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.
Extreme Transitions 3v3
To practice transitions in superiority will make your players look for safe finishing situations thoughtlessly and will make them think about the defensive transition. This is a drill that you as a coach will like a lot, a very useful drill.
Anticipation, Man to Man Marking and Losing own Marker
It is not easy for a coach to teach the player which is the appropriate moment to make a run to lose the defender, to teach which is the speace where he has to run to, etc… what if you create a situation where the player is able to identify it and solve it by himself?
Offensive Vigilance and Free Man
A dynamic and safe way for attacking is either to find the third man or to be aware of where the defenders are (offensive vigilances). At the same time, you will have to find the appropriate distances so your team not always pass the ball to the closest players but also finds the mid-distance players, with the objective of braking the lines. In this drill, the defensive players practice the moment of activating the pressing in a coordinated way.
Conditioned Game: High or Mid Pressure
To get in the right shape to defend a through ball it is what is going to make our defenders to reach the ball before the forwards do. In this tactical defensive drill, we will face real game situations so the defenders learn how to get in the right shape. All of this in a press drill.
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.
Offensive and Defensive Transition 3 Teams
To practice both the momentum when losing the ball and when winning it back is key. It makes us be better on the offensive and defensive transition. We will use this drill as a tactical situation to activate the defenders’ press after losing the ball and for the team that has just win the ball back to play quick and easy.
Four squares possession
To achieve an appropriate players’ distribution in the free spaces, to switch the game successfully, to choose either checking to the ball or checking away… this drill will make you players think and take decisions.
Overcoming High Pressure
To make a right high pressure or a good game building, and practice it in a game oriented similar situation is very possible.
Extreme Transitions 2v2
To attack bearing in mind that we have to be ready to defend is one of the most difficult things to put in your players’ mind. If we do not practice it, they will not internalize it.