Grubber Kick Contest

Starting position

A drill that takes seconds to set up and gives back far more than it looks. One player puts a grubber through between two lines of cones, and two players go after it: an attacker and a defender, released together on the same ball. From there nobody controls anything. A grubber never bounces the same way twice — it skids, it sits up, it kicks off sideways — and that is exactly what makes the drill honest. You work defence and attack in the same movement: one has to secure it, go to ground, protect; the other has to contest, jackal, rip. Both have to read the bounce before the other does. Run the reps back to back, swap the roles, vary the length of the kick. This is the kind of situation you get dragged into in a match and almost never rehearse at training.