Constraints in training, part 1: the pitch

Take the four against four you already run. Make the pitch narrower and leave everything else as it is. Watch the first few minutes. Usually the players end up closer to each other and to the ball, they have less time on it, and the ones who used to wait for space start looking for it before the ball arrives. The pitch got smaller, so the problem got harder, and they start solving it themselves.

That is what this series is about. By a constraint we mean anything you change in the space, the rules, the numbers or the conditions, so the players meet a new problem inside a drill they already know. The pitch is the easiest place to start. It needs no new equipment and nothing new to explain, and you can put it back in a minute.

What you can change

The size. A smaller area usually means less time on the ball and more pressure. A bigger one gives time back, and more running between actions. Write down the size you used, in steps or metres, so next week you start from where you stopped.

The shape. Long and narrow tends to send the game forward and makes turning harder. Wide and short leaves more room to the side, and the ball tends to go across more. Same players, same rules, a different game.

The goals. Two goals, four small gates, a line to dribble over, goals on all four sides. The more places there are to score, the more a player has to look at before deciding where to go. If you want them to look up more, this is often the simplest way to get it.

Zones. A middle area nobody may stand in, an end zone the ball has to be carried into, a gate that closes once someone has scored through it. Each one moves where the problem is.

Cones in the way. Fill a small area with many cones and let the players carry the ball through it. To get through, the ball has to stay close and the head has to come up between the cones to find the route. It works well with the younger ones, and it has a limit worth knowing: there is no opponent in it, so it does not train reading one.

Where the players stand. A goal only counts if the team has a player near each touchline, or no two teammates may stand in the same lane. No published drill of ours uses this yet; it is here because you can try it in your own game.

With five to eight year olds. None of these is tied to an age. Zones and the rules on where players stand each add a rule the players have to keep in mind while they play, so with the youngest add one at a time and keep it simple.

When it works, and when it does not

Give the change a few minutes before you judge it. Players often look worse for a short while when the problem gets harder, and that is part of it.

If they adapt, if they find the space, keep the ball more often and the game flows again, leave it for a while. Then make it one step harder: a little narrower, one gate fewer, a few more cones.

If the game breaks down, give space back first, before you change anything else. Breaking down looks like this: they lose the ball the same way again and again and nothing comes of it, they are confused about what to do, or they stop enjoying it. The same goes for one player who has stopped trying things. More room is usually enough to bring them back in.

Safety is different. If someone is moving in a way that is not safe, stop the game at once, and take the change off or alter it before you play on.

What a pitch change is not

It is not a way to tell the players where to go. If the shape leaves only one possible answer, it has become an instruction with cones. It is not a punishment either, a smaller pitch for the team that lost, and it is never a handicap one adult puts on one child in front of the others. The same space for everyone, and the solving left to them.

Two drills that already use it

Harbour Run, for the youngest (5 to 8), is a sailing game: the child steers a boat through a sea of cones and races to the harbour when the storm is called. Harbour Run

Self-Call Sea is the one a player does alone at home, for 9 to 16: the player builds the cone field, flips a card mid-dribble and leaves through the gate it names. Self-Call Sea

At the end of the session, take the change off and let them play the game as it was. Watch whether some of what they found under the smaller pitch comes back with them. That is the part you were after.