My Hunt for Football Passing Drills Begins
Last Tuesday after practice, I realized our team’s passing looked sloppy. I needed fresh drills but had zero ideas where to find them. Grabbed my coffee, opened my laptop, and thought “Alright, where do normal folks find football drills these days?” Started typing random stuff into Google like “soccer pass practice” but kept getting fancy coaching sites wanting $50/month subscriptions. Nope.
Remembered seeing coaches talk about free resources on Twitter, so I searched “free football drills” there. Found tons of clips but mostly fancy tricks or kids juggling. Scrolled for 20 minutes – couple decent short pass drills popped up, but nothing organized. Saved two videos anyway while muttering “there’s gotta be better ways than this chaos”.
Stumbling Through the Mess
Next day, dug up my old coaching books from the garage. Dusted off three manuals – one had stick figure diagrams from 2007! They actually had solid triangle passing drills, but everything was static. Modern football moves fast, right? Needed something with movement patterns.
Asked my buddy Dave who coaches junior league. He texted me screenshots from some app he uses. Looked neat with animated players showing runs, but when I tried downloading it… boom, paywall after the free trial. Almost threw my phone. Hate when they bait you like that!
Went down rabbit hole searching “possession drills PDF”. Found 30-page documents with tiny font explaining offside rules instead of drills. Closed twelve tabs in anger.
The Goldmine Moments
Thursday morning, grumpy at my kitchen table, typed “simple football passing patterns forum”. That did it. Found regular coaches swapping drill sketches in message boards. No fancy graphics, just hand-drawn arrows and descriptions like “three players rotate after pass”. Copied six gems into my notebook.
Then it hit me – why not YouTube channels focused on grassroots coaching? Filtered search by channels. Found this one bald guy explaining wall passes using traffic cones and shoes since he didn’t have markers. Laughed at the shoe part but saved his entire playlist.
What Actually Works for Busy Coaches
By Sunday I’d tested all sources. Here’s what sticks for actual training:
- Grassroots coaching blogs: Real trainers post their weekly sessions. No polish, just tried-and-tested drills that work in mud
- YouTube tutorial channels run by actual coaches, not influencers. Skip the fancy edits, find raw field recordings
- Online coaching communities where old-school trainers share PDF playbooks. Like finding grandpa’s coaching notes but useful
- Library coaching books pre-2010s before they got bloated. Focus on fundamentals only
- Free mobile apps that actually show animations without paywalls. Only found one worth keeping though
Printed everything last night while watching match replays. Made notes like “too many cones?” or “try with weaker foot only”. Season starts Saturday – if the players groan about new passing drills, I’ll know I did my job right!
