Drills and Conditioned Games To Improve and Develop Team-Play

Warm Up: “#” block:

Purpose: Working on Ball handling (soloing, hand passing, catching) and fitness

Requirements: Minimum 16 players, 2 at each cone, 3 footballs, 2 sets of cones (X4)

Two footballs start at “A” markers at same time.

Third ball introduced at B1 by next player in line, but only after 1st player at C1 has moved to D

Encourage players to take the max 4 steps when carrying the ball. No solo or bounce should be needed when travelling the widths.

Encourage players going from A to B and C to D to burst onto pass to receive in front of themselves

Players always replace the player at the cone that they have passed to.

This is a hand passing drill, so should not break down often and is therefore ideal for a warm up.

Variation:

It can also be modified for kicking the lengths and/or widths.

A B1

D C1

30m

C 20m

D

B A

Game 1:

3 Fives

Requirements: Ideally three teams of five players but can be modified three even teams. Three sets of bids, one football. Marked area approx 30mx30m

Purpose: Making it easier for players to improve support play and retain possession by over loading the teams

Rules: Hand passing possession game, 2 teams vs 1 team.

If ball hits the ground or is intercepted, team at fault is now defending team

Develop player movement of teams in possession

Develop team defending by the players trying to regain possession

Exposes:

Players not stretching the play by not moving they recive

Exposes:

Players not stretching the play by moving away from the opposition when they receive possession which often leads to lots of short hand passing in congested areas.

e.g Corner back receives pass from keeper and without gaining any ground immediately hand passes to nearest team mate who is now forced to do the same. This draws in more team mates into a small area, reducing space and increasing the opportunity for interception.

Condition 1: Players must take solo before releasing possession

Purpose: stretch play

Exposes: The bad habit of taking solo before using 4 steps

Condition 2: Player in possession must take max 4 steps before hand passing to team mate

Purpose: Forces players to stretch the play. This creates space which:

➢ Stops players from bunching

➢ Gives players more time on the ball

➢ Forces players to move and change direction when in possession

➢ Makes it harder for opposition to intercept the ball

Condition 3: Players in possession can no longer pass to their own colour.

Purpose: To make players concentrate and make better decisions

➢ Players to look up and locate the other team they are playing with i.e in game situation

it trains players to make better decisions by choosing the team mate in the best position to pass to.

➢ Makes players more comfortable in possession as they cannot rely on the safety net of passing to the first team mate they see but have to remain calm, solo, bounce and change direction until they find a player from the opposite colour to pass to.

➢ Better decision making when it comes to movement off the ball by players as only one

colour can now receive a pass. Players have to keep thinking which colour is in possession and get ready to make themselves available.

➢ Better communication by the defending team. How long will it take the defending team

to decide together they now only have to defend one colour at a time.

Variation:

This game can also be modified into a kicking game

Game 2:

Two Goals/Four Goals Game

Requirements: Playing area 20m line to 20m line and full width of pitch. 4 sets of poles. 2 sets of bibs and 1 football

Ideal numbers: 8 Vs 8, normal rules, except scores obtained by hand pass through poles.

First game only involves 2 sets of goals, 20m line to 20m line

Exposes: This game will reveal some bad habits and weaknesses of team play:

➢ Players and game will advance up and down the field bunched.

➢ Game will become crammed in front of goal area

➢ Lazy players will not work hard when team are not in possession, but will wait for

opposition to score allowing his team go get possession back

➢ Very little kick passing

➢ Slow pace to the game

Condition 1:

After hand pass there must be a kick pass

After team has scored they retain possession and try to score in the other direction. This results in lazy players having to work to win the ball back rather than waiting for possession to be returned to their team after a score. If possession is turned over, team can score in either goal.

However, this does not solve the identified issues

Condition 2:

Same playing area, 2 extra goals on sideline

Same rules except, players can now score in any goals except the one they just scored in

Purpose: To solve the problems identified in last two games:

➢ Lots of long kicking leading to improved kicking especially from different angles i.e

most kicking drills are straight line and involve very little movement by receiving player.

➢ Eliminates congested play in front of goals as players now have four options to

attack

➢ Also works on player fitness as play is spread out and game is spread out. Defending

team now have to work harder to win the ball back.

➢ Better decision making as players can turn and change the point of attack at any

time.

Variation

There are any number of conditions that can be applied to change the game

➢ Limit players to One hop one solo or even none at all

➢ Team must compete a set number of team passes before going for a score (demands

more support play)