Objectives: To improve dribbling and passing skills, teamwork, decision making.
Age range: U5s to U8s.
Number of players: Minimum of eight but can be the whole squad.
Set-up: Create a 25×20 yards playing area with a three-yard home base in each corner.
- Divide your players equally into four teams.
- Each team is allocated a home base.
- Place at least 12 balls in the centre of the playing area.
How to play:
On your command, the first player from each team runs to the centre of the playing area and dribbles a ball back to their home base.
When the first player gets back, the second player goes.
When all the balls have been captured, allow each team 30 seconds to steal balls from the other teams’ home bases.
Note: Balls that are in the home bases must not be guarded!
At the end of the 30 seconds, the team with the most balls in their home base is the winner.
Progression:
Ask your players if there is a quicker way to get balls back to their base. Let them think about this for a few seconds.
Now play the game again with no restrictions.
See which team realises that the way to get the most balls back to their base is for all the players to run to the middle of the grid at the same time.
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