Defending From the Front - Key Points & Considerations

When you talk to young players about defending, they usually think about tackling, about being near their own goal and about stopping the opposition scoring.

Getting your players to understand early on that defending can happen anywhere on the pitch and involve any of your players, will help enormously. You can reference teams like Liverpool or Barcelona, who make a habit of trying to win the ball high up the pitch, where they can then exploit the position they find themselves in, near the opposition goal. Some key points for players and coaches...

Key Points:

Start with the basic defending skills - a lot of the coaching points for defending from the front are exactly the same as those we would use when teaching players to defend effectively elsewhere on the pitch. Body shape, angle and speed of approach, working as a team, communication, not diving in unless the ball is there to be won etc. are all just as relevant and practices like the 1v1 and 2v2 defending exercises we've included will give your players a good grounding.
The players have to buy into it - attackers can be lazy. They can be all about scoring goals, doing tricks and looking for the glory. Arguably the best centre forward of all time, the Brazilian Ronaldo is quoted as saying to a team mate who berated him for his lack of effort "You run. I don't. I score goals" (and to be fair, he did score a LOT of goals - 414 in 616 games to be precise). So if you're trying to get your forwards to defend effectively from the front, they have to buy into the idea and why they're doing it (see below). If one or two don't, the whole thing falls apart.
Why are we doing this? As well as the point that we're trying to stop our opponent working the ball into dangerous positions, having forward players understand the key point that if they win the ball near the opposition penalty box, they're in a much better position to score a goal might be the motivation they need to work hard to do this.
Work as a unit or "hunt in packs" - this links to the above point, but is also a technical point and players need to understand what their roles are. If one player is pressing the defender who has the ball, the others take up positions to block off the dangerous forward passing options. These roles are unglamorous, often hard work and can be hard for young players to understand. A 2v2 defending exercise can be a great way to introduce the idea of covering for a team mate who is pressuring the ball, whilst exercises like the 4v4 small sided defending game we've included will help the whole team to understand what is expected of them when defending as a unit, wherever they are on the pitch. Again, if one or two players don't do their job, the whole thing falls apart.
Patience! You don't HAVE to always try to win the ball - the first priority when defending from the front will usually be to stop the opposition playing a dangerous ball into an area that can hurt you. Sometimes the right option is to press the ball aggressively and try to win it back (if for example the opponent has taken a poor touch or if we are 1-0 down with 3 minutes to go) but sometimes the right option is simply to drop off slightly and let the opposition have the ball in less dangerous areas of the pitch where they can't hurt us, simply taking up positions that mean they can't play through us and have to either force something or simply keep playing predictable football until someone makes a mistake and we win the ball back.
Be ready to adapt - it all looks great on paper, but the reality is that in football, as in anything, unexpected things happen. Any defending is about maximising your chances of denying the opposition a goalscoring chance, but it isn't a perfect science and defending from the front is no different. Sometimes a player will make a mistake that leaves the team exposed, sometimes the opposition will do something special that unlocks your defence and makes your best laid plans look flimsy. Put Lionel Messi out there and even the most organised of defences can be picked apart. Encourage the players to be ready to adapt if things don't go to plan, put them in training situations where they are outnumbered or where something unexpected has happened.

And finally...

This is quite a complex topic for young players, so be careful not to jump ahead of yourself. A 9 year old is very unlikely to understand gegenpressing for example, or have an immediate idea of what you mean by responding to cues and triggers when pressing as a unit. These ideas may be interesting for us as coaches, but a good understanding of the basics and a long time spent mastering those basics are going to give you a lot more success than jumping straight in with advanced concepts that even a lot of professional players struggle with!