[Danny RogersParticipant]

Hi Aman,

Great post! Not only were you clearly able to identify your teams deficiency but also creative enough to come up with a couple solutions. Good ideas to get the conversation started.

Your short term solution of tactically making changes to adapt to the other teams pressure, is a great strategy within the game to solve the problem. Every game is unique and because not every team will pressure you with that same intensity, it is an ideal band-aid until your team improves their speed of play.

The long term solution of continuing to improve the speed of play can be a tedious task and something that plagues my teams as well. What I have found that helps to expedite the process is trying to mimic that same intensity of those unique games. As a player, it is extremely uncomfortable when teams are aggressively hunting you down for every ball, especially when the week before, the previous team you played would stand back. If within your training sessions you are able to replicate that “balls to the walls”, “no time to breathe”, “I’m coming to destroy you” type of pressure, players may be better equipped to deal with those teams who show up ready to pounce.

Finding ways to tweak the exercises you probably already do everyday is an easy place to start. The 4v1 rondo is the perfect exercise to expose the quality or lack there of in relation to speed of play.

Ex. Play for 45 seconds with 5 balls. If defender wins all 5 balls within the allotted time, 4 offensive players have some sort of accountability i.e. sprints or burpees. If 4 attackers are able to retain possession without losing the ball 5 times, defender has accountability.

A couple things should happen. Hopefully the threat of having to do some extra fitness will get the defender to pressure the ball with that game intensity we’re trying to replicate. If that’s the case, the offensive group will find itself struggling to keep possession. This is where you can nurture those fundamentals of possession Gary addressed (awareness,spacing,communication). Loss of possession can almost always be attributed to those three concepts. Before the ball came to Johnny, did he know where he was going to play? Did Juan move early into a good passing lane to support Johnny at an appropriate angle? Did Johnny make sure he reassured Juan that switching to Alexis was the right decision? If not call them out!

Technical quality is also another huge reason for turnovers. The consideration of the pass is a massive component in playing out of high pressure. Pace and placement can both speed up and slow down possession of the ball. It could be that the placement of the pass wasn’t to a teammates opposite foot (too far in front or behind) and that player is forced to take an extra touch. Maybe the pass wasn’t hit hard enough to get to the player in time. Or maybe the pass was hit with so much pace that the receiving player didn’t have the quality to control it cleanly. Either way, by challenging teammates to play hard and accurate passes, it’s all preparation for that unique game when teams come to smother you with pressure.

Unfortunately there are no shortcuts when it comes to building those fundamentals of possession, but by increasing the speed at which players have to execute those fundamentals, players are now challenged and learn to become more comfortable dealing with those types of high octane pressure situations.

When the speed of play is inadequate at our training sessions, I try to remind my teams that we are not preparing to play the teams who give us time to play. We are preparing to play the ones who don’t. If we can consistently train at the speed of the most intense pressure we will face, we shouldn’t have a problem going up against anybody else.

Good luck and keep those other teams chasing the ball!!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  Danny Rogers.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  Gary.

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