Three Teams, Three Goals

1. Mark a circle 20 metres across for six players, 25 for nine. Put three small goals on its edge, evenly spaced and facing the middle: mini goals, or two cones 2 metres apart. Three teams of two or three, in three colours, each with its own goal.
2. One ball. Each team defends its own goal and can score in either of the other two. Nobody keeps goal.
3. There is no out: the ball is live wherever it goes, but a goal only counts if it is shot from inside the circle.
4. After a goal, the team that conceded starts again at once from its own goal.
5. A team gets a point for every goal it scores and loses nothing when it concedes. Play rounds of 4 minutes, then mix the teams. With more than nine players, set up a second circle rather than making the teams bigger.

With two goals to attack, the team on the ball looks for the open one: the goal whose team has pushed up, or the one the third team has left behind while it chases the ball. Without the ball, every team faces a choice a normal match never asks: when the other two teams are fighting for the ball, do you join in and try to win it, or stay back and protect your goal? Conceding costs nothing and scoring earns a point, so going forward pays, but a team that sends everyone has nobody at home. Players have to read two opponents at once, and the team that sees first where the ball is going next usually gets there.