Football/Soccer Session (Academy Sessions): Specific practice - breaking lines, out of possession

Specific practice - out of possession (20 mins)

Organisation (20 Mins)

• Set up the pitch 3/4 of the length of a full size pitch, with a taper at the Red goal end as no Red full backs.
• The shaded area on the flanks will be used for the first block of the practice
• 2 teams - 8 blues (defending), 8 reds (attacking), 1 floating player who plays with the team in possession
• Goal at each end with 2 gks
• Blues set up 4-2-1 
• Red set up 2-4-1 

Technical/ Tactical

• Fast Pressure On the Ball
• Protect the Central Areas
• Stay Narrow & Compact
• Stop the Split Passes
• Protect the space behind

Conditions/ Challenges/ Targets

1-5 mins explain the session and set up the teams. Initially get the Blues to sit deep, ensuring they are Narrow & Compact, showing the Reds outside and Protecting the Central Areas. Reds are looking to make the pitch big and are encouraged to play Through, Around or Over thus giving us problems that we can look to solve.

Play always starts with the goalkeeper for the red team  
During this first block, in order for the reds to score a goal, the ball must have gone into one of the flanks before they can get a shot off.
If Red score a Through or Around goal then its worth double. Like wise if Blue can win the ball we will encourage them to play forward quickly and look to get a shot on goal under a managed countdown of 6-8 seconds, the Reds will now also to try and stay Narrow & Compact. Blues will also get 2 points if they can score a goal.

5-10 mins look to now implement fast pressure on the ball.
The ball must still enter one of the channels in order to score.
If Red CB has the ball then Blue 9 will press the ball and try to stop the switch pass to the other Red CB to encourage a pass into the midfield or wide with Blue CM looking to block the passing lanes. Once the press has started all Blue players will move up the pitch again staying Narrow & Compact and allowing the midfielders to be aggressive in making tackles, trying to stop the split passes and looking to win the ball back. After 3 mins we can look to get the Red CB's trying to play an Over the top pass in order to try and beat the Blue press and we will give them a visual trigger of when to do this.

10-15 mins we will now look at Protecting the Space Behind when the ball is played over the top of the Blue press.
The ball now does not have to enter the channel anymore in order to score
The Blues will still need to keep good distances between all the units stay Narrow & Compact but will now be able press, hold or drop depending on the situation, and we will ask a Blue CB to deliver this information. We will ask them to try and force the Reds to play back and then step up the pitch when they do. We will now ask the Red wingers to try and get higher up the pitch and up against the Blue full backs to give us some different problems to solve.

15-20 mins remove all restrictions and now free play, whilst still adhering to the principles of Defending the Lines.

Coaching Style 

Concurrent

Terminal

Q&A

Interventions

Walkthrough

Coaching Process