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0:01 Well, hello coaches and welcome back.
0:03 Coach KW here and today we're going to look at defensive responsibilities and roles for players. We're this is going to be a two-part video series because the second part we're going to deal with
0:14 two positions, one of which is probably the most complicated on the field. But in this first one, we're going to take a look at the keeper, center backs, and
0:20 the wide 7 and 11. It's important for your team to work out the defensive responsibilities because as we know, if you have a balanced game, you have the
0:31 ball 50% of the time. So 50% of the time you're defending. So it's an important piece of the game to teach your players what to do when we lose the ball and how
0:40 to defend so that they're ready to hopefully win the ball back and go back on the attack. So let's take a look here in part one at the keeper, the center
0:48 backs, and the wide players. and then join me for part two where we look at the striker and the central midfield look. Here we go.
0:57 Okay, since we're going to do this in two parts, we're going to look at this twice. We'll see this again. So, let's talk about defensive principles. So,
1:03 again, in the most balanced of games, you probably will have the ball about 50% of the time. So, it's what you do without the ball is as important as what
1:11 you do when you have it. So, the game cycle of attack, transition to defense, defend, transition again to attack is never ending, right? we either have the
1:19 ball, we're losing the ball, we're getting the ball back. It goes round and round and round. And it's those transition phases that are the most dangerous. So the teams and the players
1:27 who know in their positions what to do during that transition, and specifically what we're talking about here is that transition to defend and defending part are going to be more successful long
1:37 term. So if you can teach your players when they're in these roles what they should be thinking about to do, they're just going to be better off as they go
1:44 forward in their career. So, let's go start uh again part one of this. We're going to start with the role of the goalkeeper. So, obviously the primary
1:52 job of a keeper is to protect the net.
1:53 That's what they're there for. But outside of the obvious job of saving shots, their primary strength is that they're always facing the play and can see the whole field. So, that means that
2:03 their most important asset is their eyes and connected to that, their mouth.
2:08 being able to see what's going on and use their words and commands to help their defenders know what to look for.
2:16 Where are the danger areas? Do they have to step? Do they have to squeeze? Do they have to slide? Do they have to clear the ball? Goalies have the best
2:25 seat in the house. They see the entire game almost all the time in front of them. And that is where it's super important for them to learn to use their
2:33 voice. When the ball's further away from them, keepers need to move away from their goal line and get up and out of their box to act as a role of a sweeper
2:42 behind the center backs and as a third defender when in possession of the ball.
2:48 We're not going to talk about that on this because it's defense. But if you go back and look at some of the 7v7 stuff, positioning, playing out of the back,
2:55 you'll see even at this age, it's again, I will say over and over again, it's super important for your keepers to be played as another field player so that
3:04 you have an extra player on the field when you're trying to maintain possession. So here's our lonely keeper here at the back, obviously.
3:12 So again, as attacks progress, the ability to see the whole play in front of them and provide information and direction to the defenders is super important during this chaotic situation
3:23 when you're being attacked at your net.
3:26 As the play moves forward, they need to be comfortable gout getting off of their line and moving forward to act as that sweeper behind these center backs. As
3:37 the play moves up, they're now well up and outside their box. So that if a ball is kicked their way and makes it past the two center backs bouncing, they are
3:48 in a great position to see the danger that comes to them and be in a good starting position to reach that ball before the opposition striker has time
3:57 to come running on net. As you can see in this situation, if the keeper is starting position is back inside a six, that ball comes over the top and this
4:06 player gets around the four. They're more than likely now going to be 1v one against the keeper bearing down on you.
4:12 That starting position up here meant it was a much easier way for that keeper to take that ball, clear it out before this situation ever happens. One of the
4:23 things we talk about is the relationships they have with other players and obviously a strong connection with the four and the five.
4:28 the center backs is vital. Whether that's 7v7 all the way to 11 v11, a keeper and his defenders, that relationship is vital because again, they're the eyes of the team and can
4:39 help those center backs immensely by just giving them commands because they see everything in front of them while that defender may be focused on one situation at a time and can't see what's
4:49 happening behind them. Let's look at the next position in our list here and that's going to be the role of the center back, the four and the five.
4:56 Obviously, their job is they're they're they're our primary defenders. They're protecting the net and they're protecting the goalkeeper. They're crucial for supporting the attack, but they're always being prepared for
5:06 transition to defense. As people say many times, and I subscribe to the theory, the best defenders are the most pessimistic people, you know, because they're always expecting the worst thing
5:17 to happen. If your defenders are always anticipating what's the worst thing can happen from this outcome and are getting ready to deal with that, they'll be super successful because they're always
5:27 going to be anticipating. Looks like my number eight's going to get the ball, but what if they miss it? So again, the best defenders are the ones are always
5:36 looking for the thing that's going to go wrong and being ready to fix it. They're also the reason for the start of the transition to attack cuz their job is to
5:45 defend the goal and win the ball back.
5:46 And when they do, it's time to transition forward. And again, they work as a pair, but they also have key relationships that we'll look at at the
5:53 end of this slide. So there's our four and a five, right, in our 7v7.
5:59 Now, one of the helpful vis visual cues that center backs can use, and we talked about this in setting up the field, is they're able to look up and down the
6:07 field and be able to isolate the central channel by finding the edges of the six of the goal box. So their primary job obviously is to protect this area
6:16 because that's the most dangerous part of the field to score from. They can use those visual cues though when they need to slide as a unit from side to side to
6:25 work themselves into the half space. But as you'll notice here, what you want to do is you want that pair to stay connected. And we talked about that
6:32 again in our splitting the field video.
6:34 The four and the five have slid over.
6:36 The four now become central to the central channel and the five is in the half space. But they haven't overcommitted. We try not to let our center backs overcommit. If they do, we
6:47 rely on other players to help fill that in. And we'll look at that in later slides. You can see here that what happens when a player overcommits to go
6:54 up for a ball and there's no support is now the four is isolated in the middle.
6:59 But now the five is now isolated 2v1 against two attackers and there's lots of space in behind for the attackers to take advantage of.
7:09 As the play moves forward, the center backs need to move up and support the play from behind, maintaining that spacing, covering in the back, staying within the central zone and the two half
7:21 spaces, as you'll see in a minute, providing that outlet option. If eight can't go forward anymore, they might have to turn around and play back to the
7:28 five or the four. And that's an easy pass if everybody's up as the keeper is also moving forward.
7:34 You can see here that this is again another part where they're playing support. The five is slid over into the half space supporting the 11. So the 11
7:43 has an easy pass backwards in case they get into trouble or they can't go anywhere. And the four is slid over again maintaining that central zone keeping an eye on the opposition
7:54 striker. They're usually staggered most of the time. Usually one is blocking and one is covering if there's 2v1 against that opposition striker. You can see here the ball is swung to the other
8:05 side. So the four and the five have swap places. The four is now situated behind the seven to give them support. The five is slid over maintaining that central
8:15 Again, the four and the five have key relationships with obviously the keeper and the number eight. They do have some relationships with the seven and 11, which we'll talk about later, but really
8:24 it's this diamond here is where most of their relationships lie. The last position we'll talk about in this video are the wide midfielders, the seven and 11. Their primary job is to mark their
8:36 opposite number, their opposite winger, and protect those wide areas. It's physically demanding. So managing substitutions to main their effectiveness is really important because they probably do the most
8:45 running. They're running up and down the sidelines constantly if they're doing their job correctly. Players should be learning strong one v one defending and attacking skills as they are usually one
8:58 v one with their opposite player from the other team. If the team is set up in a similar way, those wingers are basically battling each other the entire
9:07 game. Learning to use that sideline as a second defender is an additional topic.
9:13 as since they have their player isolated out against the side, they can use that sideline to squeeze the player into positions where they can't have any more
9:20 space because they'll go out of bounds.
9:22 And that can be a very effective tool to help in 1v one defending situations.
9:27 When we're defending, as we drop back, the 711 tuck in to congest the center of the field. A lot of times they tuck into the half spaces to provide that block,
9:37 but they're ready to provide pressure out wide if needed. And we'll see that in the next slide. They work mostly solo as we've talked about, but they do have
9:44 relationships with their center back and their eight. So here's our wide players, our wide 7 and 11 and our one two 31.
9:53 Here you can see again we use our visual cues using the outside of the 18s to mark the wide channel yet knowing where that half space is in between with the
10:03 lining up of the sixes. When we're back in a defensive block, their initial position is to tuck back in into the half space to make a line of
10:13 three usually to help screen the back two. The wide players many times can be described as playing in a V because when they play out from the back, they first
10:24 go wide and then they come back in. And so here is the part where they've come back in from that Vshape up and down the field as they sit in the half space to
10:34 help protect Their other primary job again is to mark their winger. So when the ball goes out wide, their job is to put pressure on the ball so that the
10:43 four or the five doesn't have to leave the half space, maintaining this strong central defense. You can see here all three of the players have moved over
10:51 into this triangle, which is important.
10:53 We'll look at the eight in a separate video, but the seven's job and the 11's job is to mark that wide player when the ball goes out wide. They are the
11:01 pressure. Again, one v one. Now, if for some reason the five does get pulled out there, the 11 needs to have some awareness to know that to drop into this
11:11 space if nobody else has. Sometimes the eight will drop into that space. And if that's the case, the 11 then needs to know that they need to cover this player
11:18 in this space as well. But that's where having that tactical flexibility and awareness and empathy for the other teammates because they've played all these positions can come into play. When
11:29 we're going forward and we lose the ball, it's important that they're having some sort of contact with their opposite, their 1v one partner on the other team because as the ball gets
11:39 turned over, they're looking to make sure that those players aren't free on their counterattack. You can see here the ball was lost. The nine is pressing pressure. We're now pressing or
11:52 counterpressing or gagen pressing, which again we talked about in a previous video. And this 11 now has left their marker because they know that if the rest of their team is effectively
12:01 counterpressing, this player here cannot possibly turn to get this ball out here quickly. So now they're moving in to provide swarming defense or gagan press or counter press here to try and win
12:14 this ball quickly back in this area of the field. Obviously, as we talked about in the pressing in the counter pressing video, they have to recognize the
12:22 trigger that this ball has either been turned over, this player is in a difficult position, perhaps their back is turned and they don't have an easy way to get turned and play because we
12:33 have immediate pressure all over the place. So again, this is a triggered thing. If they just leave this player willy-nilly and this player is not under under any pressure, it can lead to some
12:44 bad things because now this player is free to run at the back line. And for relationships, the wide midfielders have relationships with the center back on their half because a lot of times the
12:55 center back is going to be their support behind them when they have the ball, but also have relationships with the eight because they could swap any of those
13:03 positions as we looked at before. But having this line of three tucked into the middle really makes it very difficult to play balls through this So, I hope you found that interesting
13:14 and useful. Uh, obviously, you know, keeper and center backs uh obviously have defensive responsibilities, but so do those wide players. And you can see when we look at the second part of the
13:25 video where we look at the striker and the central midfield of the eight, you'll see how it all comes together because defending has to be done as a
13:32 team, as a unit um to be successful. So, I hope you'll join me for the second video, but I hope this was useful to you. Again, hope you have a great time
13:42 on the field with your kids and until next time, we'll see you later. Bye.
