Scan, receive, turn – Small-sided game
Help your players make quicker and better decisions with this three-part session. By Matthew Thomas MORE
Switch play
Improve your players’ awareness of space and how to switch play to find room to attack with this simple-to-follow session.
What this session is about
- Awareness of space.
- Switching play.
- Attacking space to create chances to score.
What to think about
When your team is in possession, your players must assess if they can go forward and attack. If blocked, the team must quickly switch the ball to a new area of the pitch to find space to move forward and attack the opponents’ goal.
Set-up
| Warm up | Session | Developments | Game Situation | Warm Down |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | 10 minutes | 15 minutes | 15 minutes | 10 minutes |
What you get your players to do
Play 3v3 in a 30-yard square with two target players for each team outside the square.
The teams play unopposed to pass the ball from outside to outside through the square.
One team works in a horizontal direction and the other team works in a vertical direction.
Play with the following rules:
- Two touches.
- Grounded pass then an aerial pass.
- One touch.
The teams work the ball across the pitch to the target players.
Development
In the same square, progress to an opposed possession game. The teams must now try to get the ball from one outside player to the other outside player to score a goal. The player passing to the outside player runs outside and allows the outside player to dribble into the pitch. This allows for rotation of central players.
The teams try to switch play from one side to the other to score.
Game situation
Play 5v5 – attack v defence – plus two keepers on a 50×40-yard pitch with two goals at one end and a server at the other end.
To start, the attacking team receive a pass from the server and must build up to score in either of the two goals. The placement of the goals allows teams to assess the best goal to attack then quickly switch play to do so. The scoring team get the ball back from the server and attack again.
If the defenders win the ball, they try to return the ball to the server. If successful, the roles in the game are reversed.
Offside rules apply in this game.
The attacking team works the ball from one side to the other to try and score.
