As you start out the new season, take a moment and consider what your defensive strategy will be this time around.

Before you continue with this thought, make sure you understand the two fundamentals of defensive strategies—man-to-man and zone marking.

Understanding man-to-man is as easy as it sounds. In this style each player is responsible for his or her opposite opponent. In this case, defenders will usually defend the attackers and vice-versa, while midfielders will mark midfielders.

This type of defense is usually employed by younger-aged players as zone marking is more complex and takes a sound awareness of positional play.

In this higher level tactic, dissect the field into sections, halves, thirds, and quadrants and then begin to assign roles and assignments for positions.

Typically, when areas of the field are divided into these areas, multiple players will combine to apply coverage on opponents, or control a movement of pressure to an area of the field.

Be sure to cover the priciples of individual defending with your team, to improve your success with which ever strategy you use. Click here to learn more about drills that stress individual defending.

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