Football/Soccer Session (Academy Sessions): Defending - Pressing in the middle third.

Reseller-Club: Premier Users' Club

Ayodeji Ogunlade

Profile Summary

Name:	Ayodeji Ogunlade
City:	Hamilton, New Jersey
Country:	United States of America
Membership:	Adult Member
Sport:	Football/Soccer

Interface Language

Share this Session

Link Session

Build 3D sessions in seconds

Access to 1000’s of sessions

Professionalise and modernise your coaching

Used by the world’s best coaches

US$

per year

Join today

Description

1. Recognizing pressing cues and triggers.

2. Starting positions to bait passes to CBs and FBs.

3. Pressing as a team to regain possession and score goals.

4. Counter attacking / fast attacks.

5. Finishing off scoring chances.

6. Dealing with long balls.

Football/Soccer Session Plan Drill (Colour): Pressing Details.

See the guidance at the top of this page to understand why you are not seeing interactive Football/Soccer images.

Save Image:

Create Video:

Pressing Details.

Pressing Triggers:

1. Poor touch - Press immediately whenever opposition player takes a poor touch.

2. Sideline / byline - Press whenever opposition player is close to the edge of the pitch.

3. Less dominant foot - Press immediately whenever the ball is passed to opposition weak foot.

4. Backward pass - Press whenever a backward pass is made by the opposition.

5. Slow reaction - Press whenever the opposition player doesn't expect a pass (slow to react).

6. Slow pass - Press and intercept passes that are slow between opposition players.

7. Facing own goal - Press whenever opposition players are facing their own goal.

Pressing Strategies:

1. Ball Oriented Pressing through S.A.G.S. (Sprints, All-in, Going-in and Second-wave) at the right moment. Press and hunt the ball aggressively to force opposition in making quick decisions and forcing them into technical and tactical mistakes.

Sprints - Always looking to sprint and attack the ball when we are out of possession.
All-in - When one player goes in to press, everyone else follow.
Going-in - Players going-in with controlled aggression to go through the ball and win possession.
Second-wave - Players stepping-in quickly whenever our first wave pressure is broken to re-press and win back possession.

2. Slide & Screen - Attacking players sliding across to screen the middle third and prevent opposition from playing through the lines or force opposition to one part of the pitch and press aggressively to win back possession.

Starting Position:

Players look to take up starting positions in-between opposition players, either to the side, in front or behind. This would allow us to potentially hunt the ball, shadow press, cover spaces / players, block passing lanes and eventually regain possession.

Pressing Vocabulary:

1. Press.

2. Doubles.

3. Run through.

4. Don't let him out!

5. Re-press.

Football/Soccer Session Plan Drill (Colour): Pressing Duels.

See the guidance at the top of this page to understand why you are not seeing interactive Football/Soccer images.

Save Image:

Create Video:

Pressing Duels.

Organization:

Set up as shown.

Instructions:

1. The exercise starts with the first red attacker playing a diagonal pass into a team mate as shown in the diagram, the reds must play a minimum of two passes before they can look to finish in the blue goal, the receiving player decides either to play into the third red player or back to the passer before they attempt going to the goal. Once the ball is being received by the attacking team, they have 10 seconds to score.

2. As soon as the ball is being played in by the first red attacker, the blue players all sprint into the pitch to apply intense pressure on the ball, if they recover or win back possession, they will quickly look to score on opposition goal. They have 10 seconds to regain possession and score.

3. Whenever a goal is scored or the ball goes out of play, the game will be over and a new set of attackers and defenders steps in quickly to repeat the actions.

4. Game last maximum of 20 seconds, if no goal is scored and the ball doesn't go out of play during the play, the play is automatically over.

5. Whenever the pressing team wins back possession and score, the goal will counts as double.

6. Team switches role on coach's call

Coaching Points:

1. Strong mentality to press and win back possession.

2. Sprint to hunt the ball.

3. Look to pressure and cover when defending as a pair.

4. Run through attacker when going 1v1 against attacker.

5. Counter attack to score upon winning back possession.

Progressions:

1. Play starts from the opposite side to change the entry of the pressing team.

2. Two-round competition.

3. Variation of entry pass and starting positions.

Football/Soccer Session Plan Drill (Colour): Small Sided Game

See the guidance at the top of this page to understand why you are not seeing interactive Football/Soccer images.

Save Image:

Create Video:

Small Sided Game

Organization:

Set up playing area as shown.

Instructions:

Players are divided into two teams i.e. 4 blues and 4 reds plus 1GK & 1 white neutral at the start of the exercise. Both team can use neutral whenever they are in possession of the ball.

1. Group 1 - The reds will look to work on pressing to regain and score goals while the blues will look to play out from the back to beat opposition press to score goals.

2. Reds will look to score in the large goal while blues look to score in the three flag goals. Blues can score either by dribbling through any of the flag goals or by passing the ball through the flag goal to the blue target player that is stationed behind the flag goals. The target player moves freely in behind the flag goals to help team mates to score goals.

3. During goal kicks, the reds (pressing team) will look to use the yellow cones as a guide / line of confrontation to go against the ball.

4. Whenever the ball goes out for a corner kick for both teams, the play restarts with the goalkeeper.

5. Team switches roles on coach's call.

Coaching Points:

1. Pressing mentality.

2. High intensity / high tempo.

3. Setting traps.

4. The nearest player to the ball initiates the press with other supporting players joining in early.

5. Fast attacks / counter attacks upon winning possession to score goals.

Progression:

1. Game.

Football/Soccer Session Plan Drill (Colour): Game

See the guidance at the top of this page to understand why you are not seeing interactive Football/Soccer images.

Save Image:

Create Video:

Game

Organization:

Setup as shown above.

Instructions:

1. Both teams would look to work on pressing in while in possession and also patiently build up play / combine to break opposition pressure.

2. Both teams are looking to score in the large goals.

Game Scenario:

Final game of the season: Reds (Liverpool) vs Blues (Man City). Reds (Liverpool) needs a draw from the game to become premier league champions for the first time in 30 years, they are down 2-0 in the game. Blues (Man City) on the other hand are leading 2-0 against Reds, they need to win by 5 clear goals to finish as premier league champions and ensure that outsiders (Chelsea and Spurs) doesn't have the chance to claim the title as well.

Defending Coaching Points:

1. Be organized by starting in the right positions i.e. pressure and double press the player with the ball.

2. Keep opposition in quarter of the pitch and make opposition play predictable.

3. Striker should always look to initiate the press and cut off back passes to GK or CBs.

4. Always press in the identified situations and make it compact both vertically and horizontally.

5. After regaining possession, counter attack quickly to score.

6. If counter attack isn't on, can we keep possession and then look to penetrate again?

7. Repress, Retreat and Recover in identified situations when the press is broken.

Attacking coaching points:

1. Spread out.

2. Utilize space and triangulate to create passing options.

3. Speed of play i.e. move the ball quickly to unbalance the pressing team and break lines.

4. What do we do if we can't play through or around?

5. What if opposition are leaving too much space behind?

Build 3D sessions in seconds

Access to 1000’s of sessions

Professionalise and modernise your coaching

Used by the world’s best coaches

US$

per year

Join today