Small-sided play is really the big game, just compressed into different areas of the pitch. I love coaching technique for exactly this reason, and the technical elements behind small-sided situations are where I think real player development actually happens. Coaching the how, not just the what.
What “The How” Actually Means
The what is easy to copy. Set up a 1v1 channel, tell players to attack the cone, run the exercise. Any coach watching from the sideline can replicate the shape in five minutes.
The how is harder to copy because it’s not visible in the setup. It’s the coaching points: what the attacker should be looking at before they receive, what specific movement creates separation from the defender, what changes when the defender is goal-side versus level. Two coaches can run the identical 1v1 exercise and produce completely different development, because one is teaching the how and one is just running the drill.
Coaching Points By Situation
I built a one-pager years ago covering coaching points for 1v1, 2v1, 2v2, and 3v2 situations, because these are the building blocks underneath almost everything else in the game. I still reference it constantly when coaching, because the specifics change by situation in ways that are easy to blur together if you’re teaching generically.
In a 1v1, the attacking priority is usually about manipulating the defender’s body shape before committing, not just “run at them fast.” In a 2v1, the extra attacker’s value is almost entirely about the angle they offer, not their pace. In a 2v2, timing of the second attacker’s run matters more than raw movement. In a 3v2, the overloaded side needs to create and use the extra body before the defence can shift and cancel the advantage out.
Michael, who trained with me during his time at Arbroath FC, described this kind of work as “challenging, but match realistic,” precision striker drills built around specific situations rather than generic finishing practice. That’s the distinction: specific coaching points tied to a real situation, not a general instruction repeated regardless of context.
Where This Breaks Down
The failure mode isn’t usually the exercise design. It’s a coach running a well-designed small-sided situation and only coaching the what, “get past your defender,” “win the ball back,” without ever addressing the how underneath it. Players execute the shape without understanding the principle, and a principle they don’t understand doesn’t transfer to Saturday, where the opponent won’t stand where your training cone stood.
What I’d Suggest
Before your next technical session, pick one small-sided situation, 1v1 is the simplest place to start, and write down the actual coaching points you’d give, not just the setup. If you can’t articulate what you’d say to a player mid-exercise beyond “keep going” or “well done,” that’s usually a sign the how hasn’t been thought through yet, only the what.
If you want the complete breakdown of coaching points from 1v1 through to 4v4, plus the wider technical framework it sits inside, that’s in the How To Coach Technique course inside the Football Coaching Academy, alongside nearly 1,600 coaches working on the same detail.