Defending Outnumbered

"If you never concede a goal, you're going to win more games than you lose." - Bobby Moore

Defending Outnumbered - Key Points & Considerations

We've put together some of the key coaching points and things you may want to consider when setting up sessions based around defending when outnumbered. Remember - getting all the coaching points across in one session is impossible - these are meant as a source of ideas that you can introduce slowly and layer on as the players' understanding and ability level increases over time.

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2v1+1 Defending Outnumbered

This is a good starter practice for introducing defending when outnumbered, with a focus on the basic role of both the outnumbered player and a recovering player. It also gives the players plenty of chances to try to exploit attacking situations where they have a numerical advantage.

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Switching Pitches

This exercise is great fun first and foremost. It involves speed of thought, defending (matched up and outnumbered), attacking overloads, scoring, passing, 1v1 skills, tackling and loads more. It's a great warm up to introduce topics where numbers are uneven, like defending outnumbered or creating overloads.

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4v1+1 Defence vs Attack Exercise

This practice is one step on from our 2v1+1 Recovery Practice session, in that we're introducing more game realism by using a larger area and more players, to mimic the sort of scenario your defenders might find themselves in in a match. As well as being great practice for defending when outnumbered, it also allows the attacking players to work on their counter attacking skills and how they best take advantage of an overload situation.

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Video Examples

We've included some video examples, either from match footage that highlights this topic, or from training sessions we've found online (credits in the titles for each video). Hopefully these allow you to see the coaching points you might make in action.

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