---
title: "Big Goal vs Two Gates"
description: "One team attacks a full goal with a keeper in it, the other scores by passing through either of two small gates: one target to crack, two to choose from."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/big-goal-vs-two-gates
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Big Goal vs Two Gates

> One team attacks a full goal with a keeper in it, the other scores by passing through either of two small gates: one target to crack, two to choose from.

U8 to U11 · 6 to 7 players · 18 × 24 m · 20 min

Also called Ylivoimapeli, Stress-Spiel, Strafraum-Dribbeln.

![Diagram of Big Goal vs Two Gates](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/big-goal-vs-two-gates)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch about 24 metres long and 18 wide. At one end put a full-size goal for the age group; at the other, two gates of cones 1.5 metres wide, one near each corner.
2. Three against three. The team defending the goal puts one of its three in goal; the gates have no keeper.
3. The goal team scores by shooting into the goal. The gate team scores by passing the ball along the ground through either gate.
4. Whoever scores keeps the ball and starts again from its own end.
5. Play rounds of four minutes, then swap roles and change the keeper.

## The decision it trains

The gate team has two targets and three defenders in front of them. The player on the ball looks for the gate the defenders have left and decides: pass now, or carry the ball across to drag a defender over and then switch it? The goal team has the opposite problem: one target with a keeper in it, but an extra outfield player, so it has to find the free player and the moment to shoot. Defending the gates, the three decide who presses and who guards the far one.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** give the team attacking the goal one more player, so it always outnumbers the defenders.
- **Too easy:** a gate goal only counts when every player in the gate team is in the opponents' half, so the whole team has to move up.
- **Younger players:** widen the gates to 2.5 metres and let a dribble through count as well as a pass.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "Before you passed, how did you know which gate was free?"
- "When one gate was guarded, what did your team do to open the other?"
- "In the goal team, how did you find the free player?"

## Where it comes from

Italy's football federation sets it down in its children's competition model as a 3v3 game situation for under-8s to under-11s, with gates 1.5 metres wide. The same structure turns up in an Italian coaching blog, ioalleno (2019, six a side), and in the Finnish federation's ylivoimapeli, "overload game", where the goal attackers always have an extra player and the defenders cut their score by hitting two mini goals after winning the ball. No inventor is documented.

## Documented by

- Italian FA (FIGC) (Italy)
- Football Association of Finland (Finland): Ylivoimapeli
- Football Australia (Australia)
- Royal Belgian FA (Belgium)
- Canada Soccer (Canada)
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): Stress-Spiel, Strafraum-Dribbeln
- PA West Soccer (United States)
- Massachusetts Youth Soccer (United States)
- FIFA Training Centre (International): channel game
- CONMEBOL (International)
- Ontario Soccer (Canada)
- Io Alleno (Italy)

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