Teaching D: your best defensive drills/games

[paulb]

Greetings,

I'm sub-coaching a U13 girls team, and I had a revelation in their game yesterday (the first game I've coached) while we were trying to pack-in and defend a 2-0 lead: The team has a real basic lack of understanding and instinct about defending in a coordinated, cooperative manner.

Even with the opposing team leaving it's 3 defenders back out of the play, so that we had numbers on them when they attacked, we would run 2-3 or even 4 players out at the ball while leaving attackers wide open in front of the goal, etc. And that's the least of it.

So what I'm interested in is how you teach real defensive basics: 1 v 1, first and second defender, cooperation and communication between defenders, recovery. What are your best drills/games/techniques for teaching Defensive basics?

When I think about it I hardly remember ever learning these things in a formal manner myself. I just developed an instinct for it. I get the feeling people love to teach offense: passing, shooting, etc. But defense tends to get short shrift.

Thanks!

[rca2]

What you are asking about is team tactics, which will depend on your system. What you mentioned are individual tactics. Team tactics are no longer addressed in USSF youth coaching training, which I think is well-intentioned but a mistake. I haven't coached youth in over ten years, so my approach may be dated. For that age, I taught a zone defense in a 4/3/3 system using three marking backs and a sweeper. The half backs used a zone defense. The forwards generally did not defend behind the ball. As an exception, I would designate a forward to withdraw into a central midfield position on defense with everyone else playing normally (That was my U12 version of a 442).

The drill I used was to run offense against defense on a half field. Basically, I started with just the backs and keeper and then after the backs and keeper understood how to defend as a unit, I added the halfbacks so that both lines could function together. When teaching defense, I would have the defense outnumber the offense to start. Basically, you have the defense have 1 more field player than the offense (the sweeper). I would use the same drill to teach offensive team tactics as well, but unbalancing the drill to give the offense 1 or 2 extra field players. This also puts more pressure on the defense (making it an advanced defensive drill) and starts them dealing with superior numbers, which is where they really learn about zone defending.

Your are probably going to use some kind of zone defense. One type is like zone defense in basketball. The team defends the space in front of the basket by keeping a particular shape and adjusting as the ball moves to cover the danger area. The other type is like zone pass defense in American football. The field has areas or zones and backs are assigned responsibility to defend a zone.

Regardless of what system you use, running offense against defense on half the field is a pretty common way to teach team tactics. Most teams don't have the numbers to run full teams (11v11) at practices.

I apologize if this was overkill, but I thought you might need more than a simple "run offense against defense on half a field" reply.

[paulb]

Not overkill at all.

As one point of clarification, I hear mention on this forum often of "first defender, 2nd defender". I assume this refers to is the idea that the 1st defender should pressure the ball, while the 2nd defender offers support in case the 1st defender is beat.

Along with the tactics you mention, these girls need work on the absolute basics: Defensive footwork, slowing an attacker down, staying goal-side, getting "side-on", "showing" an attacker to one side or another, etc.

I suppose the way to go is 1-1, 1-2, maybe some 1-1 drills in a strip of field where the attacker dribbles as fast as possible while the defender slows them down as much as possible without tackling, etc.

I've also thought about starting 1-2 or 1-1, then bringing trailing defenders and/or attackers into the play.

Anyway, thanks, I appreciate the response.

[rca2]

As one point of clarification, I hear mention on this forum often of "first defender, 2nd defender". I assume this refers to is the idea that the 1st defender should pressure the ball, while the 2nd defender offers support in case the 1st defender is beat.

Correct. The first defender is by definition the defender marking the attacker with the ball (called the first attacker). Second defenders are the defenders immediately supporting the first defender providing "cover" meaning ready to mark the first attacker if he gets by the first defender. All other defenders are called third defenders and they defend space and mark opponents goalside of the ball. The second attacker is the one providing close support to the first attacker (but not so close that he can be marked by the first defender). These terms are not universal, but are terms USSF uses now. I had to buy the new version of the USSF youth coaches manual so that I could understand what people were talking about on my adult team. I don't like the updated manual as well as the old manual, but its got lots of color photos. "Soccer How To Play the Game" published by Universe. It has a lot of information.

Running small sided games will help, but in practices you normally work three phases in a practice. An individual technique phase, small sided phase, and scrimage phase. This is so players can work on technique, then apply it in small sided games learning individual tactics, and then build on what went before in a setting where they will learn team tactics. For example, 1v1 drills followed by 3v3 with small goals followed by 8v8 with full size goals. You see if you don't have that progression you make it a lot more difficult for the kids to figure out how to use their skills on the full size field.

[yarbles]

I really good starting point to introduce tactical defending is 3v2 in a small grid. The 2 monkeys in the middle switch roles as the 3 play keep away. 1st defender pressures ball while the 2nd defender drops back into 'read' position. I instruct the 1st defender to attempt to force the ball dribbler to pass in a certain direction by denying one of the two available passing options. Hopefully the 2nd defender reads this and can attempt to intercept the ball. The 2nd player is instructed not to mark a player but stay close enough to the passing lane to attempt a steal. If 2nd player marks too tightly, they'll get schooled on a back door thru ball. We want the 2nd defender to bait the dribbler to make the pass square attempt. If the ball handler makes a successful pass, the 1st defender doesn't chase but drops back into the grid to assume the role of the 2nd 'read' defender while the 2nd defender switches to the pressure (ie 1st defender). The biggest thing for the 2 defenders in the middle is to deny the through ball.

The next step is 4v3. Now we have 'pressure', 'read', and 'fill'. My defenders are sick of me saying 'who's the pressure, 'who's the read and who's the fill!'. We spend many sessions per week on this concept. I think the countless hours we spend in the grid doing 3v2 and 4v3 is slowly beginning to pay off because now it's being applied on the big field. The cool thing is to actually her the u10 girls chatter about who's doing which roles. Sure they screw up a lot but the seed is planted and they are beginning to see the beauty of it. They get startled at me sometimes because I get so pumped when a girl correctly drops back into a 'read' position or the 'fill' position. Heck, there's not even a ball around them yet I get excited when they shift and move based on what we've been working on.

[paulb]

That's cool. Sounds like your U10s are ahead of my U13s in many ways.

U10s may be more coachable. My U13s are mostly 12, which is to say, they're 7th graders (girls). Not a good year for stuff like listening.

But I will try the 3-on-2 games with them.