Characteristics and variations of the rondo
Many coaches, such as Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola, use rondos in the first part of their training sessions. Rondos vary from 3v1 in a triangle, 6v2 in a rectangle and 15v3 in the centre circle. What characterizes a rondo and what variations are possible?
Characteristics
A rondo is a type of training drill where one team tries to keep possession, where one or more defenders try to win the ball.
Opposed to other drills, there’s a huge overload for the attacking team, there’s no direction and the pitch size is usually small.
Typically, defenders start in the middle of a rondo with the players who try to keep possession on the outside.
Drills such as 5v5 + 2 are best described as position games or possession games, because the defending team doesn’t have to deal with a big underload of players and players do not switch teams after possession is lost or won.
There are many different variations to use in a rondo.
Scoring points
When completed a certain task so, the attackers earn a point or the defenders stay in the middle an extra time. This can be done by …
- playing ten (or any other number) successful consecutive passes.
- keeping possession for fifteen seconds (or another period).
- touching the ball at least once with every player.
- passing the ball in between the defending players.
Additional tasks
After every pass, a player …
- moves towards the position of the player he passed the ball to.
- moves around a cone located outside of the rondo pitch.
- must perform five sit-ups or three push-ups.
Restrictions
Players are not allowed to …
- pass the ball to the player next to them.
- pass the ball to the player they received it from.
- take more than 1 or 2 touches.
- pass the ball with their preferred foot.
Other variations
More options to vary in rondos are …
- playing with two balls to develop better scanning.
- Obliging players to hold each other’s hands (used as a fun game).
- Play with a middle section with an attacker.
More variations
By clicking on the image below, you’ll find rondo variations from Bayern München, Paris Saint-Germain, Atlético Madrid, Villarreal (2) and Everton.
