Playing Out From the Back - Conditioned Match

Introduction:

Once the players have an understanding of the key points when playing from the back and have practised (and shown they can do it) under pressure from opponents in an opposed practice, like any skill, it makes sense to now try and execute it in a match situation. This is a normal match, with the one condition that every time the ball goes out of play, we restart from one of the goalkeepers.

Setup:

• Normal pitch (size dependent on age, number of players and how easy you want it to be for the teams to play out from the back)
• A number of footballs in each goal.
• Coach at the side with more footballs.

Basic Rules:

• Play a normal match, but every time the ball goes out, play starts from the goalkeeper of the team who would have had the throw / corner etc. This way we repeatedly practice what we want (playing out from the back).
• GK can either roll, throw or kick the ball (you can set rules based on what you want to practice)
• For younger age groups, insist on the retreat to half way rule so you are allowing practice with less pressure and more game-realism for what they'd face in a match.
• If the opposition start marking unrealistically high up the pitch to stop playing from the back, allow the goalkeeper to go long over the top. This way they have to consider that as an option and drop off.
• Manipulate the rules depending on the success each team is having (even older age groups if less confident could start with the retreat to half way rule for example or you could lock players into halves so the team playing from the back have a 4v2 in their half etc...)
• Move into a full match with no condition on the restart to finish off with.

5 Key Coaching Points:

• Players to receive the ball on their back foot (letting the ball run across their body to their "opposite" foot) and passing empathy to allow for this (ie don't pass a metre behind the player)
• Movement off the ball, indvidually and as a unit must provide options for the player in possession. Move as a unit - we don't want players stranded out of position.
• As the ball shifts, movement off the ball must be as the ball is travelling - don't wait until the player has the ball to start moving to be an option.
• Gaps between players should never be too big - if we lose the ball we need to be in a position to cover. The size of the gaps depends on the age of the players and their ability to pass over those distances.
• Communication (tell the player on the ball what to do with it). GK particularly can see the whole pitch, so encourage plenty of chat from GK.

There are coaching points for the opposition, to do with pressing as a unit, combination play to create a goalscoring chances, communication etc. so you should reference those and give those players challenges, but we're focused here on playing from the back, so we'll just reference those points here.

Coaching Points (FA's 4 Corners):