By Danny Carvalho
This session was designed to work on the basics of defending and zonal defending.
1- Protect the goal – don’t concede
2- Avoid progression – don’t let them come near our goal
3- Recover the bal – win the ball back
Some other concepts are addressed such as:
- For opponents to outside or to crowded areas
- Pressure-cover- cover the cover
Warm Up
In this 1v1 to dribble past the opponent’s end line, there two different scoring opportunities. If you dribble through the two tall cones, you get 3 points and the opponent -3 points. If you dribble through the tall and the disc cone, you get one point and your opponent -1 point.
Activity 1
In this drill, we work on both the technical and the tactical side of the game. Coach shouts out a number. In the example, #2. This player comes forward to perform one or two headers/passes/volleys etc. Meanwhile, the other players by his side will work on covering by sliding sideways accordingly as seen in the example below.
Switch the working teams at every 2 minutes.
Activity 2
In his small-sided game, the goal on the attacking side of the game is to complete a pass to the neutral player on the attacking side (blacks to the left, yellows to the right). Notice that because the ball came to the right side of the yellow team, the closest player to ball pressed it and the other covered the space behind him and shifted to the ball side.
Activity 3
Scrimmage to make sure the concepts were understood and work to transfer all the knowledge and abilities gained to a game realistic scenario.
By Danny Carvalho, DOC at Corinthians Campinas Youth Club, Brasil
