Creating Space For Throw-ins

Creating Space For Throw-ins

 By SoccerFitnessTraining

Coaches and tacticians continually bang on about creating space for one good reason. The team with space to work will find it easier to maintain possession. One of the easiest ways to create space is from a throw-in as teams are too busy with the touchline scenario to monitor players movement.

 Get your players to move in two directions to confuse the opposition, and in turn, create space. The first move is away from the player taking the throw-in quickly followed by a move back into the space created by the first move.

If players move at the right time, it works well; but does require purposeful movement off the ball. A good way to practice this is outlined below with players A, B and C facing the thrower with A a few yards behind B and C; but the person nearest to the thrower must be about five yards from the line.

Method

Thrower shouts his own name which is the cue for A,B and C to move.

C towards the corner flag down the line.

B towards the penalty area corner

A waits a couple of seconds before quickly moving into the resultant space.

The throw-in goes to A who can play into the path of the two runners.

Player A is crucial here as he has to offload his marker and make an accurate pass to B or C or simply pass back to the thrower depending on the state of play.

A, could of course, hit a first touch volley to either B or C making the play even more decisive and fast.

As with all set pieces variations should be continually practised, and with enough variations the opposition will end up dreading your throw-ins.