On 21 September 2026, children’s and youth football took centre stage at SpVg Schonnebeck’s Schettersbusch sports ground. The live seminar with Peter Schreiner from the Institut für Jugendfußball focused on two skills that are becoming ever more important in modern football: confident play with both feet, and the ability to perceive match situations early and react to them quickly.
The children’s and youth coaches of the U9 to U15 age groups first received a theoretical introduction. The content was then put into practice directly on the pitch with the demonstration groups SV Schonnebeck E2 and D1.
Seminar topics:
- Two-footedness in passing and finishing
- Moments that decide games: training perception & speed of action in practice
16.30 – Theory on the topics
- Perception training and two-footedness in football
17.15 – Practical session 1
- Reaction, catching and perception games for children’s and youth football
- Warm-up passing exercises for two-footedness (partner exercises)
- Training two-footed finishing effectively
18.15 – Practical session 2
- Perception training – exercises and game forms for advanced players with perception gloves
- Warm-up passing exercises for two-footedness (groups of three)
- Two-footed finishing training
- Final game focusing on reaction and perception with T-PRO Connect bibs
19.30 – Debrief and end of seminar
One focus was on two-footedness. Passing exercises, finishing drills and different organisational formats were designed to stop players automatically falling back on their dominant foot. Schreiner describes two-footedness as an important part of well-rounded player development: anyone who can use both feet confidently has more options for solving match situations flexibly and makes their actions harder for opponents to predict.
Perception and speed of action
The second major block of topics dealt with perception and speed of action. It was about the moments in football that often last only a few seconds or even fractions of a second: taking in information, recognising situations, making decisions and then acting.
This is exactly where Schreiner’s current training concept „Augenblicke, die Spiele entscheiden“ ("Moments that decide games") comes in. The exercises presented deal with, among other things, scanning, pre-orientation, perceiving spaces, teammates and opponents, and making decisions under pressure from opponents.
Practice on the pitch
In the practical part, things then became very concrete. Reaction, catching and perception games served as the warm-up. These were followed by passing exercises for two-footedness in pairs and groups of three, as well as various finishing drills in which both feet were used.
For the advanced perception exercises, perception gloves were among the equipment used. To finish, what had been learned was put into practice in a game form focusing on reaction and perception – supported by T-PRO Connect bibs.
Debrief and conclusion
The final debrief brought to a close a seminar that closely linked theory and practice. It was precisely this link that made the content immediately transferable for the coaches: the exercises could not only be demonstrated but also tried out directly with the young players and checked for their practical application in everyday training.
The two focal points of the seminar show two sides of the same idea: players should have technical options and at the same time be able to use those options at the right moment. Two-footedness expands the scope for action on the ball, while perception and quick decisions help players actually make use of that scope in the game.
This also ties in with Schreiner’s publications: his book „Beidfüßigkeit im Fußball“ ("Two-footedness in football") combines theoretical foundations with 84 training forms and covers, among other things, the development of the non-dominant foot and the integration of two-footed training at different age levels. The book „Augenblicke, die Spiele entscheiden“, on the other hand, focuses on perception, pre-orientation and speed of action and offers 56 exercises and game forms for practical training work.
