What is recovering?

When there is a turnover in possession and a player finds themselves the wrong side of the ball – in other words, they are not goal-side – they will need to run back towards their own goal until they are in a position to either win the ball back or protect the goal.

This movement by the player - running back to help their team defend, usually pretty urgently - is referred to as a ‘recovery run’.

Why do we need to recover?

The main purpose of a recovery run is for a player to help their team defend the goal.

By getting themselves between the ball and the goal, they are increasing the number of players the opposition have to penetrate before they are able to score.

Recovery runs enable a team to become more compact and reduce the space that is available to their opponents. If players failed to make these runs back to support their team-mates, there would be large spaces for the opposition to exploit.

The opposition are also likely to be in a position to create overloads, which will help them retain possession and penetrate defensive lines. 

Another threat, should players not recover, will come from opposition players running from deep. These runs should be tracked by players who are recovering - but if they fail to do so, some opposition players will find themselves completely unmarked.

How do we recover?

When initially making a recovery run, a player will find themselves either chasing the player with the ball or attempting to get back into a position to fill spaces.

Though there are many similarities between these two scenarios, there are also some slight differences that players need to understand and be aware of.

Chasing an opposition player

When chasing an opposition player in possession, players will often fixate on the ball and trying to win it, even when there is little chance of being able to make a tackle.

Players must identify when they can actually win the ball and when their priority should instead be to protect the goal.

Their first aim must be to get between the ball and the goal, so that the opponent has an obstacle in front of them instead of a clear path to their target.

Quite often, the player will try to make a tackle from behind the player on the ball, or when they are on the wrong side of them. This will result in them either failing to win the ball or, more likely, committing a foul.

The line they should take when making their recovery run should not be directly to the ball, but to an area on the field where they are able to position themselves between the ball and the goal.

If they aim for the ball, then by the time they get there, their opponent will have progressed further up field.

Therefore, recovering players must work out where on the pitch they can get to ahead of their opponent so that they can get between the ball and the goal. Once they have achieved this, they can then engage the player on the ball and attempt the tackle.

Helping players understand the need to get into the right position first will help develop their understanding around the concept that protecting the goal is the first priority when out of possession.

The only time we might ask them to go directly to the player with the ball, rather than an area of the pitch, is when there is not enough time to cover an area and the player with the ball is a real danger.

For instance, that player might be breaking through on goal and moving into a position where they will be able to have a shot.

In this scenario, there will probably not be enough time for a recovering player to get to a place where they can protect the goal. Instead, they need to get to the opponent as quickly as possible and try to win the ball, or at least apply pressure, in order to force the attacker away from goal or make their task of completing the shot a lot harder.

What makes this difficult for the defender is needing to read the situation and make the correct decision as to whether to go to the player or block the space ahead.

Players will only improve this aspect of the game through practice; the more they experience something, the easier it is to predict what is going to happen and make the correct decision.