Football/Soccer Session (Moderate): Left or right defender out of possession zones

1st priority

1ST PRIORITY 9v9 (3 at the  back)

This gives you a rough guide of the areas of the pitch the left and right sided defenders should be positioned and occupy when their team is in transition phase to out of possesion or during out of possesion. As i said this is guidance. You will make the decision to your position yourself but if you roughly stick to these areas then the team shape/formation will be well structured and balanced. 

When you are in transition to out of possesion or out of possesion, your 1st priority is to make a recovery run to get back into your zone. if you are high up the pitch because your team have possesion then you need to run as quickly as possible to help your team defend. Once in your correct zone/channel you want to get goalside of the ball to get the defensive formation back into shape and mark the opponent player who is in your zone. This is most likely to be the wide midfielder or striker but can sometimes be a wide defender making an overlaping run or a central midfielder making a forward run or dribble.

3rd priority

3RD PRIORITY 9v9 (3 at the back)

Also on some emergency occasions you could have to come all the way accross to the opposite side of the pitch. An example of this would be if your team had a corner and you were on the halfway line and the central defender was on the edge of the area to take a long shot from any cleared balls into the box. If the goalie caught the ball and kicked long into the channel and the opponent player was much faster than your right defender, you would be hit on a counter attack. As the closest defender able to defend it is up to you to try and press the opponent player. Normally best practice would be to run at an angle to get goalside and show the opponent down the line and away from goal then delay/deny and wait for team mate to cover but it could mean emergency defending if the opponent player is direct towards goal looking to shoot. You may have to block the shot or tackle the player . I have used the left sided defender as an example but the example if it was the right sided player he would just be doing the same but coming across to the left sided defenders zone.

11v11 3 at the back

9v9 & 11v11 differences

There are some diiferences to the role, responsibilites and positioning of players when playing 11v11. In general the less players you have on a pitch means that players have to cover more roles/responsibilites. In a 7v7 format it is important for the whole team to attack in the opponents half and for the whole team to get back and defend. in your half. When you move to 9v9 then there is more specialisation with having denfenders, midfielders and strikers. for example this means the role of the striker in defending is pressing and trying to win the ball back as quickly as possible and leave defending in the defensive third to the midfielders and defenders because there would be no players occupying the opponents defense and our team would likely be under a lot of pressure as we would be unable to keep possesion and move up the pitch easily. The larger the pitch and the more players you have means more more specific roles/rsponsibilites and a smaller positional zones/areas for each position.

9v9 (3 at the back)

With 3 defenders in 9v9 the left and right defenders have a greater role in attacking then 3 defenders in 11v11.They are more like left and right backs of a back 4 in a 11v11 game. The left and right defender should get involved with possesion play in their channel and combine with their same sided wide midfielers to make forward runs and allow the wide midfielder to sit in for them and cover their position (player rotation). This requires good communication so both players understand.

11v11 (3 at the back) 

The 3 defenders in 11v11 are more defensive than the 3 defenders in 9v9. Their roles are more like 2 defenders in 9v9 but cover the left channel, central channel and right channel the same way as the 3 defenders in 9v9. In both 9v9 and 11v11 i would want my defenders starting position or defensive shape put of possesion the width of the penalty (as shown in picture) to reduce the space making the team compact and difficult to break down. This means the wide midfielders have a greater role in defending the channels.