A set club formation

[Neil HammondParticipant]

All:  I am the technical director for a small club in Northern Virginia.  A friend turned me onto the Klebians and I have followed their blog for a while and now am a recent subscriber to the coaching info.

I have always steered clear from set formations in the past, believing that a team’s formation should be dictated by the players they have, but the success of teams like Barcelona and the success of the Klebians has me questioning this.

Here’s my question…my club is a small club.  Can we standardize our club formation even with a smaller pool of players to draw from?

[Andrew MullalyParticipant]

I think you need to start with what is your core philosophy.  Once you understand how you want your teams to play this translates itself to the field and can be tweaked depending on the actual players your teams have.

Jon Townsend just wrote a great article about playing out of the back in the youth arena.  (I highly recommend you follow him and liviu bird on twitter if you are not doing so already.)  Much of that article is apropos on knowing where you want to go, but dealing with the reality of what you have to work with.

You can see it in the Kleiban’s own set up’s.  Watch different game clips and you will see a variety of tactical formations, but they always devolve to an understanding of positioning and space coupled with movement of the ball.

Ultimately, I think it is more important that your teams be technically and tactically grounded in a philosophy of holding possession with quick precise passing across all three phases of the game than tied to static formations.

[Neil HammondParticipant]

Thanks, Andrew.  I will get on twitter and check those guys out.

[Neil HammondParticipant]

The reason I am asking is because the USSF coaching curriculum recommends 4-3-3 and the Klebians’ stuff emphasizes 4-3-3.

I did write a document for my club, which put forward a focus on possession and developing technically proficient players.  We also have a new system that i put in place where U9-U12 teams have one practice a week led by an experienced club coach, so we can better standardize our coaching methods at a young age.

[Andrew MullalyParticipant]

I like the 4-3-3 myself, but for my current team we usually devolve to a 4-2-3-1.

I have two players who are calm on the ball but don’t have a lot of speed (they aren’t slow, but neither has game changing speed); when we played with 2 ACM’s they consistently got caught to far up field and the gaps between the back line and the midfield were gaping.  Perhaps its just semantics, but by explaining they should play as paired DCM’s, control of the midfield increased dramatically, the gaps between lines closed and both players consistently state they prefer to play that way.

As an aside, the fastest player on our team (its not even close) plays CD.  It has made him a much more complete player.  Instead of playing him on top and just running by people, he has grown into a leader from the back line, calling adjustments to the mids and other defenders, and when he does attack space the results can be dramatic.

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