Ideally, no player ever would end up in a game where he has to defend against 2 attackers without any backup support. However, realistically, this happens in game situations (even if just for a few seconds until backup arrives),

so players need to be trained on how to approach numbers-down defending with confidence. The basic positioning of the solo defender is essentially the same as if he were a Cover player in a 2v2 setting.

In general, until the ball comes within shooting range, a solo defender will try to position himself so that he can remain in the path of the on-ball attacker and slow him down - but he will want to drop off towards goal sufficiently to also keep an eye on the off-ball attacker. As a general rule, most off-ball attackers will remain to one side and slightly behind the on-ball attacker until the ball is entering scoring range. At this point, the off-ball attacker will start to try to move to the far side of the defender in order to prevent the defender from staying enough to provide any pressure on the ball and still keep an eye on the off-ball attacker.

When this move starts to happen, the defender has two basic choices (which depend on which of the two attackers is considered more dangerous). If the two attackers are coming directly in on goal (attacking centrally), then the most dangerous attacker is probably the on-ball attacker, because the goal is relatively open for a shot. In this situation, the best choice is likely to be to make a sudden hard sprint at the on-ball attacker in order to force him to make a rapid shot or pass before he planned to do so (because forced shots/passes often are screwed up - and a hard charge may leave the intended receiver offside). Of course, when the defender makes this decision to come out hard, he must do everything possible to win the ball or knock it away, leaving the keeper to worry about handling the off-ball attacker if the pass gets through. To minimize the possibility of a pass, the solo defender may slightly angle his run to put his body in the easiest passing lanes to the receiver (unless covering the dominant foot appears to be the better option).

On the other hand, if the on-ball attacker has a very poor shooting angle because he is coming in from the side of the goal - but his off-ball receiver is stationed centrally around the top of the box (as he should be)- the most dangerous attacker usually is the receiver. As a result, in this situation, the defender will try to position himself more centrally than the keeper (who will be standing close to the near post). Normally, he will stand around the top of the goal area, in the hopes of intercepting any horizontal pass to the receiver (which is the most dangerous pass to him) and helping the keeper by blocking a low far post shot by the dribbler. Essentially, at this point, the solo defender is leaving the dribbler to the keeper, and simply trying to provide backup to prevent passes to the receiver. He knows that, if the receiver gets the ball, he is sunk - because the whole net is wide open, so he simply does the best that he can to cut off the easy options - and hopes that the attackers cannot convert on the more difficult options.