Changing Formation

[Miguel VelasquezParticipant]

Hi Guys,

this is Miguel Velazquez from San Jose California( if anyone else is based out of the Bay Area I’d love to network or get in contact to share ideas and systems)

My big question is this past season we were allowed to move up to Premier, throughout our whole process we have played a 4-3-3. When we came onto 3four3 all the drills were pretty natural to our boys as they fit the positions. This past season though we lost a large amount of our core players. During the season we would see the team loose shape and positions relatively easy, because of this we would see our shape turn into 4-2-3-1, or 4-4-2 eventually we would loose possession of the ball as other teams stayed structured.  Speaking to parents and some players they have expressed their interest to try different formations and shapes.

Would you guys recommend this to be a good thing as a permanent switch or should I just stick to the 4-3-3 and force it onto the team?

[Michael PerkinsParticipant]

Hi Miguel.

I am just across the hill in Los Banos.  I am a believer in basing your formation on the players that you have.  We are not in the professional ranks where we can go out and sign a player that fits a system that we want to run.  I think that we can develop a style that we want to play, but when it comes to personnel at a youth level, you are a bit at the mercy of the players that you have.  Rather than forcing a player who has defensive mid instincts up into an attacking role, why not adjust the formation to accommodate a few defensive mids?  You can still promote a similar style and continue to develop players over time to become players that fit the system you want to run.

[David TkachParticipant]

Hi Guys,

 

I’m up north a little bit in San Francisco.  I would second what Michael said.  Unless you’re a top team and have that luxury to shop around for players to fit exactly what you’re looking for, you have to work with what you’ve got.  I would also talk to them about how a formation is just a rough framework for how you start the game.  What’s much more important is the roles and responsibilities for each position.  So you can still be a possession team and play a 442 or be a “long ball team” and have a 433.  I think as long as your philosophy and style of play is being shown on the field, I wouldn’t worry too much about the formation its being executed in.

 

David

[Eric DykesParticipant]

We too have based our formation on what we have but know you have to recruit some players based on what you want to do. We were stuck in the middle this year.

Example- I have a team with exceptional quickness on the outside attacking areas but they are small and avoid contact. In the 4-3-3 set up it would work for us BUT we have some technically weak players playing one of my outside back spots ( struggled with touch and couldnt play to the second level of the opponent went to a high pressure. We were also very slow in the defensive middle compared to the teams we are playing.

 

Early in the 4-3-3 we were killed as they would attack us with speed and realize real quick that they could attack us on our right side, if they lost the ball create high pressure and we couldnt get the ball out of our end. We had out team and couldnt find a better options (Right back hustles and is a disrupter but on the big field was exposed).

We thought we were doomed playing the top flight but were able to get some win equity by formation that hurt our goal scoring, also it didnt put a couple of smaller, technically gifted kids in the best position to have a ton of success.

We shifted to a 4-2-3-1 with the outside mids really tucking way in and countering with a plan. We looked to hit the target point player (huge strong kid with decent touch) he played it back to the attacking mids and then comboed off of that.

In this system the outside mids need to hold the ball a bit more to give the attacking players time to break out from a tight defensive set. This didnt fit the playing style of our quicker,technical players that needed to combo off each other to break defenders that were often much larger and more physical. They would get knocked off the ball pretty easily. Compounding the problem was the fact that they are 11 years old  playing on a full sized field so the outside mids were running 80 yards both ways so their quicks went away quickly. If those kids can play higher we could be much more deadly.

 

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