A player with the ball is challenged by an opponent.

Session

Marking and intercepting session: festival week

Session

England Football Learning

2 mins - Jul 7, 2025

Session intentions

This is week six of the marking and intercepting session programme. Check out the whole six-week programme here.

This session will help players:

become positive and enthusiastic defenders
communicate with teammates
work on their positioning skills.

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.

If you’re coaching U7s, please note that from the 2026-27 season, changes will be made to the formats to improve the experience young players get across the country. Check out the Future Fit digital content hub to find out more.

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.

Quarter of a pitch

Ten players

Goals

Flat cones

Bibs

Festival week

Create a 30x20-yard area with end zones for this 5v5 ‘multi-goal footy’ game. Have five goals at one end and three goals at the other. Teams can only have one player in their own end zone. Scoring in the goal that’s guarded is worth three points. Scoring in the others is worth one point.
Create a 30x20-yard area for a version of 5v5 rivals. Each player has a direct rival to stop scoring. Players get a point each time they do that and if they score themselves. At the end of the match, each pair adds a goal to their team’s overall tally if they’ve won their individual rivals match.
Create a 30x20-yard area with a goal at each end. Split the pitch up into five zones. Two teams are matched up with a direct opponent and locked into zones so there’s a 1v1 in each. Players work with teammates to progress the ball into other zones as they try to score in the goal they’re attacking.

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Tactics board

Looking for a bit more detail? Check out Loz'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:

allow multiple defenders into the end zone to defend the goals in the ‘multi-goal footy’ game
make the 5v5 rivals pitch smaller
make a zone smaller for those defenders who need to experience more success during the last game.

Make it harder

To make this session harder, you could:

make the goals bigger in the ‘multi-goal footy’ game
increase the size of the 5v5 rivals pitch
allow the passer to progress into the receiver’s zone during the final activity to create a 2v1.

Coaching points

Emphasise the importance of communicating with teammates. Players need to work together to take up the right positions. This will increase the chances of intercepting and help dictate where attackers can go.

Encourage players to mark opponents closely to give themselves the opportunity to nick the ball if it is played to them.