Play pressed and switch zone
To include the goalkeepers in the building drills is key for them to then do it comfortably during the games. In the drill, we will start building the game to then advance in the game overcoming the opposition high press. The defenders practice the high press and to close passing lines.
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.
Understanding of the game
Tactical situation to improve the decision making about when to create a numeric superiority or when to keep being a support in an intermediate distance.
4 goals on the inside
To know when is the right moment to play the ball into the middle is something key for our players. To make them understand it, we will practice the ball circulation, the game speed and the change of pace. We will practice also how to get back in shape when we defend and be wide when we attack. Those are two basic aspect of the offensive and defensive transitions.
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.
Speed of play and Third Man
If a player, in order to make the right decision during a game, considers where the rivals, the teammates and the ball are and if he either has to move to create a passing line or not, he is definitely improving. Every passing line that he creates it is a third man situation that he also generates.
Small Sided Game Progression
Small sided tactical game in which we will fix the right press distances, the coverages, the defensive exchanges or the defensive support and we will create, for the attacking players, a situation in which they will practice to check to the ball and check away, one-two’s, feints and offensive timings. It will be an easy but very tactical drill, an excellent drill to strengthen the interaction between the players who are close to each other.
Rondo: draw in rivals
In this drill, the offensive players will win two points if they repeat the same pass in order to attract the defenders first so they can pass it then to the free farther players. The defenders will have to be coordinated to do the pressing choosing the right moment to do it. These tactical momentums are key and they will appear many times in the real game.
Conditioned Game: Offensive Transition and Stretching
When in an offensive transition, whether to progress quickly or to look for support to start a combinative attack is an important choice that has to be practiced.
2 goals: Vigilances + Transition
Offensive and defensive vigilances in a polarized drill (with orientation), in which we will be conditioning the game bearing in mind that we will then either lose the ball or win it back. With this, we will rise up the level of the offensive and defensive transition.