Tile Slide

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This is a great drill for teams who either find it hard to see space to cover / run into / exploit / defend  and support play etc

I used it alot for getting my under 18's to establish player positions during phases of play in a 4-3-3 and is also a very good, 10-15 minute warm up  game before a match to help go over runs and positions etc

However this blog post is gonna be the drill i used but stripped down to its very core! And i will do a more advanced version post soon, in how to use the set up to work on formations etc

The idea is based on the handheld toy/game called 'Tile Slide'.

The aim of the drill is simple, when you receive the ball, you must have a player in every grid next to you before you can pass it.

So the SPARE grid should always be as far away from the ball as possible.

Now with the picture below, this is the first time we would need a grid filling by a player. So player '1' would slide over (as pictured) to occupy the grid and be a passing option for the player receiving the ball, however while doing this they also leave their grid just left now OPEN which also needs filling!

So player '2' must be switched on and realise they need to slide across and cover and occupy another grid.

Now with players '1 + 2' sliding across, the player on the ball has all options open to them, and can play a pass to whoever they chose too.

Rules:

- Players must wait until all relevant grids are occupied before playing a pass

- Central player will always have a spare grid UNOCCUPIED when they receive the ball, so with this being a stripped down version. Explain that this unoccupied grid should always be directly behind the player.

- Passes can only go to one grid across, either horizontally, vertically and diagonally etc

- Keep the ball on the floor

Progressions/ Variations:

- Aerial passing

- Limited touches, one to control, one to pass.

- No waiting for players to occupy grids

- Enlarge the area depending on age to upto an entire half

- Pass across multiple grids

- BE CREATIVE

To sum up, this drill can be progressed easily to bed in formations and tactical positions of players. For example i've used this set up and bedded in a 4-3-3 formation with a back 4 across 3 grids, 3 CMs in the middle grid, and 3 attackers in a grid each at the top of the set up and progressed from there.

I'll do a post on this soon.

Enjoy thanks for reading..

Zander

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