Controlled possession

Organisation  

• Organise an outer circle and an inner circle
• Split the group into small teams, each of which has a home base
• Place a number of cones in the inner circle
• Each team moves around the outside circle in different ways: running, jogging, skipping, hopping, backwards, etc.
• When the coach shouts the magic word, players race to collect cones from the inner circle and return them to their base
• The team with the most cones wins 
• Add a value to each cone (e.g. red cones = one point, yellow cones = three points, blue cones = five points, etc.), so children have to look very quickly for the highest‑scoring cones
• Let the children add up their own team points, and then place the cones back in the inner circle ready for the next race

Ways to make the exercise easier

• Reduce the size of the outer circle

Ways to make the exercise harder

• Increase the size of the outer circle
• Place the team bases at different distances from the inner circle
• Let each player only collect one cone at a time
• Use fewer cones than players, or use more cones than players and allow players to return to the inner circle to collect extra ones

Great questions to ask the children

• Can you work as a team to collect the highest-value cones?
• Can you devise a game plan in one minute before you play?
• How did your plan work? What do you need to do differently?

Safety tips

• Players should be aware of others when running into the inner circle

Organisation 

• Organise two teams of six players and create a pitch with two ends and a free middle zone 
• All six players start in their own half and one team begins by passing the ball
• On the first pass, two defenders from the other team start running and try to win the ball and return it to their own team
• The passing team tries to complete five passes to score a point
• As soon as the defenders win the ball and return it to their own team, the team that lost the ball now has to send two defenders to go and try to win it back
• It’s a continuous game, until one team scores five points

Ways to make the exercise easier

• Let the players start the game by throwing and catching
• Only allow teams to send one defender to begin with

Ways to make the exercise harder

• Allow teams to send three defenders to win the ball
• Make the pitch larger, so that fitness becomes more important

Great questions to ask the children

• If your team has the ball, can you try to use all the space available in your half to make it difficult for the defenders?
• Can you try to find positions in your own half where you can receive the ball and call for it?
• If you are defending, can you try to close the ball down as a pair?

Safety tips

• Only two players at a time should ever be moving between each team

Organisation

• Split the players into three teams of six, with each team wearing a different colour
• Make a small pitch with large goals
• Each team takes turns to be the goalkeeping team, with three players linked together in goal
• The other two teams send three players onto the pitch to try to win the game 
• All players should have a chance to play against everyone, and also to go in goal
• Teams can have uneven numbers, as only three players play at any one time

Ways to make the exercise easier

• Have the goalkeeping teams play as a pair
• Give the outfield teams an extra player

Ways to make the exercise harder

• Give an outfield team one fewer player
• Let more players join together in goal

Great questions to ask the children

• Can you try to play together in goal to protect the goal?
• Can you shoot at goal at the earliest opportunity?
• Which do you enjoy most – scoring goals or saving shots?

Safety tips

• Waiting players should stand by the coach