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Very disappointing style of play from the Women. I tweeted it reminded me of old generals fighting the last generation’s wars. Unless something dramatic happens I don’t see the US doing well this World Cup cycle. They need to get rid of the old aging stars, use more youth and play soccer: Not just try to get in behind (Which Foudy must have mentioned a million times).
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.
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.
I kept saying we need to hold the ball longer. The way that game was going we should have passed it around in our half for as long as Belgium would sit back. Simple movement and holding the ball would have given everyone some time to rest on the ball and would have forced Belgium to stretch instead of sitting in their half and waiting to apply pressure.
The real tragedy is the few times we did that we immediately lost the ball in transition at midfield and then Belgium sliced through our line. No “tranquilo” in the center means increased pressure on the back four to stop counters anywhere Belgium decided to attack. And the US with “more possession” allowed Lalas to open his idiot mouth and babble about possession like he knew something.
I kept wondering if he felt like a school kid sitting next to Martinez. There’s someone who’s soccer knowledge oozes from every pore. (I doubt it. Lalas strikes me as someone who thinks his shit don’t stink.)
Set Pieces are hugely important at all levels of the game. Lalas is right in that; its the smug way he espouses his opinion on set pieces that grates on anyone serious about the game. For Lalas it was one of the few ways his teams could ever score.
My teams usually spend a good chunk on set pieces every few weeks (like a session every 3-4 weeks during pre-season) so that players get used to basic concepts and ideas that we are looking to execute. During actual gameplay the actual execution (short, deep, near post, driven, etc.) of any set piece is up to the players on the field. But without some practice of what to look for and how to execute, set pieces devolve into pure pinball luck.
Also, Keepers need to be able to work on defending different set pieces and hard to do with unopposed drills. Without the chaos of moving bodies, keepers have a false sense of how easy it is to pull balls out of the air. A lot of keepers are great practice guys, look dominant when not under pressure, but when they have to move through traffic, those practice gods sometimes become extremely timid and never move off their lines.
Finally, set piece kicking is a very specialized skill and the players who are taking those set pieces should practice their kicks on a regular basis (before or after every session would probably be best) Pirlo may have been born with a devestating free kick, but I’m sure he works on it repeatedly. That kick against England was spectacular. Just amazing.
A couple of observations/questions
I had a question on substitutions at the academy. Are they limited to 3 per game as in in FIFA or can you do more substitution. I noticed at least one player (maybe 2) subbed in Brian and I think I saw at least 3 subbed in by San Jose, but it was hard to tell as the camera didn’t really follow the substitutions; especially for San Jose. I find substitutions to be one of the hardest juggling acts for a coach, especially when the club mandates some minimum playing time (needless to mention parent expectations).
The San Jose team had some quality players who tried to move the ball one touch/two touch, the main difference between the teams was the discipline of the Chivas players and the willingness to recirculate. What I appreciated was Brian’s frustration when the boys weren’t checking the field before receiving and then being unable to take advantage of their movement along the back. Repeatedly he asked XuXuh to open the game up and noted when he hadn’t checked his options. When they did check around them the speed of play was twice as fast. Good lesson there.
Link up in the final third wasn’t as clean as in Brian’s old Barca teams. Part of that might be speed of play of the opposition, but I think that more its a learning curve/comfort level of the team. They weren’t exploiting the other teams breakdowns fast enough allowing San Jose time to recover and making it hard to find the gaps in the final third. Going forward I would look for Chivas to play the ball into the 8 and 10 more often to draw the outside defenders in and then play the ball back out to 7/11 or find the 9 on an angled run.
I also thought the 9’s runs were a little to straight, angled runs would open the defense up more especially when they were attacked on XuXuh’s side. You could see the defense react every time XuXuh came forward, drawing multiple defenders to that side. On the other flank, the 11 had a good change of pace especially when turning the corner and he had a couple of good crosses that the 7 could have exploited if he attacked the space on the far post.
Finally, at half Brian’s assistant noted they had approximately 70% possession. Any idea on what the final possession was? The second half had far more breakdowns and turnovers so I assume San Jose’s possession increased, but they rarely threatened to find the tying goal and their effective possession was minimal.
I have that app and have used it, but I was thinking of more something like what FourFourTwo does. Their passing charts and heat maps are very illuminating.
Hi everyone:
Been waiting to introduce myself until my team was assembled for this next season. It looks like practices will be starting next week. I’ve coached for the last 9 years, mainly on a rec level, but at club for the last 2. I’m currently the assistant for a boys U-13 high bronze team, but have coached girls U-10 and boys U-15 as well. I have 3 kids who all play club and am constantly trying to improve my own skills as a coach. That hunt led me to the Kleiban’s videos and then Gary’s blog and finally here.
The head coach for my current team is fully on board with what we want to implement. I’m looking forward to the process and to see the progression in our team. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some video going and I’ll post our successes (and probably some failures too.)
Andy Mullaly
@apmullaly
Ryan:
I like the breakdown of categories. Its one of the reasons I prefer to evaluate players in small scale situations. Watching them at a couple of practices/games tends to give you a better feel for their actual abilities than in a cattle-call tryout. Some kids are tryout masters, but over the longer haul their bad habits and lack of effort/caring comes out.
