Goal opportunities

This session is about creating goals and opportunities. It’s going to be in two parts, where the first part will be 3v2 transitioning, creating goal scoring opportunities with quick counters and fast attacks with lots of movement off the ball, crossing opportunities and shots – generally being clinical within that final third.

It can be used as an intensity practice just to get the players going and looked at from both the attacking or the defending side of the game alongside the competitive nature for the engagement as there’ll be players that want to score goals and players that love defending, so it has a lot to offer. We will be looking at the attacking - making that advantage count with the overload to create that goalscoring opportunity, but on the flip side, on another day. How do you deal with a counter-attack from a defensive point of view? You could do it in three-minute blocks or four-minute blocks, two or three times depending on how your day or week looks.

“This session gets engagement because it’s so competitive”

MAKING AND TAKING CHANCES

Set up in two even teams, an area 40x44 yards, with coaches either side as servers to start the attack. The team starting with three attackers will look to get their goalscoring opportunity against two defenders coming from the opposite direction.

[1]

1. Red team starts with three attackers, blue team with two defenders

Once that team gets the shot off, if they’re still in a good transition period, the defending team can quickly score. If not, and the player that then shoots the ball scores or it goes wide, that player would drop out. The two remaining attackers will stay on the pitch and then they will become the defenders with three opposing players coming to attack them.

[2]

1. Progress this by widening the pitch and increasing the number of players to 6v5

2. Red team looks for goalscoring opportunity

You can progress this by widening the pitch, or making it into a 4v3. The second part of the session (Diagram 3 below) is an attack v defence phase of play - 6v5 including goalkeepers, and looking at the bigger picture, bringing realism to the game, using patterns of team play and creativity to create goalscoring opportunities. You can then progress to 8v7 including goalkeepers with attacking full backs and defensive midfielders introduced. 

[3]

1. Add more players to make the set-up an 8v7

2. Red team looks for the goalscoring opportunity

COACHING POINTS

What are the key things to look out for? 

During this activity, you’re looking for the speed of attack, quality of the pass, or the passing, and the players’ decision-making – are they passing or shooting at the right times?

What are the typical mistakes players might make and how do I avoid them?

Watch out for the common mistake of players taking too long and the counter-attack fizzling out. We’re looking to break quickly and be clinical with the end product.