Attackers: exploit the overload before the defence recovers its shape. Carry to commit a defender, then release the free player with the right pass at the right moment. Defenders: delay, stay compact between the ball and goal, and force the play to a decision.
Use roughly a 52x36m attacking half with a full goal and keeper at one end. Three attackers start on the halfway line with the ball, two defenders start goal-side. On the coach's cue the attackers break at speed; they must finish before the defenders recover (about five to eight seconds). Restart from the keeper's distribution. Rotate attackers and defenders regularly so everyone trains both moments.
Three against two gives you a spare man, and the commonest way to waste him is to find him too early. A carrier who passes from thirty yards has asked neither defender to make a decision, so both simply shift across and the overload evaporates before it was ever used. The pass was accurate and completely pointless.
What converts the extra man into a chance is carrying at a defender until he has to address the ball. The moment he steps forward, he has stopped covering someone, and that someone is now genuinely free rather than nominally free. Timing that release is the whole skill, and it is a reading skill rather than a passing one.
The two runners have a job that is easy to describe and rarely done. They have to stretch the width so the two defenders cannot cover both channels while also watching the ball. Runners who drift centrally, towards the ball, compress the problem into an area two defenders can handle comfortably.
Speed matters because the overload is temporary in a specific way: it lasts exactly as long as it takes recovering players to get back. Every touch beyond what is necessary is a defender arriving. That is why first-time finishing is worth insisting on even when a touch would be easier.
The defenders are learning too, and their instruction is the opposite: drop, delay, stay between the ball and goal, and force a decision rather than making one. A 3v2 that ends with the attack slowed and the defence organised is a win for them and worth naming as such.
Save it to your private drills, then change the animation, adjust positions, swap equipment, or drop it into a session block. Or start from a blank pitch and build your own.