Football/Soccer Session (Moderate): Foozball defending

Foozball defending. (15 mins)

1/2 field. Four equal zones, four players in the two end zones, three players in the two middle zone and one neutral who can enter both middle zones. In this diagram, blue and pink are working together and yellow and red are working together. They can have the same pinnies in reality, it's just easier to distinguish them in the description like this. The neutral player should be a fit defensive midfielder, your ball winner, hustler.

Ball starts in zone A with red. Their objective is to get it to Zone C for their team-mates-  the 3 yellow players - to quickly establish clean possession and look to pass the ball back to them.  When Red has the ball, neutral (Green) will work with Blues as a defender.  If Blue intercepts they must try and quickly find Pink. 

RULES: Two touches. No more than about 10 seconds in any one zone. More than two touches or too much time on the ball and the ball must be passed to an opponent. The ball must be passed at least once after an interception or clean reception, it can't just be passed straight through. So two players have to touch the ball in a zone before it can be passed out. If the ball is kicked through the end line the player who kicked it has to retrieve it and a new ball is fed to an opponent line. If a ball is deflected outside the field, the player making the pass has to retrieve it not the defender. 

Coaching points: 

1. Looking for the defense to shuffle right and left in a controlled way, filling the gaps by having 4 in front of 3 on one side, leaving the far player, but not abandoning them. Can they quickly get the hang of what it takes to see the longer ball wide and immediately close it down?

2. How well do players pass to give each other a chance to play the through ball from good positions. Can they accurately spread the ball wide? Do their through balls take account of team-mates or are they just hitting gaps. How well are they communicating - want to hear it get noisy.

3. Can the neutral player cope with the extra work? Do the players in the end zones work out how to exploit them being slightly out of position as they receive the ball? Are they responding to the circumstances well when a team mate is collecting a stray ball and they are a player down? How do they adapt.

PROGRESSION

1. After about five minutes, allow one defender to enter an opponent's zone at a time. They can overlap if one player is exiting and another is entering but two can't be challenging for the ball at the same time.

2. Have the two groups of four try to find each other with high balls. It's messy but fun - and help s players switch into trying to control long lofted passes, as well as making them.