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In “Pep Confidential”, the author eludes to Pep stating that he thinks it is not possible to really transition from defense to attacking without a minimum of 15 passes. While I think asking a youth team to make 15+ passes is probably a monumental task, I think the general premise holds for youth soccer as well.
Do any of you provide a similar maxim to your players?
In my situation, I’ve always harped on our ability to keep the ball for at least 7+ passes (if we cannot immediately counter) in order to allow the players on the field to fully expand to our attacking shape/spots. Even before reading this quote, I’ve found that asking the players to make 7+ passes wasn’t simply asking them to pass it around but served a purpose for us to bide time to physically and mentally transition to the attacking phase and build a team rhythm before we find the visual cue (tactical choreography) to attack forward. In reality, its not so much the number of passes but the amount of time afforded for us to make the transition.
In rondos and positional possession games, I’ve engrained the “7+ pass rule” as the minimum to get a point or after that many passes, the defender must stay in again. In tactical choreography, I’ve had the team start from a compact defensive shape as I or the GK punts the ball. As soon as we win it, we must fully expand to attacking shape by that 7th pass before going for a pattern.
I’m curious how others have addressed this concept with players.
I think establishing a passing rhythm is an important concept that only became really clear to me once I observed how a dominant “fast, scoring machine” player on our team disrupted our play (U11G). Having a player on your team that can often just run by people and score against weaker, slower teams will build bad habits, as the other players will just pass to dominant player and just watch her go. Players will stop moving not only because they think she is likely to score, but more importantly, because they don’t know where to move as there are no patterns in her play that give the rest of the team cues as to where the ball might go. Against a stronger team, or when the dominant player is having an off day, our play suffers.
When we mandate that the kids establish a passing rhythm, players know where to move as they can see patterns emerging. In addition to allowing us to get into our shape, multiple passes also allow our players to predict where the ball will be played, and therefore, where they should be making their runs. Everyone is involved, we are less reliant on any individual, there is much more movement off the ball, and the game is much more pleasing to watch.
Although we often use 7+ pass rule to get a point in possession games during practice, we don’t mandate that during games as we have quite a few players that are more likely to play the ball back to safely circulate the ball even when there is clearly space to progress forward. In general, we try to reinforce establishing a passing rhythm in all areas except the attacking third where we are encouraging the kids to aggressively attack.
I read the purpose of Pep’s 15 passes was to maintain shape while “upsetting the opposition’s organisation” and in order to “prevent your rival from making any kind of co-ordinated transition.” Its almost avoiding counterattacking in order to not be counterattacked; the faster you take the ball down the pitch, the faster it will come back.
I connected this with a few things from Barca:
1) I can’t remember if it was Xavi or who, but he talked about how (even if it wasn’t penetrating) a pass could be useful if it helped progress the team up the pitch.
2) I noticed that except for occasional threats over the top, the Barca defenders and mids don’t often seem interested in passes through the opposition back four until Barca’s center backs are at least near the circle. The mids often drop in and 1-touch it back even when they could turn instead.
3) Looking at the sessions that are supposedly from Guardiola’s Barca B team, basically all the patterns involve finding the feet of the front three between the opposition defense and mids before the penetrating pass.
I’ve used some of those patterns often, and I worked on the concept of progressing as a unit for a few practices with a team, primarily by using positional rondos that require the entire unit to move from one zone or half to the other while keeping possession. Once achieved, they could try to score. We tried to implement the concept in a tournament, which in reality basically meant trying to keep more possession in the opponents half.
I think it is a difficult concept for players in youth soccer, but it could be another helpful concept in progressing past the constant transitions of “jungle ball.”
I like the idea of teaching your team to move as a group within positional games. How do you set these games up, do yo have an example?
It was experimental leading to a post-season tournament, but…
One of the smaller activities I tried was 4v0 in a square. On signal, the 4 had to keep passing as they moved to another square that was 10 yards away.
I tried a positional rondo similar to slide 38 here: http://www.slideshare.net/PedMenCoach/fc-barcelona-grassroots-ftbol-base?related=1 but I had another half of the field. The object was to start in one half from the CBs, progress the entire team to the other half and achieve # passes. Then add a goal. I had to make up some conditions as I went…experimenting.
Something similar I tried with a girls team was a setup to play through zones. Players were restricted to their zones except for wide neutrals. Their was an extra zone at the top, ahead of the striker. When the ball arrived in the Striker’s zone, the possessing team all moved ahead 1 zone.
In game situations I tried to encourage more possession in the attacking half and center backs involved in possession near the half. Against a weaker team I asked for a certain number of passes in the opponent’s half before going to goal.
I don’t know if those were good ways to teach it, but they were what I came up with, besides patterns that involve finding the front 3 feet and paying attention to all players’ positions at the end of the patterns.
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</table>I think its silly to have a desired amount of touches without context. If my team counters I want as few touches on the ball than it takes to go to goal. If my team is playing out from the back I want a short-short long fluid movement with intent to unlock the defenses, make the movement of the ball easy and progress the ball forward.
Most youth players (mine included) want to constantly get the ball forward even if it means attempting to take on superior numbers. Its a work in progress.
Its important for me to have my kids know when they have a numerical advantage or disadvantage, a safe split pass vs forcing a risky touch in our back 2/3rd. Its a very challenging thing for youth players to understand the spatiality of the area behind them and understand that that area is often the best, safest touch to get the ball out and forward. Of course this takes more passes, but its understanding the reasoning for the buildup that is important.
Ive had times when we have a counter of 3 v 2 in our favor and the player stalls and plays it back to a supporting player. My player didnt recognize the advantage they had on the opponent.
The last page here shows 4v4+3 (commonly used by Pep) but with 2 halves and goals. The building team has to complete 5 passes in their half before progressing, while the team defending in that half can go straight to goal if they win the ball.
http://excitingfootball.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ft13_10_barca-seminar-scl.pdf
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