A player challengs a player moving with the ball.

Session

Pressing and tackling session: challenge, recover, and stop

Session

England Football Learning

2 mins - Nov 24, 2025

Session intentions

This is week four of the press, tackle and cover session programme. Check out the whole six-week programme here.

This session will help players:

develop the ability to approach attackers to delay, deny and dictate their direction of travel
learn when and how to decelerate
understand when to challenge for the ball.

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.

40x30-yard pitch

15 players

Mini-goals

Flat cones

Spots/flat markers

Bibs

Challenge, recover and stop

Small-sided games: Set up three pitches. On pitch one, winning the ball and scoring on the counter is worth three goals. On pitch two, winning the ball in the square and scoring is worth three goals. On pitch three, players take part in a normal game.
Recovery royale: Use the same three channels. On the first, create a gate away and to the side of the goal. Put a starter cone for the attacker further away from the gate. Next to this, lay out three flat markers that get progressively closer to the goal.
The attacker starts with the ball and runs through the gate before shooting. The defender starts on a flat marker and tries to catch the attacker before they score. If the defender wins, they get more points for starting from the furthest marker than starting from the nearest marker to goal.
On the second, set up a square with cones and a flat marker away from the goal. Players start back-to-back at the marker. The attacker runs to the edge of the pitch. The defender runs to the edge of the square. The attacker then tries to score while the defender aims to win the ball in the square.
The third is similar to the first. The difference here is that it should be set up so the attacker runs to a different side. If the attacker runs to the left in the first channel, they should run to the right on this one.
Press for success: Mark out your pitch into even thirds. Play a regular game, but teams will be awarded goals depending on where they win the ball. Three points are awarded in the attacking third, two in the middle third, and one in the defensive third.

0/0

On the pitch

Looking for a bit more detail? Check out this video to see what it can look like on the pitch.

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:

decrease the size of the pitch to make it easier to press
bring the flat markers closer to the goal, making it easier for the defenders to recover and win the ball
overload the team that seems to be struggling, to allow them more opportunities to press.

Make it harder

To make this session harder, you could:

increase the size of the area to make it more physically demanding when pressing
move the goals to change the angle of approach players need to take
underload the team that's enjoying pressing success, to see how they cope with fewer teammates.

Coaching points

Encourage players to work as a unit and think about their positioning when trying to dictate play. When pressing, players need to position their bodies to force the opponent to move in a certain direction. Meanwhile, their teammates must provide a bit of depth to cover the space behind.

Get players to think about the need to decelerate during a recovery run. Defenders must curve their run, slow down at the right time, then get down low when near their opponent.

Players need to try to deny space. Emphasise the importance of pressing high when there’s an opportunity, so they don’t just wait for the attacker to run at them.

Remember, it isn’t possible to press all game. Players need to work together to think about when it’s best to do so.