Finishing in the development of the U20 player
In U20, finishing is an adult player's skill. The gaps that remain at this age are not technical gaps: they are behavioral, reading, or mental gaps. A U20 player who misses chances in a match but finishes well in training has a transfer problem, not a gesture problem. And that problem is solved by training finishing under conditions strictly identical to those of a match: maximum physical pressure, active direct opposition, and sustained intensity over long formats.
What we regularly observe among U20 players who progress fastest is that they deliberately expose their weaknesses in training rather than avoiding them. The player who consistently misses with his left foot works on it instead of always returning to his strong side. It is in that controlled discomfort that progress happens. The U20 transition drills follow this logic precisely: situations where finishing arrives after an intense transition, without recovery time, in conditions that allow no room for comfort.
Should you really work on finishing in U20?
The question may seem strange, but it is legitimate. In U20, some coaches consider finishing an innate individual quality that no longer needs to be trained at this level. This is a view we challenge. Finishing in U20 must continue to be developed, but differently than at U15 or U17. It is no longer about repeating gestures in comfortable formats, but about reproducing exact match conditions so that the habits built during formation hold under the maximum pressure of adult football.
This work comes through formats very close to real match conditions: global games with a finishing constraint, counter-attack situations to conclude in fewer than three actions, finishing drills under physical fatigue at the end of a session. The U20 rondos that lead into an immediate finishing action after a recovery are particularly effective for reproducing these conditions in an engaging, intense format.
How to correct finishing in U20
Finishing errors in U20 tend to follow the same patterns. The most common is rushing: the player makes their decision too quickly, before truly reading the goalkeeper's position. The correction comes through drills that impose scanning before the shot: a color to identify, a signal to wait for, a target zone announced at the last moment. These simple constraints force the player not to shoot blind.
The second frequent error is failing to exploit the goalkeeper's weakness: a goalkeeper who comes off the line quickly, covers one side, or stays on their line. A U20 attacker must be able to read this information in a fraction of a second and adapt their action accordingly. Developing this reading happens in exercises where the goalkeeper receives variable instructions each repetition, forcing the attacker to observe rather than mechanically anticipate. For a deeper understanding of how defenses organize to protect their goal, the article low block in soccer: principles, organization, and key factors for effective defending offers a very useful perspective on how opposing teams position themselves and which spaces remain available to finish into.