How to Defend the Other Team's Best Scorer

The reason I run soccer and hockey tournaments in P.E. is because it gives me a chance to see how well kids, working with the same group for several days in a row, work together in a competitive situation.

As a teacher, I am looking first to see how well groups get along in the stress of competition and second if the members of the group are able to work more closely together in order to meet the challenges of competition.  This is called teamwork, of course, and I'm happy to say that most teams I see become closer and more effective as a tournament goes on.

Simple teamwork is where everybody is given a job and each player does that job as best s/he can. On the best teams, players grow to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out how to make the best use of each others’ strengths. Teams like this then develop a plan which puts their players in places and gives them jobs which give their team the best chance of success. This is called strategy. Teams that have a good strategy play better than the players on their roster suggest they can. This goes beyond mere teamwork. This is called synergy.

Example: recently there was a game between two 3rd grade teams.   One team, team A, was scoring about 5 goals per game.  The other, team B was scoring about 2.  Almost everybody in class expected the high scoring team to win.  They didn't.

See, most of team A's goals were being scored by one player.  This player, Bob (not his real name) has exceptionally strong soccer skills for a 3rd grader.  So, team B's strategy was for the whole team to play defense.  Then, as a tactic within the strategy, one player guarded Bob at all times.

Bob is so good that it is very difficult to keep him from scoring.  He still managed to score two goals despite team B's game plan.  But, in the end, team B won, 3-2.  Team B's success was due to their game plan, or strategy, but it was the tactics they used within the plan that made the plan work.

Where strategy is an overall plan for the team, tactics are little tools that make the strategy work. Keeping the whole team on the defensive end of the field to keep the other team from scoring is a strategy. The way a team places those players, and how they do their jobs, are tactics.

Let’s say that your team, like team B, is playing a team on which there is an exceptionally good goal scorer. Let's also say that this player not only has better skills, like to ability to dribble and shoot with either foot and score from almost anywhere, but s/he is also faster than anyone on your team.does.  Tough player to stop, right?

A good strategy against a player like this is to limit the scorer’s shot attempts by keeping most of your team on defense, like team B did.   But, simply keeping your team on defense may not be enough.  The way you use those defenders, or, your tactics, will decide whether or not the strategy works.

The simplest way to use this strategy is to keep all defenders inside or just outside the goal box.

When the other team attacks, have the defenders crowd the area in front of the goal. This makes it hard to get a shot through. The problem with this is that the defenders tend to stand in one place because no single defender is responsible for stopping the scorer. A really good scorer will pick his/her way through the defense or shoot from farther out when a shot is unexpected and score anyway.

A better use of this strategy would be to give two defenders the job of stopping the scorer. This is a tactic called double teaming.

Use one defender to follow the scorer all over the field whether or not s/he has the ball. When the scorer gets the ball have this defender put as much pressure on the scorer as possible. This will force the scorer to dribble, pass or shoot before s/he has a good shot.

The second defender can be used two ways. The first way is simply to help the first defender, by playing behind the first defender.

If the scorer dribbles around the first defender, the second defender can pick the scorer up, while the first defender moves to the helper position. This insures that there is always one defender on the scorer.

The second way would be to use the second defender to trap the scorer. In this situation, the first defender tries to force the scorer to dribble down the sideline. When s/he does, the second defender runs to the sideline ahead of the scorer. Both defenders then guard the scorer as tightly as they can. This makes it very difficult for the scorer to shoot. Doing this may force him/her to pass, dribble back to the middle, or go out of bounds.

These tactics can be used in soccer, hockey and basketball. Try it the next time you are playing against a really good scorer. It works!