Defending Sessions

Coaching the topic of defend as a team in a small sided game on a UEFA B Football coaching qualification course.

The following article demonstrates coaching defensive tactics that could be employed by a team that are winning a match and want to get players behind the ball and force the opposition to play through them. Or by a team that are facing opposition who are better than they are. They are not the only defensive tactics that can be used by a team. A team would generally use more than one defensive tactic.

We have recently seen Chelsea do an outstanding defensive job on both Liverpool and Atlético Madrid and Crystal Palace, under Tony Pulis have built their impressive run of form on the basis of a solid and organised defence.

In football, one of the biggest dangers is on the turnover of the ball that happens when the attacking team lose the ball and have committed players forward. They are open to a quick counter attack and many goals are scored from this transition of attacking to then having to defend a counter attack. The problem for the defending team is that they are now outnumbered, disorganised and have lots of space behind them, which is difficult to defend. This is the football training subject of a question from one of our coaches:

I had another question from a Grassroots Coaching fan regarding a key UEFA B Coaching topic:

Following on from the previous blog article, we now look at how to coach a team to defend deep and then counter attack. In this UEFA B coaching topic, the defending team are giving up ground and defending deep, in and around their own penalty area. Typically, this might be an away team who are 0-0 or winning the game.

Tactically football has changed dramatically over the last 15 – 20 years.