2v2 alley in ground ball

What happens immediately after a loose ball pick-up?   Here we focus on ground balls, ball movement, rides and clears all in one drill.   Drills that directly emulate game scenarios, are fast-paced, and focus on a number of fundamentals simultaneously in every activity are great and this one certainly does that.  

For most of us, when we focus on competitive ground balls, we end in a look-up pass to a player or the coach, and that repetition of the drill is over, when in fact we should focus as coaches on what happens next.  On any ground ball pick-up, what we really have is either an opportunity to score in transition to the cage or the opportunity to get in a defense-initiated transition and break across the midfield line and down to our attack.

You can run this on half the field.  Keeping players from standing around is paramount, and there are only five players in this drill at a time.  Therefore plan accordingly.

The Set up:

• Begins as a 2v2 ground ball drill in the alley. 

  • We run it from the alley because if the defense recovers the ball the drill transitions much smoother into a more game-like clear scenario.

• two offensive and two defensive players lined up

• Coach id behind them with balls

• A goalie in the cage

The Drill:

• Coach rolls the ball out while varying the location of the ground ball without rolling it far away in front of the goal.  

  • We do not want the offensive player to just pick up the ball and put it in the goal, they need to work for it.

  • Remember to keep up the pace, each repetition needs to go quickly to keep the others in line from going to sleep.

• If an offensive player gains control, he immediately breaks to the cage, and we play live to a shot

  • We want to get the offensive players sprinting to the cage

  • Both players should stay in front of the cage to facilitate a quick opportunity.

• If one of the two defensive players gets possession then they begin to clear the ball past the midfield line. 

  • The offensive players are now in a full aggressive ride scenario, cutting off the clear, trying to force the clearing players to roll back to the defensive zone and pass the ball back to the goalie or clear under real pressure. 

Add two variation

Of course, we want to run this drill from both sides of the field and not always in the same alley. But a nice variation is a simple 'add one' from each team feature from varying points around the field, once the ball is picked up by either group, add an additional defensive and offensive player to the drill.   This can be done by having an additional line at the top of the box.