Handball tactical board: drawing defences, crosses and fast breaks

On a handball board almost everything that matters happens between the six- and nine-metre lines. That is where a defence is built, where the backs cross, and where the gap a pivot opens closes almost as soon as it appears.

Why handball needs a board

Twelve court players, a band of floor three metres deep, and decisions measured in steps. Said out loud, a handball move loses exactly the part that makes it work: who is where when the ball arrives. A board puts every player against the lines the game is actually played on, so the squad discusses the same picture instead of their memory of your words.

It also does something the whiteboard in the changing room does badly: it keeps. The system drawn in October is still there in March, with the same names on it.

The court you draw on

A handball court is forty metres by twenty, but tactics live on half of it. Four markings carry almost all of the meaning:

The six-metre line marks the goal area. Only the goalkeeper stands inside it, which is why the defence lives on it.
The dashed nine-metre line is where free throws are taken from, and roughly where the backs shoot from.
The seven-metre mark is the penalty throw.
The four-metre mark is as far as the goalkeeper may come out against a seven-metre throw.

Every diagram below is drawn on the same court the board uses, with the goal at the top.

Drawing a defence

A defensive system is named by how many defenders stand on the six-metre line and how many step out in front of it. Three are drawn more often than all the others put together.

6-0: everybody on the line

The 6-0 defence. Red: defenders. Yellow: the attack — LW left wing, LB left back, CB centre back, RB right back, RW right wing, P pivot.

Six defenders side by side on the six-metre line, each responsible for a strip of it. It is compact against the pivot and against players breaking through between defenders, and it is the easiest system to teach, because every player has one neighbour on each side and one job. What it gives away is the shot from nine or ten metres: a back with a good jump shot has room unless the defender facing them steps out in time — and steps back in time as well.

5-1: one in front

The 5-1 defence: five on the line, one out in front of the centre back.

Five on the line and one defender pushed out in front of the centre back. The advanced player is there to break the rhythm between the backs — to take away the easy pass across the middle and push the ball out towards the wings. The price is paid behind: five players now cover the width six covered before, and the gaps between them are wider.

3-2-1: depth

The 3-2-1 defence: three on the line, two stepping up on the backs, one at the top.

Three on the line, two stepping up against the backs and one at the top. It is aggressive, it wins balls, and it is exhausting to play against — and to play. It also leaves the most space behind the defence, which is exactly where a pivot who gets free is standing. On a board you see that at once; on court, usually too late.

Drawing an attack

The attack has six places: two wings, three backs — left, centre and right — and the pivot on the six-metre line, working among the defenders. Most of what gets drawn is how those six move around each other.

The cross

A cross: the centre back goes diagonally with the ball, the left back runs behind and receives. White: movement. Yellow, dashed: the pass.

Two players whose paths cross, and a pass to the one running behind. The centre back goes diagonally to the left with the ball and draws a defender along; the left back runs behind into the space that defender has just left, and receives. Nothing about the drawing is complicated. What decides whether it works is timing — the moment between the defender committing and the pass arriving — and that is exactly the part a still drawing cannot show.

The pivot’s block

A pivot standing in the right place stops a defender from stepping out onto the shooter. On a board that is one yellow circle moved half a metre — and the whole difference between a blocked shot and a free one.

A player up, a player down

After a two-minute suspension one team plays a player short. Six against five and five against six are rehearsed situations, not improvisation, and both are worth having on the board before the match rather than sketched on a timeout card during it. The same goes for seven against six, when a team takes its goalkeeper off for an extra court player and attacks with an empty goal behind it.

The fast break

A save or a steal, and the ball has to reach the other end before the defence is set. The first wave is usually the wings, sprinting from the moment the ball is won; the second wave is the backs, arriving while the defence is still sorting itself out. After conceding, a quick throw-off does the same job from the centre. All three are sequences of runs, and a sequence is where drawing on paper stops being enough.

Still or animated

A still drawing shows where everybody should be. An animated one shows when — the wing going first, the back arriving second, the pass leaving at the moment the defender turns. In a cross or a fast break the timing is the play, which is why those are the drills worth drawing so that they move. How that works, and when arrows on a still picture are enough, is covered in animated drills.

From the board to the session

On most tactical boards the drawing is where the work ends: an image, saved somewhere. In Ultimate Coach it is where the work starts. The system you drew becomes a drill, the drill goes into a training session plan, and the session goes into the calendar and out to the squad, who see the same court and the same movement on their phones before they arrive.