Tag Archives for " Defending "

0 #004 Training Session to Prevent Turning

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2 Developing Defenders with Patience

By Sean Pearson

Session Length: 90 mins

A lot of sessions focus on defending when players are dribbling the ball towards the defenders. I can’t remember seeing a session that focuses on defending players with their back to goal. This is an extremely important part of defending, because if done right will frustrate the opposition, slow down the opposition’s attacks and make them predictable. A lot of what I will cover will be counter intuitive to your players as they will want to lunge, kick and pursue the ball but is important not to let them do any of this and to be patient to know when and where they can win the ball.

Warm-Up Time: 10 mins

To warm up the specific muscles used heavily in

2 Quick Counter Attacks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

This activity uses half a field, three attacking players, five defending players and one target player at midfield for the defending team. There is also a keeper in goal.

The attacking team starts with the ball and tries to score. The defending team tries to

0 Using a Tag Progression as a Warm-Up

This week I want to share a warm-up that I've used with every age group I coach. It's a fun and dynamic game that can be used to prepare for many different types of sessions. It's based on a simple game of Tag. The first thing I do is have all of the players give

0 Defensive Pressure and Attacking Speed

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on  defensive pressure and attacking at speed.

Start with a 30 x 20 grid, 3 attackers, and 2 defenders. There is a group of balls on the end line the attackers are starting on.

One of the attackers starts with a ball and as soon as he touches the ball the

0 Protecting the Posts on Corner Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with protecting the posts on corner kicks.

When watching many professional teams defending corner kicks we see one, or both, posts left unprotected. Without looking at the data but rather using general observation, it also seems there are a lot more goals being scored on corner kicks. One might say this is because of better services, better attacking players etc. but I have a hard time believing this isn’t partly due to lack of players on the posts.

My suggestion, especially at the youth level, is to have a player on each post.

It’s not good enough to just have a player on each post, they also need to know how to position themselves.

Too often I see players on posts with their entire bodies facing the corner.

There are a couple of problems with the players lining up this way. The first one is the player at the near post tends to

0 Arsenal's Terrible Defending v Anderlecht

By Stevie Grieve

Arsenal have been notoriously bad defensively for several years, but this looked to be changing in the past 18 months, Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker becoming a solid partnership at the back as both players strengths complement each other’s weaknesses. In this game v Anderlecht, recognised 2nd choice left full back Nacho Monreal played at Centre Back with Per Mertesacker, in what was always destined to be a horror pairing, and so it turned out to be.

From the 1st whistle, neither player looked comfortable with the pairing, and in the 1st half, Anderlecht could’ve easily scored 3 goals, while Arsenal tore into a 2-0 HT lead.

In the 2nd half, Arsenal made it 3 through some

0 Bayern Pressing and Direct Attacking

By Stevie Grieve

Bayern Munich under Guardiola have changed significantly since the treble winning team under Jupp Heynckes, but one thing which has returned this season is the direct passes over the top of a defence in attacking transition. This was an aspect missing last season but with Xabi Alonso, David Alaba, Xherdan Shaquiri able to play accurate passes over 40m, and players able to run behind a defence in Robert Lewandowski, Arjen Robben and Mario Goetze, they have the ability to do so.

Pressing results in regain and instant forward pass resulting in a goal

As Bayern press from the front, Bayern like to make play predictable. Here they leave the pass to the full back available but as the CB is under pressure, both CM’s turn and move away to recover the expected loose ball. Instead, the CB recognises the offered pass, but makes a bad decision to pass short into the Bayern press.

Shaquiri is in position to treble up with any of Robben and Lahm or Lahm and Alonso for any

0 Bayern Munich Pressing

By Stevie Grieve

Bayern Munich seem to have changed to a new 3-4-2-1 type of formation this season, possibly to combat teams playing a low 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1, overloading midfield with 6 players while having 3 players in deep positions to circulate possession from a deep position with penetration to 2 central players behind the opposition midfield, who can both drift wide in Muller and Robben.

In the game against Wolfsburg, Bayern pressed relatively well, directing play to one side and forcing Wolfsburg into predictable longer passes as the short range passing lanes were covered, while dealing with longer passes before they happen.

Blocking passing lanes with the immediate pressure

As the ball is transferred wide from kick off, Bayern immediately

1 Holes in the 3-1-4-2 System of Manchester United

By Stevie Grieve

New Manchester United Manager Louis Van Gaal has taken over a struggling side from last season, but despite the criticism that David Moyes endured, Louis Van Gaal's premier league start had delivered 1 point from 2 winnable games. This was followed up by a 4-0 humiliation from MK Dons. Despite fielding largely a reserve side, it did contain experienced first team and internationalists in Javier Hernandez, Danny Welbeck, Shinji Kagawa, Jonny Evans and David De Gea.
In the 3-1-4-2 attacking system, there are space to exploit in transition, or when the midfield press high. When the ball is played wide into the full backs, this may entice the already high positioned wing-backs to press high and

7 Position Specific Training

I think that much of our time as coaches is spent teaching all of the players the same thing. There is obviously a place for this at the younger ages when they just need to learn the basics. But in my opinion, as the player get to be 12 and 13 there is a place for position specific training.

Learning the roles and responsibilities of a particular position will allow the players to apply the technical skills that they've learned to the place on the field they will be playing. The options are different for a wide midfielder than they are for a center midfielder and the more comfortable we, as coaches, can

0 Tactical Analysis – Real Madrid Defending v Barcelona

By Stevie Grieve

In the Copa Del Rey final, Real Madrid went into the game against Barcelona confident of a win, even without Cristiano Ronaldo who mass missing due to injury, but with Bale and Benzema both capable of defending from the front and causing problems on the counter attack, Ancelotti set his team up to defend against Barcelona’s main attacking areas, and exploit Madrid’s pace on the counter attack.

Madrid counter-pressing in the opening minutes

Here, we can see that Madrid, having just lost possession, are reluctant to simply drop deep and defend, instead they

1 SSG for High Pressure Defending

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on high pressure defending and taking players on offensively.

Start with a 60 x 40 grid with goals on each endline and a keeper in each goal. There is a designated defender (in white) for each team and 4 v 4 in the middle.

The rules are pretty simple. Each player is assigned a player on the other team and that is the only player they can mark. This game involves man to man marking and the only player who can provide any

0 High Pressure Defensive Shape and Balance

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on defensive shape and balance with an emphasis on high pressure.

Start with a 10 x 20 yard area (10 yards deep and 20 yards wide) with 3 attacking players starting on an endline and 2 defenders. One of the attacking players has a ball.

The attacking players are trying to take the ball over the opposite end line. The defenders are using high pressure to prevent the attackers from getting

2 5v4 - Defending in Defensive Third

By Keith Scarlett

This activity works on defending, timing of tackles, covering angles and decision-making.

In this crucial section of the pitch, defending needs to be precise and perfect! One of the biggest things that players need to learn is how crucial interceptions are to keeping the ball out of the net. There aren’t too many better ways to teach this aspect of the game than to simply throw them into the deep-end with an activity like this.

Set-up:
The playing area is 44 x 18 metres (basically the size of the penalty area; can use the penalty area if you choose). Place a regulation sized goal in the middle of one of the long (44 mtr) end-lines (similar to where it would be if using a penalty area).

The attacking team has 5 players which include 3 midfielders (M) and 2 strikers (S) while the defending team has 4 players made up of 3 defenders (D) and a goalkeeper (G). There are

0 Individual Defending

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on defensive footwork In a 20 x 10 area, start with two players and two balls. The balls are on one end and the players are on the other end line. The players start by sprinting to

1 Game Realistic 1 v 1's

When many coaches create 1 v 1 environments for their team it's limited to an attacker facing a defender who then tries to beat him to score. This certainly occurs during games but there are so many more scenarios that players need to learn how to deal with. This week I want to present ways to make the same old 1 v 1 exercise realistic to more scenerios that occur in a match.

A simple way to adjust the traditional 1 v 1 exercise is to change the position of the players and angle of the passes.

The angle gives the defender the opportunity to

1 Porto’s Midfield Protection Tactics

By Stevie Grieve

One of the main benefits of playing with a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 is that you can have a high level of flexibility using the 5 players in the midfield. We regularly see teams who like to press playing almost a man-man marking system, particularly in central midfield, where most attacks are constructed.

Another advantage is that defences are best protected via defensive triangulation between defence and midfield when close to goal, which covers most angles and forced 1v1 dribbles to make penetration opportunities.

Porto Midfield man-marking system

Here, Porto play 1v1 all over the field, meaning that 1 player is free from each team, so when Napoli are in possession, it is

4 Bayern Munich’s Defensive Aspects

By Stevie Grieve.

Bayern Munich are right now arguably the best team in Europe, and although they regularly enjoy over 60% possession in matches, they need to ensure that they don’t leave the back door open and conceded goals in the minimal amount of attacks that the opposition will have. In a recent Champions League match v Arsenal, Arsenal have a few noteworthy attacks, but many were cut off at source or stopped by very clever positional play and quick pressing once everyone was in position to do so.

Bayern Munich offside trap trigger

Arsenal are attacking down the left side, and Mesut Ozil makes the centre-wide run behind the full back. Bayern Munich have a very straight back 3, playing Sanogo offside. Bayern have a trigger

1 Attacking and Defending At Close Quarters

By Keith Scarlett

This activity works on 1v1 attacking and defending in close quarters, 1st touch, intensity and to see who is willing to get stuck in on tackles. The exercise is done at top-speed, is a quick moving exercise and there is a good deal of contact.

Set-up:
The playing area is 18 x 44 metres (roughly the size of the penalty area). There is a goal on one of the 44 metre end-lines (where the goal would be if you were using an actual penalty area) and two markers should be 18 metres out directly opposite the goalposts (or roughly the location where the half-circle intersects with the top of the penalty area if using an actual penalty area for this activity). Players break into four lines. Two lines are on each post with balls and two lines are at the ‘markers’…or the corners of the “D”…without balls.

How it Works:
The line besides the goal drives the ball to the first person in the opposite diagonal line and then

0 The Art of the Duel

These 1 v 1 exercises are from our latest book by Tony Englund, 'The Art of the Duel'. Here's what Anson Dorrance has to say about Englunds book:

'I am thrilled to endorse Tony Englund’s new book on 1 v 1 play.  The game in the United States continues to evolve at an astounding pace.  American coaches now have easy access to coaching methodology and training curriculum that is world class in every sense, and our players are increasingly