Football/Soccer Session (Difficult): preventing breaking lines

1. Specific Session 25 mins

Specific

Welsh Way Principles - Understand when and how to prevent opposition breaking lines

Objective - Minimise number of times opposition forwards receive the ball and scoring opportunities

Organisation 

• Area size will be half pitch with 2x mini goals,  
• Cones will be used to mark out the tapered lines  as both team will not have any full backs
• 7v7 with 1 GK and on the out of possession team and the other GK serving balls.to the in possession team
  
• Pitch is split into 3 zones so that coaching is targeted within the central area in the specific practice .
  
• Defending team formation will be 1-3-2-1 (1-3-4-3 in 11 a side)
• Attacking team formation will be 1-2-2-2 (1-4-4-2 in 11 a side)
• Wingers have also been taken out  so coaches can focus on the central areas.
• All players are locked in to the central zone.
  

Explanation

• Coaching Blues (Out of Possession Team) and Managing Reds (in Possession Team).
• Initial possession and re-starts will begin with the goalkeeper of the red team, who is restricted to playing the ball out from the back solely to one of the red Centre Backs. 
• Upon winning possession, the blue team is allotted 10 seconds to transition from defence to attack, aiming to score with the mini goals or playing the ball back the opposition's GK. This time constraint is implemented to encourage the blue team to initiate attacks promptly after recovering possession creating lots of opportunities to practice the topic 

Challenges, Conditions and Targets 

Challenges - can Blue defending team restrict amount of times ball played into red forwards and scoring opportunities are created

Conditions - Opposition must attempt to break lines by going 'around' or 'through' (not over) to enable opportunities for players to 'defend the lines'

Targets - Can reds break lines to pass ball into their forwards and create scoring opportunities 

Coaching Points

• as ball being played forwards must 'recognise tigger' and consider angle of approach so swiftly press the inside shoulder of the receiving defender on the in possession (reds) team, applying immediate pressure to make the pitch 'small' and minimise the opportunities to break lines and play forward  .
• Equally if play is switched to the other defender for the in possession (reds) team the nearest 'ball side' midfielder will 'jump' to apply fast pressure

Protect the space in behind  

• Stopping split passes - if play is switched and 'ball side' midfielder (blues) 'jumps' then forward (blues) drops back into a central area to prevent a diagonal pass into opposite midfielder
• If 'ball side' midfielder (blues) 'jumps' to press the ball, the 'offside' midfielder (blues) slides across and presses inside shoulder of 'ball side' (reds) midfielder reds and furthest blues defender comes out of defensive line and presses offside (reds) midfielder (this will also reduce opportunities to further progress the ball forwards in the event that that first defensive line is broken and ball reaches reds midfielders)

Protecting the Middle -  the remaining two (blues) defenders the slide across to mark the reds forwards (pressing their inside shoulders) using penalty spot as reference point to ensure protecting the middle and remain narrow and compact 

Interventions

Concurrent - coaching process

Group - 'Walk throughs'

Individual 

Terminal