---
title: "Capture the Flag"
description: "Two teams, two halves and a pile of balls at each end: raid the other half, take a ball and dribble it home without being caught."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/capture-the-flag
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Capture the Flag

> Two teams, two halves and a pile of balls at each end: raid the other half, take a ball and dribble it home without being caught.

U8 to U12 · 8 to 16 players · 20 × 30 m · 12 min

Also called Capture the Balls, Dribble and Steal, Soccer Capture the Flag.

![Diagram of Capture the Flag](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/capture-the-flag)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch 20 metres wide and 30 metres long, split at halfway. In one back corner of each half put a base, a 4 metre square with four balls in it, and in the other corner a jail of the same size.
2. Two teams of four to eight, each starting in its own half. Raid the other half, take a ball from the opponents' base, dribble it back over halfway and put it in your own base. You are safe in your own half and inside the opponents' base.
3. In the other half, a player without a ball is caught by a touch of the hand; a player with a ball is stopped only if a defender wins the ball with their feet. Caught players go to jail, and a ball that is won back goes back to its base.
4. A teammate frees a prisoner by reaching the jail and slapping their hand; both walk back to their own half and cannot be caught on the way. Nobody stays in jail longer than 30 seconds.
5. Play rounds of 4 minutes. The team with more balls in its base at the end wins, or wins at once by taking all of them.

## The decision it trains

Every player keeps choosing between three jobs: raid, defend or rescue. A raider waits for the moment the defenders are drawn to one side and picks a route through the gap; on the way home with the ball, it is beat the defender or go round. Defenders decide whom to mark and whether to guard the base or the jail. And when a teammate sits in jail, someone has to decide: go for a ball, or free them first.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** allow a pass: a raider with a ball can pass it to a teammate who is back in their own half, as some American versions do.
- **Too easy:** the opponents' base stops being safe, so a raider can be caught while picking up a ball.
- **Younger players:** no jail: a caught player runs back to their own half and goes again.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "How did you decide when to raid and when to stay?"
- "Which way did you take the ball home, and why that way?"
- "When a teammate was in jail, how did your team decide who would go?"

## Where it comes from

The football version has no documented author. It turns up in British and American club sessions, and the Finnish federation documents a version with balls as the treasure, called timantinryöstö ("diamond robbery"). The parent game, played without a ball, has many names: in Brazil it is pique-bandeira or rouba-bandeira, and a Brazilian physical education project uses it to teach the principles of invasion games before football.

## Documented by

- Football Association of Finland (Finland): Timantinryöstö, Huuhkajan pallovaja
- Danish FA (DBU) (Denmark): Stjæle bolde
- Swedish FA (Sweden)
- Football Australia (Australia): Dribble and Steal
- UFES (Brazil)
- Revista Movimento (UFRGS) (Brazil): pique-bandeira
- Sport Session Planner (United Kingdom): Capture the Flag
- Sam Hales (United States): Soccer Capture the Flag
- MOJO (United States): Capture the Balls

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