Head with control in a rally. Meet the ball with the forehead, direct it accurately over the line or to a partner, and keep the ball off the floor.
Two pairs head the ball back and forth over a central line and keep the rally going without it bouncing. Head to your partner to set it, or straight back over the line. Meet the ball with the forehead and direct it accurately. Play to a score or a longest-rally target. Allow one header or two per side to vary the challenge. Heading loads: no deliberate heading at U11 and under, and at U12-U13 keep it to roughly 15-20 headers in a session and under 30 minutes of heading a week, using a correctly sized and properly inflated ball (US Soccer and FA guidance).
Getting young players to practise heading is a genuine problem, because most heading drills involve a ball being served at someone's face and half a squad quietly deciding they would rather not. Head tennis solves that. Nobody is contesting anything, nobody is being challenged in the air, and players who are wary of heading will happily do a hundred contacts inside ten minutes because it does not feel like heading practice.
That volume is the whole justification. Technique needs repetition, and this is the only heading exercise in the library that produces it without collisions or apprehension.
The skill it develops best is judgement of flight, which is the part of heading that actually transfers and the part drills rarely train. Every ball in a rally arrives at a different height, angle and pace, so a player is constantly moving their feet to get in line rather than standing and waiting for a served ball at a fixed height.
Directional control is the second gain. Getting under the ball lifts it, getting over it sends it down, and in a rally the player has to choose consciously and repeatedly. That is exactly the decision that decides whether a defensive header clears the area or a striker's header goes down into the corner.
One coaching note that keeps the quality up: insist on a setting header to a partner before the ball crosses the line. Rallies where every touch goes straight back over become a power contest and stop training anything useful.
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.