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A fun, effective practice game
By Claudio Reyna
One of my favorite practice games is the four-goal scrimmage. You set up goals on the front edge of each penalty area and on the sidelines at the halfway line. That creates a square-like field with a goal on all four sides. When a team has possession, it has two options for scoring. And each team defends two goals.
This is an excellent way to practice switching the point of attack. There might be a two-on-two in front of one goal and a free man in front of the other one, so a flighted ball across the field sets him up for a first-time volley on goal.
On the defensive side, players have to be super aware of their positioning, and teammates have to talk all the time to organize the marking.
If you have four goalies, you can play the game with regular-size goals, but the four-goal scrimmage is also easily done with two small goals and two regular goals with keepers. You can adjust the size of the field depending on the number of players or on their age and skill level.
Another version is the three-goal game in which one team attacks one regulation-size goal, and the other team aims for two small goals without keepers on the other goal line.
That setup is perfect for playing lopsided games, where the team going to goal has a one- or two-man advantage. For example, eight or nine players attack the goal with the keeper, which is defended by six or seven players.
This activity creates huge pressure on the defensive team, and players can't afford to lose any one-on-one battles.
Many coaches are very cautious when it comes to setting up their defense and always want their defenders to outnumber the other team's attackers. But defenders should be able to cope with even numbers so that more of their teammates are free to attack.
Training defenders against an overloaded offense prepares them for an attack-minded system.
Reversing the balance -- having, for example, six players attack the goal against eight players -- forces the attackers to cope with a team that is bunkered deep in its own half, which happens against defense-minded teams, when teams are protecting a lead, or when there's a red card.
Pitting teams against each other while giving one a numerical advantage is also a great way to add intensity to a practice game.
Playing with a man or two down in practice is just another way of rehearsing for a game situation. Whenever a coach simulates game situations, he's getting his team prepared for the action that really matters.
(Excerpted from "More Than Goals: The Journey from Backyard Games to World Cup Competition" by Claudio Reyna with Mike Woitalla courtesy of Human Kinetics.)
New York Red Bulls captain Claudio Reyna played nearly 13 years in the top-tier leagues of Germany (Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg), Scotland (Glasgow Rangers) and England (Sunderland, Manchester City) before returning to his native New Jersey this year to play in Major League Soccer. He represented the USA in four World Cups, and captained the Americans to a quarterfinal run at the 2002 World Cup, where he became the first American selected to the FIFA World Cup all-star team.
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