I did this with a group of under 12’s this evening—mixed ability.

It took a while to get going, so I let the boys try to solve their own problems. There were many forced passes and attempts to take players on.

By the end of the practice, the players were switching play and using the goalkeeper to find a free player.

The boys developed a lot more patience on the ball during the practice. I'm going to run with the same practice next week.

This was an easy practice to coach for the kids. We had eight players, so we ran two pitches with the help of other coaches. One defender worked six times before we moved the players round.

It was difficult to get some of the coaching points in, hoping that would come with familiarity with the practice, but we got the boys pressing with intensity, and the practice design had them pressing high up the pitch.  

Worked brilliantly for a group of 10 year olds I was coaching with limited ability.

We used a 20x20 grid. 

We had a goalkeeper and used a goal 20 yards off the grid for the defender to score in upon winning the ball back. 

I recommend allowing the attacker to take the first touch before the defender can tackle. We found the defender was aggressive on the first pass and stopped the attacker controlling the ball.