---
title: "Bulldozers and Cranes"
description: "The bulldozers knock the buildings down with their ball while the cranes stand them back up: pick a building no crane is near before you strike."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/bulldozers-and-cranes
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Bulldozers and Cranes

> The bulldozers knock the buildings down with their ball while the cranes stand them back up: pick a building no crane is near before you strike.

U4 to U6 · 4 to 12 players · 30 × 30 m · 8 min

Also called Builders and bulldozers, Bulldozers & Cranes, Bulldozers vs Builders.

![Diagram of Bulldozers and Cranes](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/bulldozers-and-cranes)

## How to play

1. Split the children into two groups: bulldozers, each with a ball, and cranes, with no ball, about one crane for every two bulldozers. If parents are at training, they make good cranes.
2. Mark a 30 by 30 metre square (20 by 20 for six children or fewer) and stand tall cones all over it, about two for every bulldozer. These are the buildings. With more than 12 children, mark a second square.
3. On "Go!", the bulldozers dribble around and knock buildings down by kicking their ball into them. Only a hit with the ball counts, not a kick or a push on the cone. The cranes run to the fallen buildings and stand them back up, and never touch a ball.
4. If at any moment within 60 seconds every building is down, the bulldozers win the round. If not, the cranes win.
5. After every round, other children take the cranes' job, so everyone gets turns at both. With parents as cranes, give the parents the balls for a round and let the children rebuild.

## The decision it trains

A bulldozer has two things to watch: which buildings are still standing, and where the cranes are. A building next to a crane goes back up as soon as it falls, so the one worth the trip is the building no crane is near, or the one a crane has just turned away from. That means dribbling with the head up and changing direction the moment a crane heads the same way. Close to the building comes the second choice: strike now from a few metres, or take two more touches and make sure of it? In the last seconds, with only a few buildings standing, the bulldozers have to spread out over them, because five balls at one cone leave the others standing. The cranes read the same picture the other way round: lift the nearest fallen building first, or the one far from any bulldozer that will stay up longer, and how do they share the square between them?

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** take one crane out, or take away a few buildings.
- **Too easy:** add a crane, or stand up a few more buildings.
- **Next step:** a building only counts as down when it is hit with the weaker foot, or with the outside of the foot.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "Which building did you go for, and why that one?"
- "With only a few buildings left, how did you share them out?"
- "Cranes: which building did you stand up first, and why?"

## Where it comes from

Ontario Soccer documents it in the Active Start practice plans of its grassroots workbook, the stage for players under 4 to under 6, where it is a station in several weekly plans. The plans call it Bulldozers and Cranes, Bulldozers vs Builders, and Builders and Bulldozers, and play it child against parent: the children are the bulldozers, the parents stand the cones back up, and the two can swap roles. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- Ontario Soccer (Canada): Bulldozers and Cranes, Builders and bulldozers, Bulldozers & Cranes, Bulldozers vs Builders

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