Transitions

Our picks

Try these sessions selected by our coaching team if you're not sure where to start. Or scroll down to browse all the sessions in this section

Thomas Frank

Attacking transitions

This session is all about the principles behind offensive transitions, specifically the 3v2 offensive transition.

Nuno Espirito Santo

Game fundamentals

This game-based session is designed to focus on, and drill down on, some of the simple game fundamentals inside of our process. In a simple ...

Gary O'Neil

Possession with pressing intensity and transition

This session works on maintaining possession with elements of pressing intensity and transition.

Vicky Jepson

Transition from defence to attack

This session is all about counter- attacking and making the quick transition from defence to attack. It rehearses players in the movements ...

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Cori Williams-Mills

Transitional Possession

This session is a transitional possession drill: 4v4 in the middle with four outside players on both teams.

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Martyn Irvine

Attacking from deep

The session works on attacking from deep upon regains, finding the furthest pass forward before supporting play in, around and beyond the...

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Michael Carrick

Turning defence into a fast attack

This session is all about turning defending into a fast attack. We do this by working together as a unit, staying connected, and blocking...

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Melanie Reay

Regains

The session focus is on regains, and being out of possession to being in possession.

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Jay Sadler

Transitional Possession

Intensity is everything for me: quick ball circulation with the ball to attack forward with pace and conviction, then against the ball be...

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Slah Eddine Khechini

Attacking quickly on regains

This session reflects my core belief that football is increasingly decided in moments of transition — the seconds after winning or losing...

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Robert de Pauw

Attacking Transitions

This session focuses on playing out the overload situation on the flank and in front of goal

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Vitor Matos

Developing an Organised Chaos Identity

This session is all about organised chaos. It means encouraging fluidity between moments, an ‘everyone is responsible for everything’ men...

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Jon Brady

Adapting rest defence

This session is about trying to sustain attacks and organising an effective rest defence against defensive transitions (rest attacks).

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Ian Burchnall

Fast attacking play

This session is all about fast attacking play whether that’s coming from a possession phase or through transition moments.

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Jesse Marsch

Attacking transitions

This session will emphasise winning balls from pressing situations and looking to play the first pass forward to initiate our attacking t...

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Tom Cleverley

Counter-attacking and recoveries

The session is designed to replicate a quick attack in transition and reactions from attacking players, with a huge emphasis on high-spee...

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Leam Richardson

Counter-pressing with attacking transitions

This session has many individual/unit and team actions in the practices, with a clear understanding of how to exploit defensive vulnerabi...

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Tom Williams

Crisis transition

This session deals with a crisis transition where a condensed space is broken, ie a press into a large space where players are required t...

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Dave Challinor

Pressing and transition

This session really brings everything that my teams do. It’s the first one I do when I go into any club, because it just sets the tone: p...

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Mike Dodds

Creating transition moments

This session is about the creation of transition both in and out of possession for individuals, units and both teams.

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Marcos Abad

Flow the risk

This is a goal kick session leading on to the transition between attack and defence; it moves from some specific goalkeeping drills to a ...

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Jesse Marsch

Pressing principles

When we press, we need to think not just about winning the ball but about how to turn it into chances and ultimately into goals.

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Kolo Toure

Counter-pressing

When you counter-press, you allow yourself to win the ball back and play as quick as possible forward to create a goal opportunity, or yo...

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Russell Penn

Attacking overloads on transition (counter attacks)

This session is based on a defensive mid-block structure, transitioning into a quick regain and attack against a team out of position.

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Johnnie Jackson

Movement for effective counter attacking

The session is about creating overloads with over and underlaps, to gain an advantage to get into shooting situations. We will look to go...

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Steven Schumacher

Counter-attacking

The session has two main focuses: counter attacking and exploiting overload situations and defensive principles, which will allow the opp...

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Valerien Ismael

Counter-pressing

This session is all about counter-pressing and it encourages a high intensity style of play and instant reactions from the players.

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Liam Bramley

Counter-attacking on transitions

This session focuses on the transitional moment of regaining possession of the ball.

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Graham Coughlan

Attacking phases incorporating wing backs

This session encourages the wing backs to make decisions in different types of attacking situations, whether in the build-up phase, a swi...

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Mark Robins

Create chances and score goals with attacking transitions

This session creates opportunities for attacking transitions. Every aspect of play will be challenged, including the reaction of the play...

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Paul Hurst

Effective counter-attacking

This session is based on encouraging players to make counter-attacks and it emphasises forward runs and playing forward quickly when poss...

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Stephen Robinson

Transitions

This session is a combination of our midfield press transitioning into regaining possession and our forward combination play.

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Gabriele Cioffi

Go deep

This session is all about how and when to go deep, attacking the room behind the shoulders of the opposition’s defensive line.

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Cameron Toshack

Defensive transition into effective possession

This session is focused on two main themes: defensive transition (against the ball) and regaining to build effective possession (with the...

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Matthew Etherington

Emergency defending

This training session is a based around a 4v2 possession scenario that progresses into a 5v4 overloaded transition for the defenders.

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Mark Hudson

Improving transitions

This training session is designed to create multiple opportunities for players to instantly switch from an attacking moment to a defensiv...

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Sergio Ferreira

Beat the press, unlock the block

This is a specific training session that we use to prepare our players in a week when we’re due to face a team that tries to press really...

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Gus Poyet

Transitioning to defence

This is a session we use to train our players to transition to defence after losing the ball. In doing so, we encourage them to react qui...

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Steve Morison

Managing transitions with and without the ball

This session is about making decisions in a controlled setting in order to make thinking and problem solving on game day much easier.

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John Townson

High press to score goals

This session is all about attacking without the ball by using a high press to score goals. It focuses on good intensity in the press, kee...

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Michael Beale

COUNTER-ATTACKING WITH SPEED

This session focuses on fast counter-attacking football when winning the ball. The moment a team regains possession, regardless of where ...

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Mitch Whitty

CONTINUOUS COUNTER-ATTACKING

This is an extremely high tempo session that focuses purely on counter-attacking to create overloads and fast transitions to set up as ma...

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Patrick Vieira

Principles of play

With our tactical periodisation, we will aim to emphasise all phases of the game on a weekly basis.

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Gary Rowett

Defending and the transition to counter-attack

These activities are designed to move the ball with speed and quality along with getting players to transition quickly into counter-attac...

Attacking transition

This session is all about the transition from defence to attack. Players love it because they get a lot of opportunities to express ...

Transition Play

The main focus of this session is on transitional play, where we aim to hit the wide areas of the pitch as quickly as possible. We then ...

Transition principles

I use this session to make our players fully understand our transition principles – both the transition from attack to defence and the ...

Transitions

Although this session is predominantly about transitions, it pays particular attention to pressing, making play predictable, communication, ...

Attack against defence

In this session, because the defending team is facing an overload, it is important for them to work together in the best ways possible. It ...

Attacking and counter-pressing

This training session has all four aspects of the game rolled into one activity. We’re not only coaching attacking play, but also defence, ...

Attacking and defending transitions

This is a session designed to encourage the defending team to win the ball back and quickly play it forward to their attackers. The ...

Attacking and defending transitions

This session is focused on attacking and defending transitions. Transitions are one of the crucial moments in the game and the best teams ...

Attacking and defending transitions

This session is about attacking and defending transitions, focusing on the key moments when the ball changes hands. We work on how we can ...

Attacking transition from a fight zone

This session is all about rehearsing players to make the transition from defence to attack. It is made up of two parts: the first part is a ...

Attacking transitions

This is a tactical training session based around reacting quickly to the attacking transition and it rehearses players to win the ball and ...

Breaking out from defensive stability

This session is about defensive stability when playing in a 4-2-3-1 formation against possession-based teams, with a focus on breaking out ...

Building up and transition to defend a cross

This session is about how we get our centre backs to build up play against two or three opponents (two strikers, or two strikers and one ...

Counter-attacking

Use this attack versus defence session to create a variety of situations for players to work on quick attacks and combination play with an ...

Counter-attacking and transitions

This session is about counter-attacking with pace on the first phase, decision-making and game-related play thereafter.

It is match-...

Counter-attacking with speed

This is a counter-attacking session in a 3v2 scenario. It is a fantastic training exercise to generate a good tempo, with lots of attacks ...

Counter-pressing

This session is aimed at influencing player behaviour on the loss of possession. We work very hard to affect player behaviour in the ...

Deadly transitions

This session examines how we condition a player technically, tactically, physiologically and psychologically when attacking and defending ...

Defending against counter-attacks

Defending against the counter-attack and reacting quickly to these transitions of play is important. That’s because in the modern era, once ...

Defending as individuals and pairs

We often think of the defence as a unit comprising four or more players, but it’s common for one or two defenders to find themselves in ...

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Transitions

Our picks

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Coaches' Testimonials

Alan Pardew

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Jürgen Klopp

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Sir Alex Ferguson

Steven Gerrard

Join the world's leading coaches and managers and discover for yourself one of the best kept secrets in coaching. No other training tool on the planet is written or read by the calibre of names you’ll find in Elite Soccer.

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