Long-distance shooting drill – Increase your scoring chances

-May 27, 2021

Shots from outside the box are more effective than many believe. Your team can score directly from a long shot or a secondary situation, such as a rebound. This long-distance shooting drill will improve your team’s chances of scoring from long shots.

Setup

You don’t need an actual football field to practise this drill, but you need enough space, cones to mark the pitch, full-size goals and a few balls. If you can’t get hold of goals, use cones or, preferably, agility poles to mark them. Distribute the cones to mark a field, as shown in the picture. If you have a full field, you can use half of it and set a second goal in the midline of the field.

Ideally, you want to practise this drill with 14 players (6 players and a goalkeeper per team). This number of players simulates a 4-player defensive or midfield line and 2 strikers (4-4-2). However, you can play with fewer players (at least 2 players and 1 goalie per team).

Instructions

This drill is a more complex variation of a game that we shared in a previous post. The objective is to practice scoring from long-distance and second chances. On the other hand, teams also practice defending against long shots. The instructions for this drill are as follows:

4 players per team can only move in their defensive half.
2 strikers per team can only move in the opposition half.
Players should only use two touches at all times: receive and pass; or receive and shoot.
The team with the ball tries to keep possession by circulating the ball anywhere on the pitch.
The 4 defending players cannot cross the middle line but can pass the ball to the strikers.
The 2 strikers cannot cross back into their defensive half, but they can pass the ball back to the defending players.
The 2 strikers can pass the ball between themselves.
Players can score from behind the middle line, after a rebound or from a play between strikers after a rebound.
The strikers cannot score after a pass from a defending player.
A striker cannot score after a pass from the other striker if the latter receives the ball from a defending player.
Sliding tackles are not allowed.
You can set a score target to win the game or a time limit to finish the game.

Takeaways

Nothing is more frustrating than a team with excellent ball control but zero attempts at goal in a game. This long-distance shooting drill encourages players to attempt long shots during a game. It also helps to open games where your opposition is playing an extremely defensive tactic, and breaking through their defensive line is almost impossible. While the focus of this game is to practice shooting, the 4 players in the defensive zone and your goalkeepers will also practice stopping long-shot attempts. This exercise will improve the following:

Passing accuracy
Team coordination
Shooting accuracy
Timing and reaction
Defending close to the goal
Goalkeeping

I hope you find this drill useful. If you like this post, please share it with your friends. If you know other exercises or have any questions, leave a comment on our Facebook page.

Pablo Matamoros

I am a software engineer with 25+ years of experience across diverse industries. I've climbed the corporate leader over the years, which has some benefits but means I moved away from my love for tinkering with technology. So, I build the odd website or application to keep learning and stay in touch with technology. FootballTechniques allows me to combine my programming knowledge with my passion for football.

To find out more about my professional experience, visit PabloMatamoros.com