FineSoccer Drill 77

Here is a simple possession game that works on possession, defending in groups and also taking responsibility.

Let's assume you have 15 players at your training session.  Set them up in a circle (you could use the center circle for this).

Three players start in the middle and the players on the outside are playing one touch keep away.  While the players on the outside can move around the outside of the circle, they may NOT move inside or outside the circle.

The simple objective is for the players on the outside to keep the ball away from the players in the middle.  

One problem with possession games such as 3 v 1 or 5 v 2 is that the person who loses possession of the ball is actually NOT the one who is at fault.  Rather, the supporting players didn't do their job properly which results in the loss of possession.  The way this game tries to work on this is that if a player loses possession of the ball, not only does she go into the middle, but so does the player on each side of her (the three players who were in the middle rotate OUT at this time).  This encourages the players around the ball to provide proper support because if they don't, they will most likely become defenders as a result.  The other thing this rule accomplishes is that it encourages the player on the ball to look further than the players next to her.  Since we want to encourage our players to keep their head up and look further than the closest player, this is an excellent way to accomplish it (if the ball was coming to you and you knew that by playing the ball first time to the player right next to you might result in the loss of possession and you have to go play defense, wouldn't you start looking further first?).

As an added incentive to get the defense working hard (and working together) is that if the offensive players can string together 10 consecutive passes, it results in an extra turn on defense for the players in the middle.  This means that if the players on the circle make 12 successful passes and then a player loses possession, the defense stays in for another turn.  If the players on the outside can make 20 successful passes, then the defense gets two extra turns.  It is for this reason that the circle must be very small (adjust it for the ability of the players as well as the numbers).

The great thing about this activity is that it gets quite exciting as the players try to keep other players in the middle as long as possible and also start providing proper support and better decision making.

Give this a try and let me know what you think of it on the FineSoccer Forum

Have a great day.

Lawrence