The most effective Walking Football defenders are

-       great at positioning

-       have great communication skills (as they are unable to do EVERYTHING themselves (no matter how good they think they are!) 

 

Additionally, in walking football, they do not have the luxury of being able to recover any loss, by being quick in recovery, as they CANNOT RUN!

 

To get a mental picture of what makes a better defender, WITHOUT CONTACT,  just think of England (World Cup team 1966) and the Centre Backs - Bobby Moore and Jack Charlton - Mooro was regarded as a great reader of the game, top communicator, timer of a tackle and distributor, but “Big Jack” was a traditional big centre back who was strong, great in the air and “no nonsense”, however in walking football the ball cant be headed, contact isn’t allowed and attacks normally start in your defensive third!!

So if picking your team you should pick Moore over Charlton every time for walking football!! Despite Jackie being a great player in his own right.

 

I believe that Paolo Maldini would have been a perfect Walking Football defender, mainly as he read the game extremely well;

But the reason that I believe Maldini, would make the perfect defender was that he was not only a great defender, but was both great initiators of attacks, and could pass the ball really well.

In order to illustrate this, I would like to use a quote that Maldini once used, as it really shows what is ideal about the type of player that he would make in Walking Football.

His famous (and translated) quote was "if I ever make a great tackle, I have already made a mistake".

What he means by this is that his reading of the game was so good that, if he was forced to make emergency recovery tackle (no matter how good it was), it was “bad” because he had already got his self out of position and in the wrong place to do the right thing, defensively.

 

However the most crucial skill for any Walking Football defender, is to be able to organise the rest of his team and make sure that he stays as central as possible, where he can influence the game most, and be in a position to react to any danger - as this is the top priority of any defender, in Walking Football, or Conventional Football!

 

In all honesty, the great Walking Football defender may not always be central, as they will be wherever they need to be, in order to minimise the danger of opposition attacks!

 

SO, to keep it simple, they should take a start position (like the keeper) somewhere on an imaginary line between the ball and the middle of the goal! 

Once there they can react to any scenario.

Once there their role is to delay an opposition attack (ALWAYS STAYING ON THE IMAGINARY LINE BETWEEN THE BALL AND THE CENTRE OF THE GOAL) and allow team mates to get “behind the ball” and stop ANY route to their goal

(The role of the main defender is that they must also be aware of their defending team mates, and also opponents, so that they can make sure that while they protect the goal, other players “routes to goal” are covered)

 

To do this great defenders need two key skills primarily

·        communication skills

·        great vision and awareness

(Note - neither of these are specific football technical skills, but instead rely on normal “human” senses)

 

To remind, again, you of the defender’s priority - it is to stop goals being scored.

Being the instigator of attack is very much a bonus, albeit a welcome one!

 

So, never, ever, allow yourself as a defender to caught caught against two or more attackers without any assistance!! 

If you do, try to buy time to allow team mates to recover, by “staying low” and always stay between the ball and the centre of the goal and work with your keeper to stop a shot coming in or limiting the target for strikers to aim at!