Soccer Support Distance and Relative Position

On offense, you want to "spread the field" & to add "width". This means the distance between players (especially F's & MF's) will be greater than when they are on defense. The players still "support" each other, but on offense, players will be more "square" than when on defense. For example, if your LF has the ball & is attacking, your CF may be even with him or in front of him & a long pass away. Whereas, on defense, if your LF is the First Defender, your CF will probably sag back & move within 5-7 steps so he can provide defensive "support" (meaning he is helping contain the attacker & is a Second Defender because if the ballhandler moves his way he must become the First Defender) & "cover" (meaning that he is covering space so there isn't a hole for the attacker's to easily penetrate; in other words, if he wasn't covering that space the attackers would go through it to penetrate the defense). (See "Support", "Cover", "Depth", "Zone Defense", "Sag" & "Creating Space").

See prices for our iron on Motivational Soccer Patches

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.

SoccerHelp Home Page
Soccer Drills
Soccer Patches
Soccer Dictionary
SoccerHelp Premium