Converting Chances against a team "parking the bus"

Hi Team,

Our focus this week is on converting chances.

The girls played really well in both games this weekend. Our passing from the defensive line, through the midfield line, and up to the attacking line was great. 

We found difficulty in scoring. This is due to a couple of reasons: 

1. We don’t emphasize it a lot in practice (this will change)

2. Both opponents crowded the box in a last ditch effort to block the goal

However, in the last 12-15 minutes of the second game, something clicked for us. Our center backs, Harper and Tsylor/Leah, pushed up to be options for our wingers. Maddie, at pivota, became a passing and dribbling machine as she facilitated the ball to move from one side to the other, and the girls understood that the space wasn’t in the middle of the field, it was on the sides.

By moving the ball from one side of the field to the other, the defense has to shift. When the defense shifts, they leave all sorts of holes to exploit. 

Trying to dribble and pass through seven defenders in the box is difficult when going up the middle!

Our buildup play from the back line all the way up to the attacking line, in general, looked something like this:

As we build up, the opposing team is coming back to block our pathway to goal. So, they will first overload the side with the ball (in this scenario, 9 has dropped it to 10 to complete the third man run from last week!):

Who are the free players in this scenario? And who is the most dangerous of the free players?

The player we’d like to eventually receive the ball is our right wing, 7. She will have a 1v1 situation all the way to the end line. Even if the defenders recover, it will still look like this:

7 can either send a low cross towards the six yard box or penalty spot with the hope of a deflection or finding a teammate to touch it in. 

Or, she can drop it to 4 and facilitate this sequence to happen, which is how we scored both goals on Sunday:

There are many patterns we can create to score here but the principle is the same. We want the ball to circulate into girls in dangerous areas to create and convert goal scoring opportunities.