Trying to play monkey in the middle with a big group? Break people up into teams of 3 people so everyone’s got enough space and more people get a chance to play. If you’ve got a number that’s not divisible by 3, have a team swap out players every few minutes so everyone has a turn. To play keep away, gather a group of players who have control of the ball. Pass the ball back and forth between all of the players except for 1 person. There aren’t rules about where to stand so you can move around quite a bit. If you find that there are too many players and people are spending more time standing around waiting for the ball, split the group into smaller teams that can each play the game.
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If you like, draw a square for each player to stand on. This is useful if you want each person an equal distance apart.
For a variation, you could have players kick the ball instead.
You can make up your own rule about catching the ball. For instance, you might say the person in the middle just has to touch the ball, not catch it. This might make it easier for younger kids to play.
There aren’t points in monkey in the middle so the game keeps going until everyone’s ready to stop playing.
You’ll need 1 soccer ball for each group of members playing monkey in the middle.
The point of this drill is to build teamwork and practice moving the ball around the field.
You can come up with your own rules or goals. You might tell the team that if the offensive players can get to 12 complete passes, they win, for instance.
Monkey in the middle is also confused with keep away, but keep away is played with more than 5 people. The object of that game is for all of the players to keep the ball away from 1 person, but they don’t have to stay in 1 area.
