Play out from the goalkeeper against a live press and progress through a target gate. Players learn to use the keeper as the free man, invite pressure before releasing it, receive between the lines on the half turn, and break the line rather than circulate around it.
Mark a 50x40m area with a full goal and goalkeeper on one edge, and two 6m target gates on the opposite line. Five build (goalkeeper, two centre-backs, a holding midfielder and a central midfielder) against three pressers. Every attack starts from the goalkeeper's hands or feet. The building team scores by carrying or passing the ball through either gate under control. The pressing team scores by winning the ball and finishing in the goal within six seconds. Run it as repetitions of two to three minutes with the pressing group rotated every rotation, because an unrotated press fades after three minutes and the practice quietly becomes unopposed.
A possession game and a build-up game are not the same exercise, and treating them as interchangeable is the most common flaw in sessions themed around playing out from the back.
A possession game has no direction. Keeping the ball is the whole objective, so a team can circulate comfortably along the outside and record a successful session while never once solving the problem the theme was about. Build-up, by definition, is directional: you are trying to get from your own goal to somewhere specific, against opponents who are trying to win the ball where it hurts you most.
The target gates are what supply the direction. Two of them rather than one is deliberate. A single target lets the pressing team load one side and turn the exercise into a repeated failure, and it also teaches the building team that there is only ever one answer. With two gates, closing one opens the other, and the switch of play becomes a solution the players discover rather than an instruction they are given.
The goalkeeper is the second design decision. Including him guarantees a permanent numerical overload in the first line, which is exactly the situation the build-up phase presents in a real match. Teams who leave the keeper out of the exercise are voluntarily playing four against three, and they then wonder why beating the press feels impossible.
The pressing team needs a real incentive or the practice decays. Giving them a goal to attack and a short window to score in means the turnover carries genuine consequence, which is what keeps the pressing intensity honest and forces the building team to weigh a secure pass against a penetrative one.
Run it in repetitions with rotation. An unrotated pressing group fades after about three minutes, and once the press stops being real the building team is rehearsing unopposed football while believing they are solving a press.
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.