How to play
- Mark a square 12 metres by 12 metres. Six players dribble inside, each with a ball; four wait just outside, spread around the sides.
- Any dribbler can start a challenge by calling the name of one of the waiting players, loud enough to be heard.
- The called player runs in and has five seconds to win the ball, and both count the seconds out loud. If the challenger wins it, they take over the ball and the dribbler goes outside to wait.
- If the dribbler keeps the ball for five seconds, they score a point and the challenger goes back outside. Several challenges run at once, so the waiting players change all the time.
The decision it trains
The challenge starts with a choice the dribbler makes: whom to call. A player across the square needs time to arrive, which gives the dribbler time to look up, find space and get their body between the ball and the challenger; a player close by arrives at once. So before calling, the dribbler has to look around. Then, for five seconds, it is shield, turn away or run into space. The challenger decides how to approach: straight and fast, or curved to cut off the escape.
Make it harder or easier
What to ask at the breaks
"How did you choose whom to call?"
"What did you do in the first second after you called?"
"When you were the challenger, how did you decide where to run in from?"
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Who documents it
1 sources · each opens the originalIt comes from the Italian federation's youth sector: Le sfide ("the challenges") is in the exercise book of its Programma di Sviluppo Territoriale, published in 2018, for U8 and U9 with a version for younger children. No other source with the same rules has been found. Its nearest relatives are numbers games, where the coach, not the player on the ball, does the calling.
Italian FA (FIGC)Italycalls it Le sfide