A player moves with the ball past an opponent.

Session

Attacking session: 2v2 to score

Session

England Football Learning

2 mins - Jan 6, 2025

Session intentions

This is week one of the attacking skills session programme. Check out the whole six-week programme here.

This whole-part-whole session aims to support players to know when and how to combine with their teammates to score.

It will help players:

pass and receive in tight areas
work with teammates to create space
know when to pass or shoot.

If you're short on time, this structured training programme can be used as it is. Pitch sizes in this programme are shown as how long the pitch is x how wide it is, but these are just suggestions.

To make the programme more effective, adapt it to suit your players, your numbers and the space you have. If you want to skip, repeat or amend these sessions – that's fine. It’s up to you how you use this resource.

If you like this idea, download the session plan and give it a go. And don't forget to share your experience on the England Football Community. We'd love to know how you got on.

Session setup

In our example, this is what we’ve used to set up this session. But adapt it to suit your team and the space available to you.

Two 25x15-yard pitches

Ten players

Mini-goals

Cone 2

Flat cones

Bibs

2v2 to score

Create a pitch with a halfway line and a goal at each end. Then use flat markers to make a second pitch within that, one which is wide near the goals and narrow towards the halfway line. This creates the area for the next activity. Then play a normal 5v5 game using the whole pitch.
Put two mini-goals either side of the halfway line. This splits your original pitch into two smaller ones and creates a 2v2 with a goalkeeper in the bigger goal. The two attackers need to combine to score in the big goal, while the defenders try to win the ball back and score in the mini-goals.
Remove the mini-goals and return to the original 5v5 game. Observe how the players now combine with teammates after the ‘part’ section of the session.

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Tactics board

Looking for a bit more detail? Check out Peter's tactics board video for this session.

Make it easier

Using the STEP framework (Youth Sports Trust, 2002) can help keep things fun, engaging, and appropriate.

To make this session easier, you could:

overload the attacking team in the ‘part’ practice
increase the size of the pitch to create more space for passes
make the area smaller to encourage more shots.

Make it harder

To make this session harder, you could:

introduce a touch limit
set a pass target to reach before shooting
make the teams bigger
use the narrow area for the whole session.

Coaching points

Look for players’ movement to receive, technique to receive and shoot, and their creativity in tight areas.

Encourage players to think about how they can use their scanning, movement and deception skills effectively to find the best solution.

Get players to consider how they can help create space and become a passing option for their teammate when they’re not on the ball.

Ask players to be brave and stay on the ball for the right amount of time. They might be able to move the defender and get an opportunity to shoot early by being creative in possession.