Name: 7v7 Advanced Playing Out of the Back - Using the middle of the field to your advantage
Uploaded: 2026-03-16
Duration: 14 min 14 s
Channel: Coach KW
Description: Video 4 in the 7v7 series — and we're going advanced with our buildout.

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Part of the series: 7v7 Topics, 7v7 Soccer - the 2026 edition

About this video

Video 4 in the 7v7 series — and we're going advanced with our buildout. In the last video I built the foundation: playing out of the back using the basic shape, the split center backs, and the second pass rule. Go watch that one first. Here's what happens next: the other team figures it out. They start cheating their pressure wide to take away your outside options - and if that's your only play — you're stuck. In this video we cover two ways to use that against them: Option 1 — Play through the 8. When they vacate the center to cover the wide channels, your 8 drops into that space and draws pressure back to the middle, opening the outside right back up. We cover the key teaching progressions: the beginner rule (no decision-making required), the 8's body shape (side-on, not facing the keeper), and why your keeper and center backs need to become the eyes and ears for the whole sequence. Option 2 — Play to the keeper. A more advanced play where a center back starts at the corner of the six-yard box, plays into the keeper, draws pressure centrally, and now the wide options are completely free — or you bypass the whole press in one pass to the 8. You'll see this exact play at 9v9 and 11v11, and we finish the video with MLS Next U15 footage showing the final form of everything we're building toward. 0:00 Kick-off 1:41 Review the basic setup 3:10 Option 1 - Play via the 8 4:29 Proper Body Shape of the 8 5:09 Player to Player Communication 6:24 Hold the Ball - Draw the Pressure 7:41 Option 2 - Dictate Pressure from the 1st Pass 10:41 9v9 Example 11:43 11v11 Example 12:48 Wrap-up - What should we do next? Full Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQkkm5iE_Xld9p49k7dlog?sub_confirmation=1 Buy an AI camera that doesn’t break the bank - and help out my town program at the same time! https://partner.reeplayer.com/soccercoachkw Join United Soccer Coaches: https://hub.unitedsoccercoaches.org/nc__createaccount?startURL=%2FNC__Login%3FstartUrl%3D%252FNC__joinrenew Amazon Coaching Items: Insta360 Ace Pro https://amzn.to/3Uj0diZ GoPro Tripod Mount - https://amzn.to/3JCtcJO 20’ Tripod - https://amzn.to/4bdSWI1 16’ tripod - https://amzn.to/4aTOi23 Tripod Weights - https://amzn.to/48z81WI GoPro Hero 12 - https://amzn.to/4aJfGzT GoPro Volta External Battery Handle - https://amzn.to/4aJfGzT 256Gb Micro Memory card - https://amzn.to/44gCNPY Insta360 X4 - https://amzn.to/4df7MQs Kwik Goal Digital Ball Pump: https://amzn.to/4blZmoK Small Tactics Board: https://amzn.to/48Ug0tP Small Magnets (Light): https://amzn.to/43iHk3S Small Magnets (Dark): https://amzn.to/3wUh6bM Big White Board: https://amzn.to/3x0NBoU Large Soccer Tactics Board: https://amzn.to/3VhzO7d Large Magnets: https://amzn.to/48RGiNv Large Magnets: https://amzn.to/3VfQxIc Waterproof Stickers: https://amzn.to/3Vfhn3b Folding Goals - High Quality: https://amzn.to/3AEITP7 https://amzn.to/4jNrsOC - How to Coach Girls - Are you coaching a girls team? This little book is invaluable to understanding the different mindset and dynamics within a girls/women's team, especially if you've only coached boys - written by 2 women coaches for all to understand the subtle differences and best motivational tactics to try. https://amzn.to/4hGf1BP The Coach’s Guide to Teaching: What great classroom teachers do is relevant to coaches in profound ways. After all, coaches are at their core teachers. Lemov knows that coaches face many of the same challenges found in the classroom, so the science of learning applies equally to them. https://amzn.to/4odNpIo - Two Versus One - I like how this book really takes a look at how you can break down attacking moves into focusing on creating and winning 2v1 situations - a great way to break down the concept for both novice and experienced players, with lots of drill set ups to consider. https://amzn.to/40RI9j7 Scoreboard Soccer: Creating the Environment to Develop Young Players

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Transcript

Auto-generated captions — may contain the odd mishearing. Click a time to jump there.

Well, hello coaches. Welcome back. Coach KW here. Hope you're all as well. Today we're in video number four of our 7v7 refresh series and we're going to

continue on from video number three, which is the basics of playing out of the back. So naturally, this is the advanced playing out of the back cuz

what will happen when you start playing with the techniques that I showed you in the last video, which you should definitely go and watch, is that teams

will start to figure that out during the game and now they're going to start to cheat their pressure to the outside and when they do that, they're going to

leave the middle of the field wide open.

This is where you need to have the bravery and have the practice time to get your kids comfortable with this cuz you know the first time you do this, the

yells from the opposite sideline of don't play the ball in front of your own net or don't kick it in the middle are going to come from your parents. You're

going to take care of that with an email beforehand, but this is where learning to play in the middle makes your team more than one-dimensional and more

important, it sets you up for 9v9 because being able to play centrally is such a big part of being able to play out in 9v9 to give yourself options

because depending on how teams set up and press against you, sometimes playing straight up the middle is the fastest and easiest way. One pass cuts out two

to four players. So, we're going to show you two ways to do that so that you can get comfortable once you've mastered or at least got under your feet the first

part, the video number three, that you can do with this. So, please make sure to like, subscribe, hit the bell so that you get notified when the next video is

coming out. Thank you again for all the new subscriptions and sharing with your other coaches. I see those stats and it's incredibly gratifying. So, thank you so much. Let's get into the video

All right coaches, let's just go over the basics that we talked about in our last video. So, as we play this through, we're going to just play out with a

restraining line of the halfway line and what typically happens as we play as we play out to the wide areas, it becomes pretty predictable after a little while.

Most teams will start to figure out like, "Hey, that ball keeps going out wide and we keep missing it. What should we do?" And so, the simple answer is a

lot of teams then start to cheat that pressure. So, what happens is first they start just starting to run to the that side of the field on their own.

maybe they even start to line up a little bit further up, but you can see we're now starting to get a little bit bit more pressure happening here and it

makes a little bit more difficult for us having to progress up the field because now they're starting to anticipate that.

Now we have a few more options, it gets a little bit more difficult to play out, and you can see here now our options start to break down. While we can

recycle the ball and sometimes we can get out there, some teams will just run and deal with the wide players and they leave the middle wide open, which you

can obviously see here is our solution coming, but we're going to address it in a couple of different ways first. So, here again, we got our basic setup. You

can see that team is starting to cheat with players pushing out wider and wider. And we'll play this video through and I'll pause it in a second, but you

can see here what we're going to do instead is we're now going to play that ball straight up to our eight. And you can see what that usually does is as

they go to play, teams usually are surprised because who in their right mind would play the ball in the middle of the field, right?

Everybody is going to be screaming about this. Why would any coach do this? But it's obvious. Now that we've played to the eight, now the pressure all of a

sudden has to redirect. So, they may have started the outside of the field, but now what do they do? Well, it's like a magnet. They're all going to start

running towards the center of the field.

And so, to begin with, the instruction I usually give this center mid is whatever side of the your body of the field that the ball comes to you from the keeper,

play that side back to your center back.

So, right now that ball is slightly to the right of the eight as we look at them. So, they're going to play to the four. They're going to play to the right

of the screen just so they don't have any thought to have to think about what's going on. And honestly, it's usually easier that way cuz the ball is

on that side of the body.

One thing we do want to talk about though is body position of the eight.

The common mistake you see is the eight comes down and faces directly at the keeper, which means they can't see anything behind them. So, what we need to work with with our

players is always having that side on body shape so they can turn the head and look. So, if the eight when they step opens the hips and tries to face one of

the sidelines, what this means is when the ball comes in their direction, they now have the ability to look over their shoulder and see what's coming.

The second skill that we want to develop in our team as they get older is that they start to talk to each other. And who better to let that eight know what's

coming at them but the keeper and or the two center backs. And so, this is where we want to start to encourage our players to be the eyes and ears for each

other. And so, this is a great way to start doing this. So, whether in practices or whatever else, you can start having be part of the drill where

you want them to call out where somebody is coming from. I'm sure you can imagine all sorts of drills where you could do this for your players where one player

is receiving a ball, somebody is coming at them from behind, and the person who passed that ball is telling them what side to turn from.

It is a skill in soccer that has to be developed just like everything else. So, in this case here, as we play through, obviously they have two choices, but in

this case we've told them play to here.

And I would tell you that in the game, what happens is that pressure comes in, which completely opens up the wide areas because they just cannot believe that

you are daring enough to play the ball in the middle of the field. And then it tends to be a rather simple pass out to the outside player and then we move up

and out. Now, as they get older, one of the things you can have this player do is as they get comfortable is to hold on to that ball just a little bit longer than

perhaps um they would at the beginning.

A lot of times a ball comes to them, you're just asking them to stop it and If they can hold on to the ball for a little bit further, what do you think

happens? That pressure gets closer and closer and it comes into the middle, which means it makes it even easier to play that ball out wide. Now, you may

have a superstar at eight here who could maybe play this ball round the corner out to the wide area, but that's usually not something that happens at age uh eight and nine. But if

they have that body shape that's side-on to one of the sidelines, it is one more option. So, if they're side-on and that ball comes to them, let's say the ball

the keeper is off to this side closest to the camera and it comes and I receive it with my right foot, which is closer to the center circle, I may be able to

turn and drive up the field if there's no pressure or I might be able to turn and just play that ball out to the 11 and we're up and out as well.

But that's developing your players over time. This will not happen in the first 3 weeks of 7v7. Now, let's talk about perhaps an even more advanced version,

something that you would definitely need to start doing in 9v9, but you can definitely give it a go in 7v7, especially if it's in your second year

and you really want to challenge them.

And you can see I'm doing the one thing I said not to do in the other video, which is placing the ball at the corner of the six. But I'm putting it there

because it's not the goalkeeper that's about to start this play, it's one of the center backs. And you can see this in the modern game if you see it on TV a

Another way to draw pressure into the middle is to to simply start with the ball in the middle, and that's by playing your first pass into your

keeper. We're going to use the closer restraining line cuz it actually probably is even more useful to do this when the ball is that much closer because now that pressure is going to be

even more concentrated, but it's definitely something you could do with a build-out line is anywhere, and eventually in 99, they'll be on the top of your box, and you're going to perform

this. What this does naturally is A, gets everybody excited that you made a pass to the keeper. I'm telling you you're going to hear people screaming to

go get them, he can't pick it up, etc., etc. It It's incredible the amount of ignorance that goes on here. Again, the keeper, when they have their gloves on,

doesn't mean their feet stop working.

This kid is playing half of the game in the field, and another 25 minutes, they're going to be receiving passes all over the field anyways. I don't

understand why people freak out about The player has the ball at their feet.

It's naturally going to draw that pressure straight into them, and when they do that, your center backs are going to draw off and drop out, and most

times what happens is they are wide the pressure is all comes charging into the keeper, it's narrowed in, and what happens is you tend to have both sides

of the field wide open. Now, you can see here, there was a player that didn't go charging in. Maybe this is a little bit slightly more advanced team, or maybe

they just have a really well-drilled or well-aware player, and so he kind of hung out here. So, now he has to make a choice. Now, with the four has the ball,

as the four takes his space and drives forward, he's going to make this player commit either one way or the other or come back in. And once they do that,

it's usually a very simple pass to one or the other of these players, and you're up and out. And you can see in this example, we've cut four of the six

outfield players out of the play, and as we go forward, we're basically 4v2 heading down the other field. It's super effective, and it does work. But this is

probably the most advanced of the two options I gave you because it requires that pass to start with the keeper, your center backs to move off, your keeper to

hold their nerve to let that pressure start to come in, and once they see they've committed, play that ball out wide so that then you can just bypass

those players. So as I kept saying in the video, this is really important when it gets to 9v9, and what we'll see here is while we didn't put the ball in the corner of the

box to play it into the middle of the keeper, instead the ball is starting in the center of the box and we're just going to play directly straight ahead.

So you can see as the setup starts here, they looks like they're pressing with two or three players, but then that player in the middle walks away from

that central player, which then makes it a little bit more easy for us to play out. So as you watch this develop, right, that pressure's going to run away

cuz they see somebody's open. He's dragging that player away. So now that first ball is straight into the middle.

He waits till the pressure's on him, and now with those passes we're up out and into this space and we move forward.

It's not anything that's really difficult. Every one of those passes on the 9v9 field is maybe 10 to 15 yards at the most. These are fifth graders doing this. It is

definitely possible, but you need to start at 7v7.

Finally, I want to show you a clip from a U15 MLS Next game, and you're going to see this build out process happen, and you're going to see how many times, how

many triangles are set up, and how many times this ball moves around until the play comes out. This is the final form.

This is what we're going to, and this is why you have to start. Every one of these players started being able to do this with their coaches at 7v7 and 9v9

until they get to this point. So if we watch this, um you'll see a circle every once in a while, that's my oldest son, that's part of his highlight reel. But you can see

ball comes out from the keeper. As the pressure comes in, they play straight Pressure's on his back, triangle, back to the center back, patient, waiting, drawing the pressure,

play that ball directly to the other center back who's wide open. He tries to take his space, everything's blocked off, another set of triangles happening here. Now the ball comes back diagonally

to the center back again, and now look, he's have even more space to drive forward, and then he finds a midfielder there who can turn, play off underneath,

and the ball goes forward. So again, it's all part and parcel of being comfortable with the ball and understanding those movements and in and out of possession to make those

triangles for support will get to this point when you get the 11 v 11 game. If you start in 7 v 7 and through 9 v 9, I

guarantee you your kids at U13 and U14 will be able to do variations of what we just saw these MLS Next players do, and do it well, and do it well enough that

they'll be able to retain that ball and make those attacks forward when you know there's not a chance in hell that your keeper's going to be able to play a long

ball from the six that gets even close to the center line in that first U13 year on a 100-yard field. It's just not happening. So, that's why we started 7 v

7 cuz it takes time to practice, and this is the end result.

Well, coaches, I hope that you found this video at least enlightening and made you think about different ways you can get your team to work when you play

through the middle. It's such an important skill and it's such an important concept for teams to be able to be comfortable to use the middle of the field and play in that area to get

the ball inside and outside cuz really the game is a lot about moving the ball from one space to another to make the other team react. So, your job is to

make that team make a choice, and then make them pay for that choice by playing to the opposite way that makes sense for you. So, I hope to seeing that 9 v 9 and

even that 11 v 11 video gives you some sense of why we build these skills throughout the years because it becomes so valuable for really skilled teams and

players. So, I hope you found this useful. Like, sub- subscribe, and share.

If you've got any questions, get them down in the comments. Uh I'm not quite sure what we're going to do in the next video. Maybe we'll work on progressing

up the field, or maybe we'll work on the opposite and how you can set a press that makes it really difficult for another team to do any of these options.

Uh I haven't decided. Get down in the comments and let me know what you'd like for that second option. Until next time, thanks so much, coaches. Bye-bye.