n the course of any game, there will be times when the defender "bites" on a feint by the attacker, and dives in toward the direction in which he expected the ball to be, while the attacker merrily goes around him and heads towards goal. This is always upsetting to the defender, but is going to happen from time to time.

So, what does the defender do next? Usually, if there is a teammate available, the teammate will have slipped into a support position behind him. In such a situation, he simply swaps places with his teammate, and drops into a position as the supporting defender (this is called "recovering into a supporting position"). But, what if he was the only or last defender?

While the situation is not good, all is not lost. If the defender is faster than the attacker, he may be able to pursue the attacker and use his shoulder to push/steer the attacker away from the goal. This is entirely legal, and is called a "shoulder charge".

Even if the attacker is much faster, or has a head start, the defender must never give up - and should set an immediate course for the inside of the near goalpost. This action is called a "recovery run" - and what the defender is doing is called "recovering". Often, because of the angle originally set by the defender, the attacker must make a looping run to get into an area of the field where the angles are right for a shot on goal. As a result, the defender often has less distance to cover than the attacker, and can get into a position where he can cut off the easy angles for a shot - even if he cannot entirely block the shot.

Furthermore, many attackers are not very good at shooting at a dead run, so they will tend to slow up in order to set up their shots. As a result, a defender often will be able to catch up to them - and knock the ball away just as they were getting ready to take a shot. This is particularly true when the attacker allows the ball to get too far ahead of him.

In addition, new attackers often will get nervous when they hear the pounding of feet right beside or behind them, and will rush their shots. Likewise, they may take their eyes off the ball, and mis-hit the shot. Finally, of course, strange things can happen. The ball may hit a clod of dirt, or the attacker may trip, or the attacker may even run over the ball. Therefore, defenders must be taught always to recover towards goal at top speed, and never to give up until a goal has actually been scored.

Learning the full range of individual defensive skills takes time, and lots of actual experience with all different sizes/shapes and skill levels of opponents. While new defenders often will be taught initially by pairing them with another player of similar size and skill, the coach must be careful to expand the horizons of the defender as quickly as his confidence level will permit. Even a very small player, or one who may be chunky/slow, can learn to do a good job against an opponent who is considerably faster if exposed to these situations regularly. Likewise, even if a player has such outstanding dribbling skills that he seems destined to become a striker in later years, the coach is well-advised to force this player to spend considerable time in learning basic defense. After all, this player may have the luck to get on a team which already has Ronaldo and Messi. If so, the player can end up in the midfield with solid defensive skills. Otherwise, this promising player may well end up on the bench.