Keep the shape and find the free man. Occupy your zone, give a passing angle on the half-turn, and progress the ball line by line as the press commits and frees a teammate.
A possession team sets up in three lines across a zoned grid against a three-player press. Players hold their zones and move the ball to find the free man, progressing from the first line into midfield and up to the player between the lines. Emphasise occupying spaces not chasing the ball, offering an angle on the half-turn, and letting the structure create the free man. Rotate the roles and the pressers.
Holding a zone while the ball is somewhere else feels like not helping, and that feeling is what destroys positional play in practice. Players want to go to the ball. Going to the ball is visible effort, it looks like commitment, and every instinct a young footballer has built up says that the game is where the ball is. Positional play asks for the opposite, which is why it is difficult to coach and why it is mostly a discipline problem rather than a technical one.
The reason the discipline pays is that shape creates the free man automatically. If every zone is occupied, a pressing team cannot cover them all, and somebody is free without anybody having to do anything clever. The moment two players share a zone, one zone is empty and the opposition has a spare defender for free. Two teammates in the same space is the fault to look for, and it is almost always the second one arriving to help.
Offering an angle matters as much as occupying the zone. A player standing in the correct area but square to the ball is a passing option in name only, since he cannot receive and progress.
Progress comes line by line rather than in one movement. The press commits to the ball, that commitment frees somebody one line further forward, and the ball travels there. Trying to skip lines is what turns positional play into hopeful long passing.
Be honest that this needs numbers and time. With nine players and fourteen minutes you are introducing a principle, not installing a system.
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.