In the last years, sports scientists have increasingly considered teams to be complex, dynamical systems and have started to capture their team dynamics based on tracked positional data. However, few studies have focused on the influence of specific performance constraints such as the defense playing method in the team dispersion behaviors. The aim of this exploratory study was to analyze the influence of changing the defense playing method from zone defense to man-to-man defense, in the team dispersion behaviors during small-sided soccer games. We analyzed two small-sided games played by two teams of 6 players (5 outfield players plus a goalkeeper). In the first experimental condition both teams used zone defense, and in the second condition they changed to man-to-man defense. Team dispersion behaviors were captured by four compound variables found in literature– surface area, stretch index, length per with ratio (lpwratio)and teams’ centers distance. Results suggested that the defensive playing method influences team dispersion behaviors. Compared to man-to-man defense, using zone defense teams showed low values of surface area (326 ± 139 m2 vs. 360 ± 172 m2 for Team 1and 195 ± 111 m2 vs. 265 ± 133 m2 for Team 2) and length per with ratio (0.70 ± 0.20 vs. 0.80 ± 0.42 for Team 1 and 0.47 ± 0.21 vs.0.58 ± 0.24 for Team 2). Contrariwise, zone defense implied high values of distance between the geometrical centers (8.6 ± 2.3 m vs.5.4 ± 1.6 m), when compared to man-to-man defense, respectively. Stretch index values were not similar for the two teams as Team 1showed high values for zone defense (15.7 ± 2.8 m vs. 15.2 ± 3.0 m),and Team 2 showed low values for zone defense (10.9 ± 2.8 mvs. 11.6 ± 2.6 m). These findings, although at an exploratory level, suggest that teams adopting zone defense tend to be more compacted, especially in the wide direction of the field. Moreover, zone defense also implied a more structured spatial behavior with teams enlarging the distance between each other