Josh had the best finishing technique on our U14 team. Clinical in shooting drills. Rarely missed from inside the box. Coaches loved watching him strike a ball.
He also scored the fewest goals.
I watched him for several matches trying to understand the contradiction. Then I saw it. Josh stood in the penalty area waiting for the ball to arrive. When it did not, he complained about service. When it did, he was already surrounded by three defenders.
His finishing did not matter because he never created opportunities to finish.
That is when I understood that striker training does not start with shooting. It starts with movement.
The Session That Changed Everything
I pulled Josh aside after a match where he had touched the ball twice in the attacking third. “How many times did you make a run today?”
He thought about it. “Maybe five or six?”
“How many times did you receive the ball?”
“Twice.”
“So your runs are working about thirty percent of the time. What if we could make them work seventy percent?”
I showed him video of a Premier League striker. Not the goals. The movement. I counted forty-seven purposeful movements in one half. Only eight resulted in receiving the ball. But those eight created five shots.
Josh watched in silence. “He never stops moving.”
“And look at what he is doing. He is not just running randomly. He is solving problems.”
The Four Movements Every Striker Needs
Over the next month, I taught Josh four distinct movement patterns. Each one solves a different problem.
The depth run stretches defences vertically. When Josh aligned himself level with the deepest defender and waited for his midfielder to lift their head, he could burst behind the line at the exact moment the ball was released. The key was curving the run to stay onside while creating a better angle to goal. The first time he scored from a depth run, he sprinted to me on the touchline. “I saw the space!”
The drop movement creates space for teammates. Josh learned to retreat ten to fifteen yards toward his own goal, drawing the centre-back with him. This opened a channel for our attacking midfielder to run into. Even when Josh did not receive the ball, he was creating chances for others. That selfless movement was harder for him to learn than any technical skill.
The lateral drift confuses defensive marking. By moving sideways across the pitch while maintaining forward positioning, Josh started pulling centre-backs out of position horizontally. He had position himself in the half-space between centre-back and full-back, creating two-versus-one situations on the flanks. When our winger reached the byline, Josh attacked the near post.
The false movement became his specialty. He had make an initial movement in one direction with total conviction, watching the defender’s hips. When they committed, he had change direction explosively and attack the space created by their reaction. The check-and-go, where he moved toward the ball then spun behind, became almost unstoppable once he mastered the timing.
Reading The Defence
The breakthrough came when Josh stopped thinking about his movements and started thinking about the defenders.
I taught him to watch for weight on heels, which meant slow reaction to runs behind. Defenders turned toward the ball meant they were blind to his movement. Narrow spacing between centre-back and full-back created channels to exploit. Poor communication between defenders meant confusion about marking.
Josh started scanning constantly before every movement. He had check his shoulder twice, identify the weakness, then exploit it.
“It is like chess,” he told me after a match where he had scored a hat-trick. “I am not just moving. I am making them move where I want them.”
The Timing Secret
The hardest thing to teach was timing. Josh would see space and sprint into it before the ball was ready. By the time the pass arrived, the defender had recovered.
I taught him to wait for visual triggers. His midfielder’s head lifting. The ball rolling forward. Body shape to pass. The moment the ball left the passer’s foot was when Josh should accelerate, not before.
We practiced this endlessly. Pass, move, check the timing. Too early meant offside or recovery. Too late meant the opportunity had passed. The sweet spot was a fraction of a second.
After six weeks, Josh had internalized it. His runs arrived at the ball instead of waiting for it.
Chaining Movements Together
Elite strikers do not make one movement and stop. They chain movements together, keeping defenders constantly uncertain.
Josh learned to drop, pass, then spin behind for the return. He had drift wide, receive, then make a diagonal depth run. If a movement did not work, he immediately made another one.
The static striker is easy to mark. The constantly moving striker is impossible to track.
What Changed For Josh
By the end of the season, Josh was our top scorer. Not because his finishing improved. His finishing had always been excellent. But now he was finishing three times as often because he was creating three times as many opportunities.
His movement manipulation created space for teammates too. Our wingers and midfielders scored more because Josh was pulling defenders out of position.
The transformation was not about physical attributes. Josh did not get faster or stronger. He got smarter. He understood that scoring goals starts long before the ball arrives.
Building Movement In Your Strikers
Start with younger players by teaching basic concepts. Moving to receive. Finding space. Praise any intelligent movement without overcomplicating the instruction.
With eleven to thirteen year olds, introduce the four patterns individually. Spend four to six weeks on each one before adding complexity. Use video to show examples.
Fourteen to sixteen year olds can start chaining movements together and reading defenders. Question them constantly. “Why did you choose that movement?” Understanding accelerates development.
Older players need minimal instruction and maximum game-realistic practice. The movements should be intuitive by then. Focus on refinement and subtle variations.
The Truth About Striker Development
Most youth training dedicates eighty percent of striker development time to finishing drills. Players line up, receive a pass, and shoot. This completely ignores the ninety-five percent of match time where strikers must work to create shooting opportunities.
Josh looked sharp in shooting drills but disappeared during matches. The drills were not preparing him for the actual demands of being a striker.
Great strikers are not born. They are developed. Intelligent movement is the foundational skill separating elite forwards from adequate ones. A striker with average finishing but excellent movement will outscore a clinical finisher who does not move well.
Josh taught me that. Or rather, watching Josh fail taught me that. His transformation taught me how to fix it.
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