---
title: "No Back Pass"
description: "Four against four where nobody in the middle may pass backwards, except to the one teammate kept in your own end zone: the pressing team knows the ball has to go forward, and presses to take that away."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/no-back-pass
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# No Back Pass

> Four against four where nobody in the middle may pass backwards, except to the one teammate kept in your own end zone: the pressing team knows the ball has to go forward, and presses to take that away.

U7 to U11 · 6 to 8 players · 20 × 25 m · 15 min

Also called Støttespiller, MINI SOCCER - STØTTESPILLER.

![Diagram of No Back Pass](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/no-back-pass)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch 20 metres wide and 25 long with a mini goal on each end line and a zone 4 metres deep in front of each goal. Two teams of four. With more players, run two pitches side by side.
2. Each team puts one player in the zone in front of its own goal. That player stays in the zone, and nobody else may go into either zone. The other three play in the middle.
3. In the middle, no pass may go backwards to a teammate. Sideways is fine. The only backward pass allowed is to your own zone player; any other one gives the ball to the other team where it was played.
4. Score by shooting from the middle into the other team's goal. After a goal, the team that conceded restarts with its zone player. When the ball goes off the side, pass or dribble it back in.
5. Change zone players after every goal. Play 6 minute games, then change opponents.

## The decision it trains

The rule makes the press readable. The team on the ball can only go forward, sideways, or all the way back to its zone player, so the pressing team does not have to guard everything. It has three jobs and three players to share them: the nearest one shuts the forward pass, the next one covers the sideways pass, and whoever is furthest forward stands in the line back to the zone player. Deciding who does which, without a word from the coach, is the game. The team on the ball learns the other half: with nobody to lay it back to, a player has to look before the ball arrives and know whether they can turn, carry it forward, or must find the zone player before the pressure lands. A receiver facing their own goal with no back pass is the moment to press hard.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** if the pressers never win the ball, shrink the pitch to 16 by 22 metres, or take away the pass to the zone player too, so every pass in the middle has to go forward or sideways.
- **Too easy:** if the pressers win everything, widen the pitch to 25 metres, or play one game where anyone may pass backwards and ask afterwards what changed.
- **Fewer players:** 3v3 on 16 by 22 metres, one in each zone and two in the middle.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "When you were pressing, which pass were you taking away?"
- "With the ball, how did you know whether you could turn?"
- "Who was blocking the pass back to their zone player, and how did you decide?"

## Where it comes from

The FA documents it in its England Football Learning sessions as the closing game of "Pressing session: press to dictate" (2025), shared by James Riches, an FA coach development officer, and again in "Pressing and covering session: festival week" (2025), shared by Megan Todd, also an FA coach development officer, in a programme for 7 to 11 year olds. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- The FA (United Kingdom)
- Danish FA (DBU) (Denmark): MINI SOCCER - STØTTESPILLER, Støttespiller

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