By Danny Carvalho
Question - “Do you have some good possession games to share? My players are getting better at keeping possession, but I tend to use the same games and I need some new possessions drills to stimulate them and continue to improve their possession?"
First thing is: do you really need new possession games/drills or maybe just a change in the rules/actions/setup of your current ones?
Just a little piece of mind to get us started! But as your wish is my command, let’s go check three possession activities I truly love and use a lot!
1- 5v2
I love this type of rondo because it gets your players to work on split the defenders while one of them is working to position themselves in between and two steps behind the defenders.
Another thing that makes me love this game is that it demands a lot of turning and switching, two very valuable abilities to play the game well in my humble opinion
2- 4v4+3
This is a classic Pep Guardiola rondo. Easy to find on youtube. It consists on having two teams of four players and another three players as neutrals. This game is great to work on spacing and transitions put to possession.
In a rectangle set up, team in possession must have two players by each sideline while the neutrals are (1) in one end, (2) is centralized and (3) is at the other end.
When the defending team wins the ball, they must work quickly to keep possession and space to open up and be in a good shape.
Important to mention that no player is stuck somewhere or restricted to go elsewhere. But by being positioned as mentioned before, they are always going to be creating triangles and diamonds which means good passing and receiving angles.
The dashed lines are only there to help giving the sense of positioning and zones.
3- 3+3x3
This one I like more for warm ups and get players’ brains to work from the beginning of practice or warm up for games.
Have three teams of three in a box where two teams keep possession against one. When the defending team wins the ball, they keep possession with that second team against the team that lost possession to them.
Above you see blacks and yellows keeping away from reds.
For all three games you can set the following rules:
- 7 passes in a row = 1 point
- Pass through split defenders = 3 points
By Danny Carvalho, DOC at Corinthians Campinas Youth Club, Brasil
