as the drills themselves — MaxiNutrition's recovery range is built for exactly this.
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Building conditioning between sessions at home? DeerRun UK's home treadmills make it easy to keep up cardio work off the pitch.