Double Box: Tactical Balance
If your team, while it is attacking, keeps a balanced structure, it will be ready to defend rapidly in an appropriate way when losing the ball. It will make your players be better at finishing, at pressing after losing the ball, in the counter attack, in the previous moves to the ball loss etc.
To move the ball upfield and tactical balance.
There are teams that, while they play they get out of shape constantly. With this drill you would be able to improve the offensive tactical balance.
Direct Attack: Final Minutes
Maybe your team just uses the direct style of play occasionally (e.g when losing in the last minutes of a game), but it is more than likely that your team will face teams that use it during most of the minutes. To practice it in the same proportion as it is played in your competition is both correct and necessary.
Transitions: Narrow down the spaces
The following situations are basic tactical and repeated situations in the game: The team that loses the ball has to close spaces, the team winning the ball back has to start winning width, opening up the field. You can practice this drill continuously.
Create and Defend Passing Lanes
To defend in a staggered way, is going to make your players not only practice coverages and defensive support but also, offensively, you are going to make your players go through passing lines. This is a big formative challenge that you will be able to achieve.
Counterattack Vs Dropping Back
There are defensive and offensive concepts which will be easy to practice in whole. A simple provoking rule will help your team practice these two concepts.
Supports: Superiority/inferiority
Ball retention, body orientation (One of Guardiola’s biggest obsession) to receive the ball from the exterior neutral player who has advantage through the guided discovery learning method. The defensive anticipations will make the attackers be on the right body shape to retain the ball and switch the play.
Avoid in depth passes + Transitions
To press the player on the ball is a key aspect for having defensive success. If, we add the defensive vigilances, this drill will give your players a lot of defensive tactical concepts. A polarized tactical drill with plenty of offensive and defensive transitions.
Field with 3 zones: ball circulation + stretching and stepping out of losing zone
Tactical decisions so the team in possession of the ball achieves width when attacking and become more compact defensively fixing distances for coverages and defensive support.
Positional Play – Speed of Play
Another offensive tactical drill to improve the position game (Guardiola, Sarri…). To play the ball facing the player who is about to receive it will allow the receiver to think before getting the ball and to speed the play up.