How close should 2nd defender play to 1st. defender?

My experience is that if the 2nd defender is too close, the 1st defender AND 2nd can be beaten by a wall pass, or the 2nd might be a little slow to react and the 1st can actually run into him. I think the 2nd should have enough distance to be able to see not just the onball attacker, but to have a larger view of what is occurring nearby and time to react to it. (Remember, Space = Time). I think 3 steps is a very short distance when kids are running -- if the 2nd Defender is a little slower, or the First Defender is a little faster, they might run into each other, which could be disastrous. There are trade-offs to every decision. I suggest weighing the benefits against the potential costs. The trade-off of double teaming is that if the onball attacker can get off a pass, someone might be open without a defender. When you double-team you give up coverage of "space" to focus on trying to steal the ball -- that means you might leave a hole in the defense, just like could happen in Football or Basketball -- there's a risk.

David SoccerHelp

---

youth soccer drills youth soccer drills soccer drills for kids soccer drills for kids soccer positions assigning and coaching soccer positions

---

From www.soccerhelp.com
Copyright 1999-2013, David and Kay Huddleston
+David Huddleston
Legal Notice - Allowed Uses and Copyright Protection. We allow anyone to link back to this article or to www.Soccerhelp.com. You may also copy on paper for handouts up to 10 pages from Soccerhelp.com PROVIDED: you don't remove any references to SoccerHelp, don't give the impression you own the information, and you MUST include "Source: Soccerhelp.com" at the top or bottom of the article. To copy our work without crediting us is stealing and we will protect our copyrights. We would rather be nice than mean, so please credit Soccerhelp.com if you copy any information from this website. It is illegal to post any information from SoccerHelp on the internet without written permission from David or Kay Huddleston, except we will allow quotes of up to one page to be posted PROVIDED you do not remove any references, do NOT disable links, and provided you add a FUNCTIONING LINK on the bottom of the same page that goes to www.Soccerhelp.com and says "Copyright www.Soccerhelp.com, used with permission". The link MUST work for both visitors AND search engines. We have to enforce this due to blatant theft and to protect our copyrights and we hire a service to look for copyright violations. Thanks for your cooperation.