---
title: "Pac-Man"
description: "Two hunters pass to hit the others below the knee, and everyone hit becomes a hunter too. The hunt gets bigger until one player is left."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/pac-man
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Pac-Man

> Two hunters pass to hit the others below the knee, and everyone hit becomes a hunter too. The hunt gets bigger until one player is left.

U6 to U10 · 8 to 14 players · 20 × 20 m · 10 min

Also called Pac Man, chain tag, Catch the Robber.

![Diagram of Pac-Man](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/pac-man)

## How to play

1. Mark a 20 by 20 metre square for 8 to 14 players, with a pile of spare balls beside it.
2. Two hunters start with a ball each. Everyone else runs inside the square without a ball.
3. Hunters dribble and pass to hit the others below the knee. A player who is hit takes a ball from the pile and becomes a hunter too. Leaving the square counts as being hit.
4. The last player left wins the round and starts the next one as a hunter, with the player caught just before. A round takes a minute or two.

## The decision it trains

A hunter picks a target and decides when the pass is on: close enough, an open line, a runner looking the other way. Keep dribbling closer and the runner gets away; pass too early and the ball misses. As the hunters multiply, they can trap a runner between two of them. The runners have to keep checking where every ball is and move into the space away from them, which gets harder with every player who changes side.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** add two small safe houses where a runner cannot be hit, but may stay only for a count of five.
- **Too easy:** the runners dribble a ball each too, so they have to escape with their head up.
- **Younger players:** play in a 15 by 15 square, so hits happen and every round stays short.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "Hunters: how did you choose who to go after?"
- "Runners: how did you know where the balls were?"
- "When two hunters worked together, what happened?"

## Where it comes from

No inventor is named. The game turns up in English-language youth coaching in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom: a US coach's plan on Sport Session Planner, a TeamSnap sheet, Women's Soccer Coaching, and Canada Soccer's FUNdamentals toolkit, where a team version is called Last Player Standing. The sources even disagree on who hunts: in one the ghosts chase the Pac-Men, in another Pac-Man does the chasing. No source outside English-speaking countries was found.

## Documented by

- Canada Soccer (Canada): Last Player Standing
- Swiss Federal Office of Sport (mobilesport.ch) (Switzerland): Kopfballtreffen
- US Youth Soccer (United States): The Glob, Pac Man, Defrost Tag, CHICKEN RUN, COWBOYS AND INDIANS, OUCH!, SHARKS AND MINNOWS, Pac-Man, chain tag, Coach Pac Man
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): Zombie-Ball, Kettenfangen, Team-Fangen
- AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) (United States): The Mosquito, Meteor Storm
- Swedish FA (Sweden)
- Japan FA (Japan): ころがしドッジ
- Royal Belgian FA (Belgium): LE COULOIR DE LA PEUR
- Ontario Soccer (Canada): Catch the Robber, Catch the robber!
- PA West Soccer (United States): Pac-Man
- Irish FA (Northern Ireland) (United Kingdom): Chain Tig
- FIFA Training Centre (International): Chain tag
- Massachusetts Youth Soccer (United States): Pirates of the Caribbean, Tiggers vs Rabbits, Good Minions vs Evil Minions, Hunting the Coach
- Sport Session Planner (United Kingdom): Pac Man, Pacmen
- TeamSnap (United States): Pac-Man Passing
- Women's Soccer Coaching (United States)

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