PPM Soccer: Training Basics Part 1

We're well over the hump in the first ever PPM soccer season and teams are starting to get established. Many managers have come from hockey, so are already familiar with the PPM Training system. Saying that, there are many who came in directly for the soccer game and are still in the learning phase.

In this first of a series covering basic PPM Soccer training I wanted to touch base on the training methodology and highlight a few important factors that may be left forgotten.

Training Methodology

The PPM training system is fairly straight forward. You simply select the attribute you want your player to train in. Each day your players will get an increase in that attribute, dependent on the size of your training facility, your coaching staff and the quality of your players attributes.

Training Attributes

The PPM Soccer training is a little more "in depth" than that of PPM Hockey. Unlike Hockey, where each player has just 3 key attributes for their position (primary-secondary-secondary), in soccer the number of attributes for a position varies, as does their importance to that position. Because of this, training of players so they can excel best in their positions can appear harder. In truth, it's not, it just takes a little more time.

As per the PPM Guide, player attributes and their importance on the relevant positions are as follows:

As you can see, PPM have given us the information we need to best train our players, it's up to us how we use it.

Training Positions

This section is part of a much larger article that I will be writing at a later time, but I wanted to briefly mention it here. As we can see from the information in the PPM Guide, it's not as each as just Forward, Midfield or Defense. While many may think it's that easy, the PPM team have actually given us twice as many positions by adding a Wing and Center for each of the field positions. This is really great for us, as allows much more detailed training. However, you do need to know what positions your players are going to play in. If you have a midfielder, you need to know where he will play before you can decide how to best train him. Because of this, take time to really study your team and make not of what position your guys will play in. Players who prefer Left or Right sides dominate on their side but are a lot less effective on the other. Universal players however are good at both sides, so often play best in the center position.

Training Ratios

This is part of a larger article that will be coming in the next few days. As per the PPM guide, the attributs for each position have varying importance to that position, so the ratio of the attributes would naturally vary. There is no set rule as to what this ratio is, so it is purely up to individual preference.

That said, enjoy the game. PPM have given us a great game here with fantastic freedom to train and build our teams.

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