One of the natural points between 4v1 and 4v2 rondos is to have a 3v1 rondo. It’s a simple rondo where three players try to retain possession of the ball while one player tries to intercept it. At the highest levels, this is a warmup drill often, while more players are trickling in. Instead of having a 6v2 rondo, it is better to have two 3v1 rondos with players having many more touches on the ball. After all, the aim is to develop the technique and positional awareness of the players, especially at young ages.

Why do the 3v1 rondo?

While designing soccer drills, we want them to be game-like, challenging and used as building blocks. The 3v1 rondos has only 4 players, so they are relatively simple and quick to set it up. With the increased intensity from 4v1, we bridge the gap to the next level at 4v2. At 4v1 the player with the ball has three passing options, but at 4v2 they have only two. However, the number of players pressing doubles from one player to two. If we can remove the second variable, then at 3v1 we have only one presser, but we still have only two passing options. This way of gradually increasing intensity is why the 3v1 rondo is a great stepping stone.

We will explore several variations of the 3v1 rondos. Firstly, it’s just the traditional 3v1 without much complexity. However, we want to keep it fun, so we’ll do a few more. The transition rondo where there are two playing boxes and we have 3v1 plus 1 transition, can make things interesting for your team. Also, one of my favorites is the 3v1 converting to 5v3 rondo. Keep in mind that the 5v3 rondo can be challenging for your team, so we’ll go through tricks on how to ease into it.

3v1 Rondo

This is the first block of 3v1 rondo. The players have already done 4v1 rondos, so they understand the basic idea. However, now we tell them that there are four sides of the square and three players, so what happens? Some people prefer making a triangle to limit the movement, but I like to use this interesting situation. One option is to give them the freedom to move wherever they want. If they get good enough, I ask them something different. The new rule is that they cannot play on the same side twice. This is particularly useful for them to get into a pass-and-go mindset. So the rule is very simple – pass, then go to an adjacent side. If that side is already occupied, that’s okay. The teammate can either move or still receive the ball and quickly pass it to you. It will not only improve the movement of the passer but of the other teammates, too.

3v1 -> 5v3 Transition Rondo

This is much more complicated rondo and I recommend it after being proficient in 5v2 and 4v2 rondos. The reason is that 5v3 rondo is really about developing the central midfielder at a very high level. They start by being in defense against 3 players, then they recover the ball and they are the glue in the middle of it all. It’s particularly difficult in transition. If the field is small, then the 5v3 will be difficult. If the field is large, then 3v1 is hard for the defender. Ideally, you would start with a small inner and large outer playing field. However, over time they should both be small. The end goal is to have about 7 by 7 steps for the inner and 12 by 12 for the larger area.

The 4 players on the outside will learn off-the-ball movement and anticipation of the interception. As we said, their teammate will learn the central midfielder role both in defense and offense. The positioning and one-touch will drastically improve by practicing that drill. The team of 3 players will develop a quick transition from offense to defense. That is also part of anticipation, but it is a different kind of skill to anticipate how to quickly recover the ball once it’s lost. Also, they will practice team pressing, unlike the defender in the middle. One more note: rotate the player in the middle every several minutes. If they are practicing well, they will be so tired of pressing strong in defense and moving off the ball in offense.

Conclusion

We’ve covered the 3v1 rondo and several variations of it. Don’t forget that the simple versions are just stepping stones of it and your players will likely outgrow them quickly. However, the more complex ones, especially the 3v1 to 5v3 transition can take a very long time to get good at. We use the rondos to create a game-like situation to teach particular skills. In this case, we coach pressing, ball retention, first touch, passing as well as transitions. They are fantastic building blocks that shouldn’t be skipped and we should be deliberate and thoughtful when using them to develop our players. Have fun coaching!

6v4 rondo is the soccer drill where 6 players are in possession and 4 players are defenders, trying to recover the ball. It is a natural progression from the 4v2 rondo and can be combined into a single drill. By creating real game-like scenarios, the 6v4 is a perfect balance to explore dominating possession while having numerical superiority. With increased complexity, players develop scanning and awareness abilities to a greater extent, the 6v4 rondos are great soccer drills to elevate your possession-based soccer players to the next level.

The 6v4 rondo is used by professional coaches at the highest level, such as Guardiola, Klopp, and Mourinho. However, it is simple enough to start as early as U10 level with at least 6 months experience of practicing rondos. I like to make sure the players can do comfortable 4v2 rondos for several months. This means that they should often be able to keep possession with 10 passes. This means that the principles of receiving the ball with their backfoot, moving with their first touch, and opening up to receive the ball. If the success of 4v2 is because of low defensive intensity or extensive playing area, that doesn’t count. The rondos are practiced with specific objectives in mind, both for the 4v2 and 6v4.

Why do the 6v4 rondo?

When designing soccer drills, we want them to be game-like, challenging, and used as building blocks. Clearly, 6v4 rondos include 10 to 12 players, so it is more complex than others. In the complexity, it is somewhere in the middle. Definitely more elaborate with prerequisites than 4v2, but it is not as complicated as some positional play drills we can do. In fact, it doesn’t have isolated practice, so it should be combined with individual drills. We will get into variations of the rondos and as we go through them, we will figure out what they will address.

6v4 Rondo – Positional (10 players)

This is the first block of 6v4 rondo. I split the playing area into two halves and have 3v2 in each of them. Now, that means only one passing option within the area and one when passing to the other area. That way the players are not overwhelmed by too many defenders. Of course, once they become proficient in this, you can allow them to move freely between the two sides. Eventually, you want the team in possession to understand this well enough that they will spread out and use all available space. However, you need to guide them, because just telling them that will not be sufficient. I usually do about 4 sessions before moving on to the next one. However, I keep coming back again to this with some tweaks if I need to target some aspects. For example, it can look like playing from the back and starting from the goalie.

4v2 -> 6v4 Transition Rondo (10 players)

This is probably my favorite rondo, as it really teaches everything! Soccer is all about retaining possession and recovering possession. The fluidity between attack and defense is unlike many other sports. In basketball or handball, you need to get to the other side of the field. Volleyball players can either spike (attack) or block (defend). In baseball and American football, all players leave the fields and others come back when possession changes. In contrast, soccer players constantly switch between playing attack and defense. The standard 4v2 rondo doesn’t do that – once a defender intercepts the ball, the game stops. So, all of a sudden we have a behavior different than the game. How do we fix that?

We start with a 4v2 rondo and we put 4 additional players on the outside. The two defenders should not just blast the ball outside, but get the ball to those 4 additional players and they become a 6-person team. This is a much more game-like scenario. Once you recover the ball, you need to retain it. If the 4 defenders intercept the ball, immediately they switch to 4v2 – the 4 outside players don’t play defense. In addition to immediately switching between defense and attack, we get lots of off-the-ball movement. The outside players will move a lot while not having the ball in their possession. This will increase their anticipation skill. This means that they will not be part of the defensive press, but they will need to be patiently waiting for their opportunity and position themselves to take advantage. That creates a much better game-like scenario.

6v4 two teams (12 players)

Assuming the players are proficient in 6v4 positional rondo and you have 12 players, you can really make a game of it. Put 4 players from each team in the middle. Then the team in possession gets two players on either flank. If they lose the ball, the other team gets two players instead of the two other sides. Once players already know the basic 6v4 rondo, they will get this one quickly. If you have 12 players that can practice at a similar level, this is a perfect game. Of course, you would want to rotate the inner and the outer players over time.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve gone through the variations of 6v4 rondo, I hope you will fall in love with it, as I have. It creates so many game-like situations with overloads, that a good coach can always find things to teach. From ball retention, team pressing, scanning, and quick transition – everything is here for you to coach. If you have a team that you have just started coaching, this should be your end goal. If they can play 6v4 rondo, everything else is doable. Have fun coaching!

Now that we have mastered the 4v1 rondo and the 5v2 rondo, it’s time to move to the next step. The 4v2 rondo is the holy grail of rondos. It’s great for warming up and for skills, and it gives the right amount of decision-making opportunities. The expectation is to spend about a month on variations of the 5v2 before moving to the 4v2 rondo. One interesting rule to stimulate this transition is to count skipping the middle attacker as two points. The right pass is played, but the middle attacker needs to just skip the ball. This is very fun for the players and they have fun with it. Introduce this after 5v2 can keep the ball for 10 passes or more.

Why do the 4v2 rondo?

The 4v2 rondo is the core of soccer rondos. The reason for that is that when playing possession, the player with the ball mostly has 3 players around them to pass to. Now, with two defending players blocking passes, in theory, there should always be one option available. This also means that lost possession requires a mistake by the attackers, either technical or in their decision. We can vary the size of the allowed area or add additional rules, such as one-touch or two-touch only. However, this rondo is practiced from the early beginners all the way to the best teams in the world.

Setup

The setup is very simple – two defenders in the middle and 4 attackers on each side of the square. The rules have not changed for anybody and the game variations are similar to the 4v1. Initially, the player in the middle will block the far pass, so the first pass will always be to the side. At this point, the players will know the rules and will require with very few instructions. Also, they will know what you are asking from them, such as receiving with their back feet and opening up without the ball.

Variations of 4v2 rondo

There are many variations that we can do for the 4v2 rondo. We can definitely do similar things to what we’ve done, such as the winger target rondo or the throw-in rondo. We will set the players in situations to be under the right amount of pressure and situations in which they will have to adapt to the challenges. We will have more rondo lessons, such as the double rondo or the transitional rondo. Many of them are based on the 4v2 rondo, which is why it needs to be natural for the players before moving to more complex systems.

Wingers

Make the field narrow, say 2:3 ratio, where wingers play on the longer sides. They already did this for 4v1 and even 5v2, but when having only one option to pass, it will be much harder for the players. To make it more interesting, encourage extra points for transitioning the ball from two shorter sides. That way the defenders will definitely stay compact in the middle. Remember that not only the attackers learn in rondos, but also the defenders.

Throw in

You have already done the throw-in with the rondos at 5v2. Now, we remove one option for the first receiver. That might also mean that they would have to do one touch sometimes and two touches other times, depending on the situation. Earlier there were almost always options for one touch. This time we have a more realistic real-game representation. Also, with 2 defenders, it is more likely that the thrower will be called for a foul throw. You, as a coach, can still call it, but the players will do that themselves over time.

4v2 Transition Rondo

If your players have reached a point when they can perform well in a 4v2 rondo, it’s time to move to a more complex rondo. The traditional 4v2 rondo can have many stops and breaks. What you want instead is a continuous flow between attacking and defending. The transition 4v2 rondo achieves that with two players constantly overloading to achieve numerical superiority. In a simple setup, the players keep possession with 4 players, against 2. As soon as they lose possession, two of them drop out, and the new team in possession gains two players for overloading. This constant flow can be physically challenging, so it’s a good drill for stamina. More importantly, it’s exactly now a game would look like, with possession changing regularly. I recommend it from a very young age, as early as U10, all the way to the professional level.

Now that we have mastered the 4v1 rondo, it’s time to move to the next step. The expectation is to spend about a month on variations before moving to 5v2 rondo. Slowly moving the size from 12×12 to 8×8 steps is the path and the point when the players can do over 10 passes is when it is time to challenge them.

Why do the 5v2 rondo?

Most people think that the natural progression from 4v1 is 4v2. However, by adding the intermediate step of 5v2, we increase the pressure while not reducing the number of options. When creating a large 5v2 setup, the passer should have 2 passing options, same as at 4v1. This means that we will focus on one step only at at time, which is increasing the pressure. The next step afterwards will be to receive a passing option which is a decision making skill.

Setup

The setup is very simple – add one player from each side in the middle and make sure you start with large fields. The rules have not changed for anybody and the game variations are the same from the 4v1. If many players want to be in the middle, that is a good sign. However, initially the player in the middle will block the far pass. Therefore, it is up to you to encourage players to move and open the lanes for pass to them.

Variations of 5v2 rondo

This is the first rondo that we do with certain target of position and specialty. When we say that anything can be taught in a rondo, we really mean that. We use the rondo as a platform to teach something and because the players know the setup, we can quickly start the game even when players don’t know what the new objective is. The official goal is to increase the pressure, but let us examine some lessons we can teach.

Central midfielder rondo

The most obvious one is for the central midfielder role. One new option is to introduce the halfturn and pass to the player across. The rapid progress that we have seen in our players has been incredible. The result in our best player has been almost immediately grasping the concept of switching the ball from the left flank to the right, and vice versa. It was almost scary how effective this setup was with minimal coaching.

Wingers

If we make the field narrow, say 8 by 12, then the players on the longer sides become wingers going up and down the flanks. Moving off the ball, using backfoot and coordinating with the central midfielder will be created naturally. It is definitely not something to be done immediately, but after 3-4 practices, it is an interesting variant for your players.

Throw in

Once the players are mostly proficient in the rondo, it is a great time to introduce throw ins into the mix. The rule of defenders staying right in the middle still holds, so the receiving with one touch should always be an option. It is a great game for the players and because of the closeness of the teammates, it is very unlikely for them to do a faulty throw in.

Now that we understand how to do no opponent rondo by mastering 3v0 and 4v0, it is time to move to add an opponent. By now the players should understand the basic setup of the rondo, as well as the importance of using the backfoot. They will be aware of the weight of the pass, as well as the idea of moving off the ball to create space and the decision of a one-touch pass vs receiving the ball then passing. I expect to be able to start the 4v1 rondo after about a month, or 6-10 sessions of no opponent rondo. If they can do 10 passes in a row, they are ready for some pressure.

4v0.5 rondo

In this case, the coaches are half of a defender, playing to add a bit of difficulty, but the pressure should be at a fraction of what other teammates can do. That means you are cheating – there are opponents. Yes, it’s a little bit of cheating. However, it is important to understand that when players are very young, they cannot and shouldn’t understand when you ask them to put 50% pressure. You don’t want to create a habit when you ask them to give less than their best. Additionally, they will always give their best when the coach is the defender, which is what we all want.

I would suggest trying to jump in and out when the players have their 4v0 rondos to create pressure from time to time. It will also give you an idea if they are ready for regular 4v1 rondo, which is the next building block.

4v1 rondo

Finally, time to do a real rondo! Firstly, make the space big. You want them to have the space and to try and retain the ball. They should be able to do some 3 passes from the first practice, but if they do double-digits consistently, then it’s too easy. They will already know the soccer diamond setting from the previous drills, but the pressure is there this time around.

Rule for the defender

The first rule for the defender is to let the first pass be free. I technically don’t want to phrase the rule that way because that often makes the first pass sloppy. Instead, I ask the player to be right in the middle when the first pass occurs. If the player with the ball decides to pass through the middle, it’s fair play to intercept the ball.

The second question is how do we switch the player in the middle. The traditional one is to switch as soon as the majority loses the ball. However, at this age, I like to challenge the defender to intercept as many balls as possible in one minute. That way the drill is fast, instead of the defender kicking the ball far away and waiting for a minute for somebody to get it back. Another benefit is that the players that need to kick the ball the most end up in the middle in the first scenario, playing with the ball even less.

Variations of 4v1 rondo games

There are many variations of games you can have, we outlined two above. Creating new practices gives freshness to the competition.

1. Number of interceptions by the defender in a minute

2. Player loses the ball goes back in the middle

3. Two rondos side by side competing for more passes

4. Two rondos side by side with goals available for scoring after 10 passes

5. One pushup for the defender for every 5 passes completed (eg. 17 passes before interception equals 3 pushups)

Ok, you agree that tiki-taka is only possible with the rondos. You set up a nice dynamic 4v2 with only four cones. You place them close by, because the best teams practice in tight spaces and because that’s how far the 7-year-old players can pass. You feel like a genius, feeding two birds with one scone. You start the drill and… Ah, too challenging, let’s remove one defender and make it 4v1. Still can’t make more than 2 passes. Your mentor suggests doing no opponent soccer rondo. What? What kind of rondo is that?

No opponent soccer rondo 3v0

Setup

As the first rondo we will ever do, this one has 4 cones at 8-10 yards/meters away. That will be our standard setup and only the size of the sides will change as we see it be too hard or too easy for the players.

Game

We start with the ball with the player in the middle (player 1), choosing where to pass the ball. If 1 passes to 2, then 3 occupies the empty cone. Otherwise, 3 receives the ball and 2 occupies the empty cone. The upside is that the players will naturally move if they don’t get the ball. The downside is that the passer stands still, so we don’t get them to naturally learn “pass and go“.

Instructions

Step 1: Just follow the rules and see that the players are doing the right things within the rules.

Step 2: This is the first time we introduce “backfoot” as a concept. Some coaches call it “across your body”, but we prefer using one word, as it is something we will repeat hundreds of times each month for years. It’s the idea to receive the ball with the foot further away from the passer so that it is easier to face the passer, but also the third player when they are about to come to the free cone.

Step 3: The last lesson in this setup is the weight of the pass. Only a few players naturally pass in space, meaning where the player is running towards. Instead, almost everybody passes to feet, i.e. where the player is at the moment. As the third player is running toward the empty cone and we know where he would end up. This is an opportunity to challenge the players to pass in space and get the time and weight of the pass right so that it arrives at the same time as the player.

No opponent soccer rondo 4v0

Setup

Same cone setup as before. However, this time each player is between two cones. This is the first time they will really see the diamond that will become their natural playing shape. Make sure you tell them that they can move anywhere along the line between the two cones. You should also show them that the movement is sideways always facing the inside of the square.

Game

There are two games that you can play at this point. The first one is to set two 4v0 rondos side by side and challenge them to get to 30 passes. Whichever group gets to 30 passes first wins. You might need to add more limits, such as the fact that backpasses are not allowed. Otherwise, two players will come close to each other and just pass the ball until they win.

The second game is to make players go and touch a cone after they pass. This game is to counter the static passer from the 3v0 rondo and to eliminate the issue from the previous game by passing back. Feel free to combine the two games together and have fun. At this point, the players should be more proficient in passing, so challenge them to try a one-touch pass.

Instructions

This is the first time the players will do decision-making in terms of the actual position to pass the ball to. As a result, they will not actually pass the ball to the backfoot, not pay attention to the weight of the pass and not care about who they are passing to. The last is ok, but the first two should be addressed even at this point. Remind them that in order to have a complete pass, both the passer and the receiver need to try their best and work together.