---
title: "Three Teams, Three Goals"
description: "Three teams and one ball, each team guarding one goal and attacking the other two: find the goal that has been left open, and decide when to stay at home and when to go."
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/three-teams-three-goals
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Three Teams, Three Goals

> Three teams and one ball, each team guarding one goal and attacking the other two: find the goal that has been left open, and decide when to stay at home and when to go.

U6 to U12 · 6 to 9 players · 25 × 25 m · 15 min

Also called Three Goal Game, Omega Ball, 3-Team-Spiel.

![Diagram of Three Teams, Three Goals](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/three-teams-three-goals)

## How to play

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.

## The decision it trains

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.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** make the goals 3 metres wide, so a shot that gets past the defenders usually goes in.
- **Too easy:** make the goals 1 metre wide, or the circle 5 metres smaller.
- **Younger players:** start with one against one against one, as PA West Soccer's under 8 sessions do, but with three players to a circle about 12 metres across and as many circles as you need, so nobody waits. Then move to 2v2v2.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "When your team won the ball, how did you choose which goal to attack?"
- "When the other two teams were fighting for the ball, what did your team do, and why?"
- "When did you stay near your goal, and when did you go forward?"

## Where it comes from

Ontario Soccer's Grassroots Festival Formats Guide (2026) describes it as "Omega Ball": three teams, three goals and one ball on a circular pitch, each team defending one goal and attacking the other two, with points for goals scored, nothing lost for goals conceded, no offside and no throw-ins. PA West Soccer Association's youth coaching modules call it "Three Goal Game", played 1v1v1 by under 8s and 2v2v2 by under 10s, growing to 3v3v3 and 4v4v4. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- Ontario Soccer (Canada): Omega Ball
- PA West Soccer (United States): Three Goal Game
- German regional FAs (Bavaria, Hamburg, South Baden) (Germany): 3-Team-Spiel, 3-Teams-Spiel, 3-Tore-Spiel
- FIFA Training Centre (International)

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