There are two main types of defensive in ultimate frisbee: Man to Man or Zone Defensive. In man to man, each defender is always with their chosen offensive player which is picked before the frisbee is thrown down field to start the point. While in zone defensive, each defender has their own specific part of the field they need to defend and if an offensive player comes into their section, they need to stick with them to prevent them from catching it. In each defensive structure, especially for man to man, the defending team will typically call a specific sideline to force the offense team to throw to. In most cases, when “Home” is called, it refers to forcing the frisbee to be thrown to where the defensive team’s equipment or bags are. Meanwhile “Away” refers to the sideline that does not have their equipment or baggage.
Man to Man Defense Structure
In this picture I made, the offensive is deploying a typical offensive stack where the red player with a dot has the frisbee. Therefore, the defenders will pick a sideline to force the frisbee to make it easier to defend. This is made possible by the mark (aka the defender on the offensive player with the frisbee) blocking the opposite side of the handler, making them throw towards the direction they want. In this case, the defenders want the frisbee to be thrown to the top of image. The defenders guarding those in the stack, will hence be guarding the other sideline that the mark is not blocking, making it difficult to get a throw to another offensive member. The second handler or dump on red team is being guarded so that the main handler cannot look to the break side (side that is not being forced too) to throw to them.
Man to Man Defense Picture Gallery
3 Man Cup Zone Defense Structure
The above image shows the red team is on offensive while the red player with a dot on them has the frisbee in their hands. In this specific type of zone defense, there are 3 defensive players surrounding the frisbee at all times. One of them is the mark who is on the handler and blocking their dump throw. The 2nd player in the cup is the apex (Or middle of the cup) who blocks throws down the middle of the field. Lastly, the third player is the tail who can either trap the disc or prevent it from going to up field. When they trap the frisbee, they allow the middle handler to throw to the sideline handler where the defender can use the sideline itself as a defense while blocking the up field throws.
Zone Defense Picture Gallery
