Defense

 "Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships." 

This quote is from coach Paul Bryant who was a legendary football coach.

Defense is one of, if not the most important positions in soccer.  The main goal for the defense is to stop the other team from building an attack and getting a shot off on goal.  Most teams will have 4 defenders.  2 in the middle, and 2 on the outside.  But much like a midfielder, the role as a defender is the same for all teams.

I play defense myself, and I find that the most helpful thing is to read peoples eyes and watch their body.  By watching their eyes, it will allow you to know where they plan on going with the ball or who they will pass it to.  Their body will show you which way they are going to go.  By using both of these techniques, you will be able to get a jump on the attacker and stop them from scoring.

Another tip for a defender is to not stab or lunge at the ball.  Doing this will expose you and leave you off balance, making it easy for the attacker to get past you.  Instead, stay in an athletic stance and delay the attacker.  Wait until they make their move and then pressure the ball.


Offsides

Offsides is something very important to the defense.  Offsides is when the an attacker receives the ball when they are behind the line of defense.  Some defenses will do an offsides trap which is when all defenders stay in line with eachother which makes it so the forwards can not get the ball behind them.  If a player receives a ball behind the defense, then a whistle will blow and the team playing defense will get a free kick where the offsides penalty happened.

This is a link from a professional soccer team explaining offsides:

https://www.orlandocitysc.com/post/2016/01/01/soccer-101-explaining-offside-rule






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