7v7 Soccer Team Shape — Width, Length, and Youth Coaching Tips

Let's take a look at how we can maximize our team's ability by changing the width and length of our team shape in a 7V7 soccer game. If you were to draw an imaginary line between each of our players, it would look like a big spider web. This web is important because it shows where possible passes can be made to our team. When our team has the ball, your job is to make sure our team member with the ball has at least two passing options. But how do we know what is a good passing option? It's simple. When you do not have the ball, but one of our teammates does, always make sure you can draw a straight line between them and you without anyone getting in the way. If someone is in the way, you may need to move forward, backward, or to one side to give them a passing option.

Did you know the size of our web should change for different situations? Our team's web is the largest when we have the ball. To create a large web, our outside midfielders need to be positioned near the sidelines. Each player should be at least 10 yards away from each other to make sure that one defender cannot defend multiple players. If you are not sure what 10 yards looks like, it's the distance between the penalty spot and the goal line.

But what does our web look like when we do not have the ball? When we do not have the ball, we want our team's shape to be narrow. To do this, we make our web smaller and locate it near the player with the ball. Being so close together makes it difficult for the other team to dribble or pass the ball. If we win the ball back, we will want to immediately spread out to start our attack.

So we've talked so far about how to stay connected using our web of possible passes and how changing our team's width can help us on offense and defense. But what about our team's length? How do we use that in certain situations to create an advantage? Our length is determined by the distance between each group of players on our team. The amount of space between our goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and striker can change depending on which team has the ball and where it is on the field.

It is important for us to ensure there is at least 10 yards between our defenders and midfielders and another 10 yards between striker and their midfielders. If we unexpectedly lose the ball, this length positions us well to win the ball back. It also gives our team more options to pass in order to keep the ball in our possession.

There are a couple unique situations where we need to pay attention to our team's length. The first of these is when the ball is deep in our own end, like on a corner kick. In this situation, we actually want to keep our striker near the center circle in order to prevent both of their defenders from coming forward to support their attack. This means they are more than 10 yards from the closest midfielder, but their job in this situation is to be a target for a big pass from our team if we win the ball. Once receiving this pass, the striker can either try to dribble past the remaining defenders and take a shot on goal, or they can hold up play by shielding the ball with their back from the defenders and look to make a diagonal pass toward the sideline to a teammate who is moving up field. Notice how our striker #9 passed the ball and immediately move into a space they could receive it again. It's a goal!

As our team takes the ball deeper into the other team's half of the field, our defenders move upfield to support our attack. A large gap forms between the goalkeeper and the defenders, which can give the other team a great way to counter attack us using just one big kick to their striker. To reduce the gap between our goalkeeper and defenders, goalkeeper should move forward to the top of the half circle, just outside their goal box. Remember, when the goalkeeper is outside their goal box, they cannot use their hands. They can only use their feet. If the other team tries a long kick to their striker past our defenders, the goalkeeper can run to the ball 1st and pass to a teammate out wide or kick it out of bounds. If our team loses the ball and the play comes back toward our half, the goalkeeper should begin to walk backwards into the goal box and prepare for a shot on goal.

Being a goalkeeper out-of-the-box and unable to use your hands can lead to some tense moments. But just remember both goalkeepers and defenders have a job to stop the other team's attack. To do this, they may need to use other parts of their body to keep the ball from going into the goal when they are outside of the box.

Quiz question. If we just won the ball back from the other team, should our team shape get bigger or smaller? If you said our team's shape or web should become bigger, you are correct. Our outside midfielders play a key role in determining how big our team's shape is. If they quickly move to the outside when we win the ball back, our team's shape becomes bigger. Large gaps appear between defenders, which makes it easier for us to move the ball. If our team loses the ball, we want to shrink our web and place a lot of people near the ball to take away the space the other team has to play.