How to play
- Groups of three at a small goal: two strikers and a keeper, in an area about 12 metres wide and 15 long. Every group plays at once.
- The keeper rolls or throws the ball out. The strikers may touch it only once each time: no controlling touch, no second touch. They pass between them until one decides to shoot.
- A shot without a pass first is allowed only when the keeper serves a high ball and it is struck before it lands.
- A goal is a point to the strikers; a shot that misses the goal, or a second touch, is a point to the keeper. After a save the keeper restarts.
- First to three wins. If the keeper wins, he swaps with the striker who missed last. If the strikers win, the keeper stays in for one more game, and after two games in goal he swaps anyway.
The decision it trains
With no touch to set the ball, every touch is both a pass and a decision about the shot. The striker reads the keeper: if he has just shifted across for the last pass, this touch can be the shot; if he is set, one more pass moves him again. Many passes are lay-offs for the partner to finish, so their weight and angle decide the shot. The striker without the ball moves to the angle where a first-time finish is on.
Make it harder or easier
What to ask at the breaks
"What told you this was the moment to shoot instead of passing again?"
"Where did you stand so you could finish your partner's pass first time?"
"Keeper, which passes made you move the most?"
A free account plans 2 sessions and talks to Hobbit 5 times a month; after that, Pro.
Who documents it
2 sources · each opens the originalA traditional Brazilian street game whose rules have one source: Alcides Scaglia's 2003 thesis. He watched boys of 10 to 12 play it on a sloping, half-grass pitch with wooden posts in a peripheral neighbourhood. He notes that the same game is played elsewhere with some different rules and other names, such as Toquinho Mineiro and Toquinho Paulista.
UnicampBrazilcalls it Um toque, Toquinho Mineiro, Toquinho Paulista
- CartaCapitalBrazilcalls it toquinho mineiro