Free Youth Soccer Drills - Defensive Drills

Following are free youth soccer drills that you can print out and use during your practice. However, if you are interested in animated soccer drills you may want to check out this site.

Position Game

Purpose
Improve your player’s possession and passing abilities. The game without ball, monitoring the field etc.

Drill Set Up
You should set up the drill by creating a field (25 x 25) yards. Use cones or similar to create the lines. Divide your team into two teams. One team should have 2 more players then the other one. For example: If the team A has 10 players then the team B should have 8 players.

Performing The Drill
The A team should try to keep possession of the ball while team B should do everything they can to clear the ball away. The A team scores by passing the ball ten times in a row to each other. The B team scores by clearing the ball away.

Variations
Restrict the amount of passes. You can also increase the difficulty by adding one more player to the defending one.

Equipment Needed
Cones, 5-10 balls.

Summary
Encourage your players to use both feet while participating in this drill. Make sure also that your players really understand that the game without ball is equally important as the game with ball.

Head Over

Purpose
Improve your players heading skills.

Drill Set Up
Create groups of three players. All groups should be positioned in a line. Player one and three should be about 7-8 yards apart from each other. Player 2 should be positioned in the middle of them.

Performing The Drill
The player one should start by tossing the ball over player two to the player three. The player three should head the ball back directly to the player one.

Variations
The player three could head the ball to the player in the middle. However, the middle standing player should not grip the ball by using his arms. He should instead try to flick the ball back to the player one by using the top of his head.

Equipment Needed
One ball per group.

Summary
Knowing how to head a ball properly is crucial in soccer. I know by experience that many younger players don’t know how to head the ball properly. You should therefore monitor all players during this drill and study whether they are heading the ball properly or not.

Horse in the middle

Purpose
Improve your players defense skills.

Drill Set Up
Divide your players in groups of three. Create a rectangle by using cones (or similar) 15 x 10 feet wide. Two of your players should stand at each side of the rectangle providing each one with a ball. The third player should stand in the middle of the rectangle.

Performing The Drill
The two players at the side should try to pass the ball on various ways back to each other without letting the player in the middle touch the ball. Switch the roles after 3 minutes.

Variations
Increase the group with one more player. This player should also be in the middle. By doing this the sideline players will have much harder to perform successful passes to each others.

Equipment Needed
Cones, Balls.

Summary
As with any other drill, your players really need to put big effort in performing the drill right. You should therefore monitor all groups and evaluate their performance.