This week we worked with both girls and boys on playing behind the last defender.  We had two cones set up about 10 metres apart and one defender and one attacker.  The defender started in front of the attacker, and both started in the middle of the two cones.  Before the ball was played to the attacker they had to run towards either cone as quickly as possible before the defender could react.  The passer then ran round the other cone before receiving a pass across the goal from the first attacker and trying to score with a first time finish.  To start with the defender was passive and just there as a distraction.

After the players had got the pattern, which they did very quickly, we made the defender become active, so they could start to tackle and win the ball.  This meant the attackers’ movements had to be quicker and their passes sharper.

We then added two attackers behind the defender, with emphasis on the communication between them.  Next step was to have 2v2 and finally we finished with 3v2.

Both the girls and boys got the session very quickly and the movement and the finishing was really good through the whole session.  The girls were especially good at getting away from the defender and creating good goal scoring opportunities.