---
title: "Fetch It"
description: "A small-sided game where whoever puts the ball out runs to fetch it while the other team restarts at once with a spare ball: use the extra player before the numbers even up."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/fetch-it
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Fetch It

> A small-sided game where whoever puts the ball out runs to fetch it while the other team restarts at once with a spare ball: use the extra player before the numbers even up.

U7 to U11 · 6 to 10 players · 20 × 25 m · 15 min

Also called Which ball is best?, Stay on the pitch, Overloads and Under loads.

![Diagram of Fetch It](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/fetch-it)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch 20 metres wide and 25 long with a small goal at each end, no keepers. Lay four or five spare balls along each touchline. Play 4v4; with more players, run a second pitch.
2. Play a normal game.
3. When the ball goes out, whoever touched it last runs to fetch it. The other team does not wait: one of them picks up the nearest spare ball and plays on at once, a player up.
4. The fetcher puts the ball they fetched where that spare ball was, then runs back into the game.
5. After a goal, the scorer runs to the side, picks up a cone and puts it beside their own goal. The team that conceded plays on straight away with a spare ball, a player up. Play games of five minutes, then change opponents.

## The decision it trains

The game keeps handing one team an extra player for a few seconds, and both teams have to notice. The team a player up has to act fast: restart before the others are set, find the free player and attack while the fetcher is away. The team a player short has to choose: drop back and protect the goal until the fetcher returns, or press the ball and risk the gap behind. Every pass near the touchline gets a second thought too, because a ball over the line costs a player. And the scorer's errand hands the other team a chance at once, so a goal is never a moment to switch off.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** grow the pitch to 25 by 30 metres: more room to use the extra player and more time to think.
- **Too easy:** shrink it to 16 by 20 metres: less room, more balls over the line, more errands.
- **Next step:** put a rugby ball among the spares. Whoever restarts with it brings rugby's rules until it goes out: pass backwards only, and score by putting the ball down over the goal line.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "When your team had the extra player, how did you find them?"
- "When you were a player short, what did your team do until the fetcher came back?"
- "Near the touchline, when did you keep the ball in, and when was it worth the risk?"

## Where it comes from

The FA documents it in its England Football Learning sessions as "Which ball is best?" (2022), presented by Pete Sturgess, the FA's national 5 to 11 lead, where a ball from another sport also brings in that sport's rules. In "Stay on the pitch" (2022), from former FA coach developer Sally Needham, the player who puts the ball out leaves the pitch for up to a minute instead, and in "Festival carousel" (2026), from a session for 7 to 11 year olds, it is the scorer who runs to fetch a cone while the other team restarts. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- The FA (United Kingdom): Which ball is best?, Stay on the pitch
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): Ballholer
- FIFA Training Centre (International): Winner stays on
- Ontario Soccer (Canada): Overloads and Under loads

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