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Home/Training Drills/Passing Drills/Numbered Passing
PassingBeginner

Numbered Passing

Warm up while training the head to come up. Because the receiver is always somewhere new, players have to scan for their number before the ball arrives, then move again the moment they have played it.

Create your own drill
Live animationPAS
Duration
10 min
Total drill time
Players
6
Recommended
Pitch
30 × 30 m
Setup space
Level
Beginner
Skill required
Intensity
Low
Physical demand
Age band
U6-U8
Any format

Setup & instructions

Mark a 30x30m grid and give every player a number. The ball goes in numerical order and back to one. Everyone jogs continuously inside the grid, and the rule that makes the exercise work is that nobody may stand still, not even for a moment. Six players is the maximum for one ball; with a bigger group run two grids side by side so everyone gets touches. Start at a jog with two touches, then build the tempo. If the group loses the order, stop and re-number rather than letting it drift.

Setup time: 1 min

Tactical breakdown

Because the receiver is somewhere new every time, the search is real. In a fixed passing shape a player learns the geometry within a minute and stops looking, since he knows where his target will be standing before the ball reaches him. Numbering the sequence and letting everyone move breaks that, and it means the head comes up because the exercise cannot be completed otherwise.

That is a better mechanism than instruction. A coach shouting at seven-year-olds to look up gets compliance for about thirty seconds. A drill in which a player genuinely cannot find his target without looking produces the same behaviour continuously and without anybody being told.

The timing point is the one worth coaching explicitly. Find your number before the ball reaches you, not after. Players default to receiving first and then beginning the search, which produces a heavy touch, a long pause and a queue of teammates waiting. The search happens while the previous pass is still travelling.

Moving immediately after passing is the other half, and it is what keeps the grid genuinely unpredictable. A player who passes and admires it becomes a stationary landmark, and the exercise slowly reverts to the fixed shape it was designed to avoid.

Keep the body open so the grid is visible rather than just the ball. This is a warm-up, so the passing quality bar is modest and the tempo should build gradually, but the habit being trained here is the same one that separates good midfielders from busy ones.

How to run this drill

  1. Number every player and keep the order fixed. One passes to two, two to three, and so on. The sequence is fixed while the positions are not, which is what creates the search.
  2. Find your number before the ball arrives. Receiving first and then searching produces a heavy touch and a long pause. The looking happens while the previous pass travels.
  3. Move to a new space after every pass. A player who passes and admires it becomes a landmark, and the grid reverts to the fixed shape the numbering was meant to break.
  4. Open the body to see the grid. Square onto the ball means seeing only the ball. The open shape is what makes the search possible at all.
  5. Build the tempo gradually. This is a warm-up. Start unhurried and raise it, rather than starting at the pace the drill will eventually reach.
  6. Let the constraint do the coaching. Nobody needs telling to look up, because the exercise cannot be completed without it. That is the whole reason to choose this format.

Coaching focus

FROM SESSION PLAN

Coaching points

  • Find your number before the ball reaches you, not after
  • Move to a new space the moment you have passed it
  • Open your body so you can see the grid, not just the ball
  • Call the name or number of the player you are passing to
  • Pass into the path they are running, not to where they were
  • Keep jogging even when the ball is nowhere near you

Common mistakes

  • Standing still after passing and waiting for the ball to come back around
  • Head down, so the search for the next number starts too late
  • Passing to where the receiver was rather than where they are going
  • Everyone drifting into the middle so there is no space to pass into
  • Losing track of the order and stopping the exercise dead

Progressions & regressions

VARIATIONS

Progressions

  • Two touches, then one touch
  • Reverse the order on the coach's call
  • Add a second ball once the first sequence is secure
  • Add a defender, so the sequence has to survive pressure
  • Players must change direction after every pass they make

Regressions

  • Walk the order once so everyone knows who they are looking for
  • Let players stand still until the sequence is understood, then add the movement
  • Make the grid smaller so the passes are shorter
  • Use four players instead of six
Equipment
Cones×4
Tactical principles
numbered passing warm uppassing sequence drillheads up footballwarm up with scanningfinding your numbermoving after the passu7 warm uppassing gridawareness warm upopen body shape
Audience
U6-U8

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