TAG - YOU'RE IT! - Thoughts From Ed Shone

February 19th 2020

There are no extra prizes in soccer for HOW a player moves, no one awards extra goals or wins based on what the movement looks like.  With the chaotic nature of football (and other team invasion type sports), players are asked to quickly solve how to move their body in the context of what is occurring in the game.

Therefore, despite their uses, calling them “agility” ladders is a little bit of a misconception.  In football, being able to move has many influences: where am I on the field, where’s the ball, where are my opponents/team-mates, how do I get to that space, the list is quite long.

During the athletic development portions of sessions, often we employ games of tag and its variants as a method to train movement quality and decision making.  In tag, there are two objectives: tag someone, or avoid being tagged.  How a player accomplishes this looks different every time.

These games employ problem solving, decision making, speed of thought and of course, sprinting, walking, jogging, one leg stances, change of speed and acceleration or decelerations. For the younger age groups, especially, they are also fun games which they enjoy playing and competing in.

We do not need to play these games for too long, since fatigue plays a role in the ability of a player to move efficiently.  Short rounds (30 seconds or so) put players in a position to work hard, but also recover.

We feel tag type games are an important inclusion in our training and add a vital part to every players development as an athlete not only a footballer.