Middle man pressure

You should develop your players’ passing under pressure as much as possible. It is easy to run up and down passing without hindrance, but this does not reflect the real game. The session builds towards a game which works on the key elements that make passing more difficult: pressure within a reduced space.

Warm up time: 7-10
Session time: 8-10
Development time: 8-10
Game time: 15-20
Warm down time: 7-10

What to think about

My squad are all good passers in training. However, when it comes to games we seem to give a lot of poor passes. Is there something we can do to improve our passing in games? There is a lot more to passing than simply catching and throwing a ball. There’s a whole decision making process that needs to happen as well. The passer needs to weigh up where the defence are, where his support is and what sort of pass is needed. This decision making process can only be developed by putting players under pressure or in game-like situations. You may find a rapid decline in skill execution at first. However, the more your players get used to working with pressure, the more their execution will improve. The game in this session will improve their anticipation.

set-up

1.  Pass in front of the receiver.
2.  Draw the defender before passing, to put the receiver into space.
3.  Support players: find space and make yourself available for the pass.

What you get your players to do

Line up three players with a defender opposite the middle one. The initial ball carrier passes to the middle player, who has to draw the defender and time his pass to the outside player in space. Control the speed of the defender to vary the pressure on the middle player, depending on his ability.