Attacking session: create to score

Session

England Football Learning

2 mins - Jan 13, 2025

Session intentions

This is week two of the finishing session programme. Check out the whole six-week programme here.

This session aims to support players to build up play to create opportunities to score.

It will help players:

link up with teammates
use movement to make space
get repetition of passing and receiving
practise finishing.

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.

60x44-yard pitch

Ten players

Two goals

Flat cones

Bibs

Create to score

Create a pitch with a goal at each end for this 5v5 game. Put a square area around one goal. The attackers have five outfielders, with two locked in the square guarding their goal. The defenders have a keeper and four outfielders, with one locked in the square. Both sides look to combine to score.
Progress the activity by allowing one of the attacking team’s players out of the square. This creates an overload in the middle of the pitch and leaves a 1v1 in the box.

0/0

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:

put more players on the attacking team to start with an overload
give the defending team a pass target to reach before passing to their target player.

Make it harder

To make this session harder, you could:

unlock the defending team’s target player
put more players on the defending team
play with offsides to get players used to timing their runs
give attackers a pass target to achieve before shooting. The trade-off here is that you will lose some realism from the actual game.

Coaching points

Encourage players to scan. They need to know where their opponents and teammates are. This will help them decide when to pass, turn, or stay on the ball.

Consider the six capabilities when observing your players. Think about: