Pressing and covering session: swift support

Session

England Football Learning

2 mins - Mar 24, 2025

Session intentions

This is week five of the pressing and covering session programme. Check out the whole six-week programme here.

This session will help players:

work on when and how to press
scan to improve decision-making
recognise when to apply pressure and when to cover a teammate.

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.

30x50-yard pitch

16 players

Mini-goals

Flat cones

Bibs

Swift support

Split your pitch into thirds. Have attackers in the end thirds and defenders in the middle. Most players are locked in but the attacker on the ball can drive into the middle. Attackers work the ball from one side to the other. If the defenders win the ball, they break out to attack either goal.
Set up an area for a 2v2 activity. Have a mini-goal behind a line at each end. The idea for both teams is to combine to score. But the team that doesn’t have the ball works together to always have one player pressing while the other offers covering support on the line in front of their goal.
To progress the previous practice, extend the pitch and add another line in for a defender to screen. Now play the same game but with a 4v4. Players could start being locked into their areas.

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Tactics board

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

make the pitch smaller to allow players to press more easily
allow a defender to go in an end third to press an attacker.

Make it harder

To make this session harder, you could:

make the pitch bigger to get players thinking about the distances and the decision of when to press and who to cover
in the 4v4 game at the end, allow attacking players to move where they want in the whole area.

Coaching points

Encourage players to scan to identify who is the closest defender that can apply pressure to the opponent on the ball.

Remind players that as the ball moves, the role of pressing and covering player may change.

Observe players on the line to see if they’re scanning the pitch for the position of their teammates and the ball. This should help them move up and down to cover and protect the goal.