---
title: "1v1 in Traffic"
description: "Five 1v1 games at once in one space, each pair with its own goals: beat your opponent and get round everyone else's game while you do it."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/one-v-one-in-traffic
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# 1v1 in Traffic

> Five 1v1 games at once in one space, each pair with its own goals: beat your opponent and get round everyone else's game while you do it.

U6 to U9 · 6 to 12 players · 18 × 25 m · 10 min

Also called School Yard Soccer, El Caos, El Chaos.

![Diagram of 1v1 in Traffic](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/one-v-one-in-traffic)

## How to play

1. Mark an area 18 metres wide and 25 metres long. Ten players in pairs; each pair builds its own two small goals from cones, 1 metre wide, anywhere in the area.
2. Every pair plays 1v1 at the same time: each player attacks one of the pair's goals and defends the other.
3. The other pairs, and their balls, are part of the game: play round them or use them as cover, but only your own goals count.
4. The first player to 5 goals ends the round for everyone. Then everyone changes partner and builds new goals in a new place.

## The decision it trains

A normal 1v1 asks where the defender is. In traffic, the player on the ball also has to see everything else: another pair crossing their path, a loose ball, a player who can screen the defender. So they keep looking up while they dribble, and choose a route through the gaps or use another game as a wall. The defender chooses when to press and when to let the traffic slow the attacker down.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** make the goals 2 metres wide.
- **Too easy:** shrink the area to 15 metres by 20, so the traffic gets thicker.
- **Younger players:** first to 3 goals ends the round, so partners change more often.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "What did you see around you just before you went past your opponent?"
- "When another game got in your way, what did you do?"
- "How did the two of you choose where to put your goals?"

## Where it comes from

The Italian federation's 2018 exercise book puts it in a section called Calcio di strada (street football) and pictures it as two children at school break, with empty bottles for goals and a sponge ball. Daniele Tacchini, an Italian coach, has the same idea in his collection I 30 giochi più belli, as a variant of a numbers game. No other origin is documented.

## Documented by

- Italian FA (FIGC) (Italy): 1 contro 1 nel traffico
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): El Caos, El Chaos, Chaos-Turnier
- Football Australia (Australia)
- Danish FA (DBU) (Denmark)
- BC Soccer (Canada)
- Royal Belgian FA (Belgium)
- Massachusetts Youth Soccer (United States)
- Ontario Soccer (Canada): School Yard Soccer
- Daniele Tacchini, I 30 giochi più belli (Italy)

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