How To Play Midfield In Indoor Soccer

Playing midfield in indoor soccer is a fine art, and it’s very tough for most people to learn and execute well. Since the field is so small, it’s very hard to create space for your forwards and yourself. Because of this, you need to work very hard to be able to accomplish anything. For the purpose of this article, I’ll be discussing the role of a midfielder in a 2-1-2 formation, since this is the most common formation with a midfielder.

Let’s start with the defensive side of things. What you do on defense depends on whether you are using man marking or zone marking. If you’re man marking, your job is pretty easy - all you have to do is mark their third player back. The other team will more than likely have two forwards, so you just mark the next player back after the forwards. You should stick on them where ever they go, whether it’s in your defensive box or their defensive box. Check out this article on how to use the boards - it's really useful!

If you’re doing zone marking, it’s a little bit harder for the midfielders. You have to mark the entire central area of the field. This is usually considered to be the middle third of the field lengthwise - meaning that you start marking a third of the field away from either goal. Your job is to get on anyone that comes into that area. If the ball comes through that zone, which it often does, you have to get to the ball and take it away. If you need help deciding whether to zone or man mark, check out this article about zone and man marking in indoor soccer!

Now let’s move onto offense. It’s hard to play offense as a midfielder in indoor soccer. You need crisp, accurate passes, good, quick touches, and a decent shot. The first part of the offensive play is receiving the ball from your defenders. When they pass it to you, you need to be able to turn quickly around anybody that’s marking you and explode forward to create space and draw defenders. If you’re in the middle of the field, this probably means executing a move to get around a defender and then taking a strong touch forward.

The next thing you do when you’re on offense is to pass the ball off to your forwards, most likely. Of course, you can always try to dribble through the defenders, but this rarely works. The best type of pass in indoor soccer is a leading pass. Always try to hit a crisp ball on the ground in front of your forwards so they can run onto it and take a shot. Work on hitting these passes accurately, and your team will have the best chance of scoring.

Of course, your forwards will often pass the ball back to you. You need to be ready for this and ready to receive the ball. Frequently, the defenders will be marking your forwards, so you are open to take a shot. Do it! This results in a ton of goals.

Now that you know how to play midfield in indoor soccer, go and try it out! It’s a lot of fun!