Every coach dreams of using the latest and best equipment to teach their players. Few coaches have those kinds of resources.

Especially overseas.

One challenge for football coaches in Europe and other parts of the world where soccer is the dominant type of sport is finding good field-training equipment. Even where budgets can afford it, availability does not always meet demand. In Turkey, we have dealt with that problem for years.

As coaches, we must be creative in transforming soccer related field-equipment for the purposes of football. 

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At Bogazici Janissaries in Istanbul, we emphasize the chute as a key piece of equipment for players learning how to play and stay low. Being able to get off the stance from under a proper height structure is critical in developing forward movement while simultaneously fulfilling the mechanical needs of tackling or blocking. For a proper tackling or blocking progression, players need be able to move their upper extremities while keeping an arch in their back and staying low to the ground.

Supplying a proper chute can be expensive in terms of shipping costs from United States, and not everyone has access to materials and designers to create a good homemade replica. Also, with few teams having a regular home practice field, locations must be flexible and teams must be able to break down and transport any equipment. The mobile nature of practice locations makes unrealistic to keep a chute stationary at a given field.

In order to overcome these obstacles, we utilize soccer goal posts as practical chutes. If we can find miniature posts, we also utilize those.

As a result, we have managed to utilize soccer goal posts for the following drills:

• Offensive linemen in their blocking progression
• Heads Up Football buzz and hit drills
• Defensive linemen roll, shuffle and punch drills

No matter how you do it, put your players in the right position to learn safely and effectively with the equipment you have at hand.

Bora Tamer Yilmaz is an American football coach in Istanbul, Turkey. He is a coach with the Janissary Under-19 football team, part of the Bogazici Sultans sponsored by Turkish Airlines. You can follow him on Twitter @batarya.