Attacking In Transition Form Your Own Half: Part 4- 6 Neutral
By: Matt Carroll
This session is the third session that I have designed for my high school-aged teams for our open summer session here in New Jersey. This is a period where you can hold open sessions, clinics, tournaments, and leagues. The catch is none of this can be required, and cannot be utilized to “evaluate’ players in the regular season. That being said, the difficulty of planning these sessions is that you really won’t know numbers until maybe the week of, since players may be on vacation, a tournament, etc. That being said, we try to make these sessions something we can work on, no matter the numbers, and design them in a way that any level of player can get something out of it.
The final drill in this session prior to our scrimmage, is the 6 Neutrals Game. It is essentially Cinco, but we are adding goals and now allowing for the natural progression of the transition to play out. We start in one half of the field with that half cut in half with a line of cones dividing it. A goal is set up at the halfway line, and three coaching sticks are placed on both sides of the dividing line. Each team has four players, and at each coaching stick, a neutral player is placed.
The game starts with one of the teams attacking the opposition's goal. They are aided by the neutral players on that side of the field, creating a 7v4. If the attacking team scores, the defending team can utilize the neutrals on that half and play from a goal kick to beat the original attacking team’s press. If the defensive team wins the ball, the neutrals on that side become inactive and the team on the ball looks to play to the players on the opposite side of the dividing line.
Once a neutral receives the pass, they cannot shoot until a non-neutral player touches the ball, so both four-man teams transition to the other grid and play continues. Repeating until a goal or time limit is met. This final drill builds on the concepts we have visited the entire session, but now adds the element of goal scoring so players can see the fruits of their labors in the transition moment.
