Passing drills for U13-U14

Plant-foot placement settles a lofted pass before the striking foot moves. Alongside the ball and it stays low, behind and outside and it lifts.

Two runs at once removes a defender's ability to be right. He is not reading the play any more, he is picking a lane and hoping.

Eight stations, two balls kept on opposite sides. A ten metre transfer, a short set, then another transfer, with no pause to watch your own pass.

One ball, ten players, and a thirty seven metre strip. Long transfer, short combination, long transfer, until everybody has touched it before the session starts.

The set into the middle is barely a metre, and he has to play it out first time to a different corner. That single rule is the whole exercise.

Short passes on one side, then an eight metre ball through the line, then short passes on the other. The set-up passes are what make the penetrating one possible.

Five mannequins in a cross closes the middle and leaves four quadrants. There is no perimeter to circle, so every pass has to find a gap.

Five players and three markers means two are always in transit. The one-two happens at every corner, and getting there in time to be part of it is the exercise.

A four metre set, then a ten metre ball across the diamond, sixteen times without the alternation breaking. Every player takes the third man role in turn.

A three metre return and a sixteen metre transfer, alternating every few seconds. Changing the weight that often is harder than either pass on its own.

The same pattern three times over with the roles shifted, so nobody becomes the specialist finisher and everyone performs every job.

The shape stays fixed and the people in it never do, so nobody can pass from memory. Looking up to find the player rather than the position is the entire exercise.

Five metres of width means a two touch player has to control and pass along the same line the ball arrived on. There is nowhere sideways to escape to.

Sixteen metres through a four and a half metre gap. Aiming at the gate rather than the player is the adjustment that makes this pass repeatable.

One ball on a circuit teaches an order. Two balls half a lap apart teach players to know their next pass before the current one arrives, which is the actual skill.