---
title: "Captain Ball"
description: "Score by passing to your captain, who waits in a zone nobody can enter. The whole team learns to see when the pass is on."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/captain-ball
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Captain Ball

> Score by passing to your captain, who waits in a zone nobody can enter. The whole team learns to see when the pass is on.

U7 to U11 · 8 to 12 players · 20 × 30 m · 15 min

Also called Target Game, Soccer to One Target, Königsball.

![Diagram of Captain Ball](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/captain-ball)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch 20 metres wide and 30 metres long, with a zone 3 metres deep across each end. Two teams of five: four on the pitch and a captain standing in the zone behind the other team.
2. Teams pass and dribble to get the ball to their own captain. Nobody else may enter the zones, so the captain cannot be tackled.
3. A pass that the captain stops inside the zone scores a point. The player who made that pass becomes the new captain, the old captain joins the game, and the other team restarts from its own end.
4. When the defending team wins the ball, it attacks its own captain at the other end straight away.
5. Play rounds of four minutes, then let the teams change ends.

## The decision it trains

There is one target and a crowd in front of it. Every time the player on the ball looks up, they choose: pass to the captain now, while the line is open, or dribble or pass to a teammate first to find a better angle. The captain moves along the zone to open a line. The other attackers decide where to stand so the ball can reach a spot from which the captain is visible. Defenders choose between blocking the captain's line and pressing the ball.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** give each team two captains, one at each side of the zone, so there is always a second target.
- **Too easy:** a team must make at least three passes before the ball may go to the captain.
- **Younger players:** make the zones 5 metres deep and the pitch 25 metres long, so the captain is closer and easier to find.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "When could you see your captain, and when couldn't you?"
- "What did you do when the line to the captain was closed?"
- "Captains: where were you standing when the pass reached you?"

## Where it comes from

Balle au capitaine is a traditional French school PE game, and French federation district technicians turned it into football. The Yvelines district uses it for U8 and U9, with the captain shooting at goal after the pass. A school booklet from Ardèche, written by federation technicians with the school authorities, keeps the captain untouchable in his zone. Spain has a close relative, portero móvil, with one neutral keeper who serves both teams. No inventor or date is documented.

## Documented by

- French national education (school PE) (France): Balle au capitaine
- French FA (FFF) districts (France): Balle aux capitaines
- US Youth Soccer (United States): Soccer to One Target
- Football Australia (Australia)
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): Königsball
- Irish FA (Northern Ireland) (United Kingdom)
- PA West Soccer (United States): Target Game
- FIFA Training Centre (International)
- Ontario Soccer (Canada)
- EFDeportes (Argentina): Portero móvil
- Pass Education (France)

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