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A couple things I have done as tweaks I liked to some of my most-used content, some of it for players as young as U11/12 but mostly for U13-university.
4v1 rondo: Instead of starting players out at 4v0, I put a passive defender in the middle who could only get out of the middle by calling their teammates on not receiving across their body or taking more than 2 touches. I did this for a couple reasons. The first is that it does add a bit of spatial awareness that no defender just doesn’t provide. The second (and more important) is that it gets the players used to holding each other accountable for their performance. After a couple weeks of that, the players were more comfortable telling others and being told by others that they need to get their shit together and saw a collective rise in attention to detail and maintaining high effort.
6v6+3 positional rondo (I used the same basic principles in a 4v4+3 for this tweak): After a couple weeks of using this, I decided to progress it into a transition activity with my U15-18s (note that I’ve been working with that group for 3-4 years, so they were already used to some of the more basic stuff). I would set the rondo up around midfield and then add a target 9 with two centerbacks defending them. When a team lost possession, the other team had 3 passes to find the 9 and counter to a goal. Many different things to focus on with the transition portion on both sides of the ball. Defense: who steps and who drops based on where the ball was lost, when it’s appropriate to do a tactical foul, defensive rotations in transition, etc. Offense: transitioning into space based on where the ball was won and direction ball handler is facing, whether a pass into the 9 is on, how to combine off the entry pass into the 9, etc. I think from there it isn’t a far leap to work on counter-pressing too with more advanced players.
Midfield pressure: Eventually I added a progression where I got rid of the goals and instead used two target players who were free to move on the endline. Forced the offball defenders to check their shoulders and communicate runs with their teammates. Also allowed us to work on penetrating passing/receiving with the offense a bit.
I’m moving back to Seattle in a couple weeks and am excited to pick up a brand new team and teach them the details now that I have some experience looking for and coaching them.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by
andrew crollard.
Walter,
I’m no longer associated with that club so took down that particular section of the website. If I remember correctly, it was the list that I posted in the second half of this blog post: http://offballmovement.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-abridged-style-of-play-philosophy.html
I concentrated mostly on numbers 1, 2, 8, and 9 with that group since I knew their next coach in high school is a much better coach for defensive organization and tactics than I am.
I was in a bit of a unique situation with that group because before me only two of them had ever had coaching from someone who knew anything about the game at all. So, given that I would play with them and could clearly play the game, it gave me instant credibility in their eyes and they all 100% bought in to what I was doing. When I picked them up, they were the classic jungleball team where they launched it up to the two most skillful players.
I spent A LOT of time talking with those two players (CB and CM in the first video) about the game and showing them youtube clips of what the highest level of play is like in terms of movement and circulation of the ball. That was the biggest key, getting those to players to trust the other teammates so it was 11v11 in possession instead of 2v11. I think the videos show pretty well that guys like my left wing and right back in the second video were pretty dang weak technically so giving them some simple framework allowed them to play a hell of a lot quicker as they could just run through their first three options mentally instead of allowing them to just play and freak out because they didn’t know what to do other than “BIG KICK LITTLE TIMMY!” Basically, it allowed our better players (CB, DM, CM, CF, LCB, RM) to use them for 1-2 passing and to keep simple possession.
Feel free to ask any follow up questions. I LOVE talking about my product.
I think Phil’s comments are all good things for you to think about.
Really impressed with positioning of your left mid #4. Doesn’t expend energy sprinting constantly but understands when to sprint before a player passes to him. Also had great patience on defense to stay central and force them to play wide when they were switching in your defensive third. It looks like he’s going through a growth spurt and isn’t used to his body mechanics at the moment, but based on the small sample, he looks to have a good understanding.
There were some serious spacing issues once you started making subs. The forward and a CM kept occupying the same space which was causing issues for being able to play through the middle to allow your wings to push forward. Also after making subs, the wide players don’t understand what they’re supposed to do defensively when they aren’t the first defender – they’re generally staying wide and marking neither useful space nor a man.
The holding mid in the second part (17?) roamed wide a ton defensively which resulted in your backs sending a couple blind clearances because they didn’t have an easy outlet in the center. That wasn’t a problem in the first part as the holding mid at the time pretty much just sat in and facilitated the transition from defense to possession.
Overall, it looked much better than the U12 teams I’ve seen around here. Much more patient and far less kick and chase.
I see that it is mentioned that existing 3four3 member coaches will be allowed to participate. Will you guys be posting dates and locations of where you’ll be holding your sessions? I know my club is too stingy to bring you guys in, but I’d be willing to travel anywhere from Salt Lake to Vancouver BC to Sacramento if the dates work for me.
Don’t put any stock in gotsoccer rankings. My team is ranked 3rd in our state but are closer to 30th in reality.
This season I played in a league where we were clearly outclassed physically and technically. Our tactics were the only thing that kept us anywhere close. We then played our end-of-season tourney against competition that historically has been on par with us and we just slaughtered them. Playing in the faster-paced league really pushed my boys to improve and the half that I graduate on to our high school program are now by far the most talented bunch I’ve ever passed on. There’s pros and cons to playing both up and down in skill level, which is why I’m a proponent of doing both via leagues and tourneys at different levels of play.
In theory, your attackers are immediately pressuring the ball so they cannot send that long-ball in the first place. That should give time for your defensive 5 players to recover into better positions.
Also, your weak-side center back should slide over more toward the middle when the ball is in the attacking third (there will be plenty of time for them to get into proper attacking position should the ball start being shifted in their direction). It should be pretty rare for your team to get caught out with both outside backs pressing high, so the weak-side outside back also shifts over to help balance. That should alleviate most of the rest of the opportunities the opponents would have to try to attack like that when your attackers can’t apply that early pressure.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by
I tend to “hide” my weaker players as wingers when they see the field, so possession in the attacking third continues to be a problem for us whenever we move away from the starting 11. I’ve decided to work on a bunch of patterns that simplify the roles of the wingers and maximize the time on the ball of my central players. Since the teams we face from last week and until the end of the season all play a high line, we’ve been working on thru-balls to the corner, then circulating the ball from winger-wingback-CM and then combine between CF and CMs on top of the box. We’re still struggling with possession high up the field, but we’re trying to exploit the space in behind their backline with thru-balls to keep their backs honest.
Here’s the first half of our game this last weekend. We’re in white and ended up drawing 1-1, but I felt we played well considering the blue team beat us 9-0 two weeks prior. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIpHEB4OC3w
Chad,
Thanks. I’ve been on the possession path since I was essentially player/coach of my club team in high school 10 years ago. It always just made sense to me as a player since I was one of the small, slow, technical players with vision that are so often overlooked. My real challenge has been how to communicate the style to a bunch of kids that have never had serious coaching and obviously have low technique, low athleticism, and/or low inner drive for many of them.
With regard to the wingers, you’re absolutely right and was the first thing I noticed when I watched the replay. All of the kids playing there in this game were second or third choice and have been with me since the fall. Of 10 teams in our league over the last 3 seasons, our opponent and one other didn’t play with a high back line. So, we’ve spent a lot of time working on when and how to send thru balls from our center mids to wingers cutting in. They just haven’t been instructed (until earlier today when we were working on Attacking pattern 2) on what to do when a team plays a deep back line. Our theme of the week is possession in the attacking third, so hopefully we’ll be better next time out.
-Andrew
Yes! This is the video I’ve been wanting! Loved hearing Brian keep the kids thinking 1 or 2 steps ahead to help them recognize the patterns about to unfold based on the current situation. This came out as perfect timing, watched it the night before our first game of the season and utilized some of the things I heard. Even though our opposition was completely awful, we stayed mostly true to our identity and style with much success. Waiting to get the video back from one of my team parents for review and I’ll post it for critique in a couple days.
My full-time gig is as an economist/statistician so I’ve put a lot of thought into how to do this without spending 20+ hours a week on just that project and I’m failing to come up with a solution. The type of stats that you can easily get are pretty worthless or so rudimentary that the eyeball test is a measure of equal or better value.
My team is switching from a 3-4-3 to a 4-3-3 this season. I’ve had 2 sessions where we’ve worked building out of the back and the kids (U13 players) who are new to the program (combined U13/14) this year are struggling with the timing of establishing width. Thankfully, none of the older guys are struggling so I’ll have 3 competent outside backs to choose from, 2 of which can comfortably play on both sides. I’ll keep training the two younger guys I’m looking at playing there, but they’ve got a long way to go.
In my second session, I decided on working throw-ins into the equation where we throw it to a shifted CB who has the intent of playing to a holding mid (either directly or through the other CB) who then plays it to the weak-side wingback who is streaking up the sideline. I’m excited to see us pull this one off in our first game this weekend.
Sadly, an English accent gives more credibility to people organizing camps here than actual knowledge of development.
That is too late for my schedule. I still have a 4 hour drive to get home from Portland. Another time.
I might stop in, depends on how early I end up leaving Corvallis.
I’m swinging through Portland on Monday afternoon. Anyone training that I could drop in on?
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This reply was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by
