Personalizing team practices

The small-sided games I see on social media are great—many of them I adopt directly into our practices. Yet still, there’s another layer of creativity to explore (similar to what I wrote about in my post on personalizing a small group workout). In this post, I want to talk about one way we can personalize an entire team practice to fit our needs.

Just like with individuals, it starts by identifying common scenarios. Below are two examples of games we created that mirror specific scenarios we encounter frequently in our press. This post isn't about teaching you the details of our press—they’re meant to spark your own thinking about what your team needs. What situations or concepts do you struggle with most? Can you turn them into competitive drills where players are rewarded for execution and know right away when they fall short?

These types of drills do three things for us:

• Multiply the reps of our most common scenarios in a game-like way.
• Provide clarity on what we need to do, how to do it, and why it matters.
• Create a shared understanding of standards across the team.

So from this, I hope you are able to brainstorm the unique scenarios that frequently arise based on how you play and what you run (whether that's in your press, transition offense, or in other phases of the game). Then, design ways to start practice reps in those exact situations, giving your team both the understanding and experience to execute them better.