Breaking Lines
Breaking lines refers to moving the ball past defenders towards the goal you are trying to score into. Imagine a line that goes from sideline to sideline through each defender or line of defenders. We will consider each player to have a line so if you pass the ball past 3 players you are breaking three lines of defence. The main point we want to emphasize is the visual picture of getting the ball past players rather than pass back and forth without breaking the lines.
In this video the blue team tries to break lines going forward with a good positive mindset to go forward. The yellow team wins the ball plays back to the keeper while the field players open up and expand. The yellow team is able to break multiple lines and move the ball down the field. The final pass by the yellow team did not break a line and ended with a shot from distance that was an easy save by the goalie.
The blue player with possession is looking to break as many lines as possible with a pass, while also being the highest percentage pass possible. This is where the decision making comes in to play. We don’t want to always boot the ball up the field trying to break all the lines at once because the passing percentage goes drastically down when you try and do this most of the time. On the other hand the closest easiest pass is that is a higher percentage doesn’t break enough lines or any lines and becomes ineffective at progressing the ball up the field in possession.
Key Points
High Percentage passes while breaking as many lines as possibleWhile playing the ball back a team should still have the intention on eventually breaking lines going forwardPlayers should also thing about breaking lines with the dribbleoptimally the best scenario is breaking lines while keeping possession