"Play the Safe Pass and Get Outside"

[Dirk BennettParticipant]

This summer, I spent 2 weeks living in Chicago and working as an assistant coach with FC Barcelona Escola’s camp system. They held several camps throughout the states, comprised of 10 or so Barca coaches from Spain and 20 or so handpicked American coaches from each area. It was an amazing experience where I got to see first-hand how accurate 3Four3 content is alongside true Barcelona curriculum!

One thing that caught my attention was a problem we ran into with possession exercises. The Barca coach I teamed with, Eric, was trying to explain width, depth, and shrinking the field with u12’s in a 4v4v4+2 exercise (4 neutrals on the outside, 2 in the middle, in this case). Often, the players would win possession of the ball and try to either

A. Dribble
or
B. Hit a long ball to switch immediately

This resulted in a very quick loss of possession. When we’re telling them that 5 passes equal a point, this obviously hindered the ability of the game to move forward. Eric, being multi-lingual, was great with the kids, but didn’t know how to express his thoughts on fixing this problem. Something we came up with was the phrase “Play the safe (simple, facile) pass, and get outside.” This gave the players clear and easy to understand instructions. Instead of trying to go to goal or switch fields right away, we encouraged them to play the simple 5 yard pass while the rest of the team was expanding, then move themselves into supporting positions with width or depth themselves. For whatever reason, this particular phrase/cue was instrumental in their understanding and application of these exercises. All we had to do then was teach them how to press 🙂

[Andrew LilesParticipant]

Thanks for sharing this.  Can you elaborate a little- did the players also seem to think it meant, “play the safe pass and then pass the ball to the outside”, or, did “get outside” only refer to their increased spacing?

[Dirk BennettParticipant]

We mostly intended for it to mean ‘get yourself to the outside’, and demonstrated it ourselves to give them clarification. However, as you might guess, once the ball was safely retained, and players moved to the outside, the ball was soon to follow. When successful, they achieved good circulation around the area.

[Lee HughesParticipant]

Dirk: Good stuff! What size grid was being used for this activity?

[Dirk BennettParticipant]

Lee, they were u12’s and we had limited space, being a crowded camp, but I believe we used a 20×30 grid

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