---
title: "Pick Your Overload"
description: "The attackers choose how many go in each time, from 4v2 down to 1v1, and the fewer they send the more a goal is worth: take the safe goal that is likely, or the risky one that pays more."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/pick-your-overload
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Pick Your Overload

> The attackers choose how many go in each time, from 4v2 down to 1v1, and the fewer they send the more a goal is worth: take the safe goal that is likely, or the risky one that pays more.

U9 to U13 · 8 to 10 players · 18 × 25 m · 15 min

Also called Risky Business.

![Diagram of Pick Your Overload](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/pick-your-overload)

## How to play

1. Mark a pitch 18 metres wide and 25 long with a goal about 4 metres wide at each end. On one side line, put a 2 metre gate 4 metres in from each end. Two teams of four or five; with more players, set up a second pitch alongside.
2. Before you start, the teams agree what a goal is worth at each split, more for the harder ones: for example one point at 4v2 or 3v1, two at 2v1, three at 1v1.
3. One team defends: a keeper in each goal, and the field players beside the posts of the goal being attacked. The other team attacks with one ball, starting from the gate furthest from that goal.
4. Each time, the attackers decide how many go in: four, three, two or one. They dribble in through the gate and attack the far goal. The defenders count them and send on the matching number: two against four, and one against three, two or one.
5. The attack ends with a goal, a save, the ball off the pitch or a defender winning it. As soon as the pitch is clear, the next attack goes the other way from the other gate: the attackers who sat out jog to that gate during the attack, and the field defenders run round to the other goal.
6. After three minutes, the teams swap roles and two new players go in goal. Compare points, then play another round.

## The decision it trains

The first decision is made at the gate, before anyone touches the ball. A 3v1 scores often and earns one point; a 1v1 earns three, but the defender and the keeper win most of them. So the attackers weigh up the points they agreed, the clock and who is standing with them: who is our best dribbler, and who still has the legs for another run? Behind with a minute to go, the 1v1 looks different. Once they are in, each split asks its own question. In a 4v2 the player on the ball looks for the teammate neither defender can reach. In a 2v1 the dribbler runs at the defender and waits for them to commit, then passes or goes. In a 1v1 there is nobody to pass to: a feint, a change of pace and a choice of corner, while the keeper decides when to come off the line. The defenders have a few seconds to count who comes through the gate and decide who goes on. A lone defender against three cannot win the ball at once, so they hold off, stay between the ball and the goal, and make the attackers use up their space before they can shoot.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** if the attacks hardly ever end in a goal, take the keepers out; they join the field defenders.
- **Too easy:** the defenders send one player for every attacker, as many as their field players allow: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3. No split comes with a free player any more, so the choice becomes who goes, not how many.
- **Nobody tries the 1v1:** at the break, let the teams change what each split is worth, until the risk is worth taking.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "Before each attack, how did your team decide how many to send?"
- "Which split earned your team the most points, and why do you think it did?"
- "Defending alone against three, what did you try to make them do?"

## Where it comes from

One of FIFA's grassroots session plans on the FIFA Training Centre has it as the "Risky Business" scoring game, the middle activity of a session on wing play, with up to ten a side. There the teams agree what each split is worth before they start, and the players decide which points to go for and how to win. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- FIFA Training Centre (International): Risky Business

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