Football/Soccer Session (Moderate): Pressure/Cover Warmups

Pressure/Cover Technique Square

The grid is 6 yards by 6 yards. Four players are on each corner with two players on the inside defending. 

Pressuring player:

- Angle of approach to dictate the direction of the attacker

- Close down quickly but slow down before you arrive at attacker

- You don't have to win the ball, restrain the attacker (reduce time and space and make their head go down)

Covering player:

- Rule #1, don't get split (be in a position where you are supporting your teammate but you aren't wide enough where a ball can be played between the two of you)

- Must be close enough to partner to step if they are beaten and close enough to the player the ball is being forced too

Progressions:

1) Defenders are forcing the ball away from the player who passed it previously

2) Players on the outside are now in partners (partners must be beside each other), the defenders job is to keep the ball between one partnership, disallowing passes to the other partners. This mimics cutting out the forward pass. 

3) Can be done with both progressions. Once they understand the concept, you can add points. Points are only counted to the players on the inside. +1 point for winning the ball or forcing a mistake. -1 for allowing the pass to go where it wasn't. -2 if the defenders get split. 

Coaching Points:

- Closest player is the one that applies pressure

- Keep your head, the defenders are going to get beaten, but we can't randomly defend once we are beaten once

Pressure Passing Square (2)

There will be players on each pole, with two of them on the central pole. The player starting with the ball will make a pass to the central player who will bounce the ball back. Once the ball is played back to the starting player, they will play a long pass to the player on the outside, as this is happening the central players will close down the player receiving the ball, while doing so they will bend their run to cut out where the ball came from. The player receiving will take their touch away from the defender towards the next set of players on the pole. Once they pass to the next player on the outside, the sequence will start again on the opposite side of the grid. 

The player who passed the ball first will then shift inside, the player who closed down will join that line and the player who finished the sequence with the last pass will follow their pass.