How to play
- Make groups of three, each with one ball and its own 10 by 10 metre square, the squares side by side so every group plays at once.
- One player dribbles and tries to keep the ball; the other two try to win it.
- Whoever wins the ball becomes the dribbler, and the player who lost it joins the hunters straight away.
- A ball that leaves the square goes to the nearest hunter. Play 60-second rounds: whoever has the ball when the coach calls time wins the round. Then change groups.
The decision it trains
The dribbler faces two players at once and keeps choosing: shield the ball from the nearer one, escape into the space the pair has left, or take one of them on, and which one. The two hunters decide as a pair: who goes to the ball and who cuts off the escape. Because the ball changes hands all the time, every player keeps switching between keeping it and winning it back.
Make it harder or easier
What to ask at the breaks
"When did you protect the ball, and when did you go past someone?"
"Hunters: how did you two decide who went to the ball?"
"When two players came at you, where was the space?"
A free account plans 2 sessions and talks to Hobbit 5 times a month; after that, Pro.
Who documents it
4 sources · each opens the originalIt is a Brazilian street game. Its rules come from a single observation in Alcides Scaglia's 2003 doctoral thesis at Unicamp: a boy kept the ball from two girls and, when he lost it, tried to win it back from them. A 2018 school report presented at the University of São Paulo calls it driblinha, and its pupils decided it is a different game from bobinho, the Brazilian piggy in the middle. No date of origin is documented.
German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden)Germany · 2 documentscalls it Dribbel-Spiel Lionel Messi
US Youth SoccerUnited States · 3 documents
UnicampBrazilcalls it Driblinho- Universidade de São PauloBrazilcalls it Driblinha