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I’ve also experienced clubs that either
1) claimed to have a vision (usually revolving around possession, skillful play, yada yada) but in reality have their coaches playing the Sam old same old,
2) who want to implement a top to bottom style that is junk.
We’ve been doing the same thing as you at Mt Tahoma HS ( see vids on this page) and our JV has actually had more success early on because<span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);”> what they are doing is so differentbfrom how ouropponents approach JV. We get mostly kids who don’t play on teams so developing an academy is our only chance to be competitive. Trying to infiltrate the middle schools is our next goal. That would be something</span>
Wow! Nice job. My advice is to keep doingwhat you are doing and find some better competition. Th ey should have thrown out another ball so White had something to play with
@Andrew M
“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.”
I think Alexi doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He’s a victim of the same soccer environment as most of us
Add arrogance on top of that, and it’s a bad combination. If you actually think you know everything: you lose the capacity to learn anything.
He is not a soccer expert, he just plays one on TV.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by
Scott Nelson.
I learned the hard way years ago thaif even if you want to play the ball on the ground 95% of the time, you can’t prevent your opponent from putting it up in the air so you’d better be good enough to deal with it.
Thanks Devin, that is exactly what I needed. This all started because some apologist was telling me we woulda/should/coulda/nearly beat Belgium, and deservedly so, because the FIFA.com stats showed we outpossessed them.
I told him he was out of his mind, but after watching the first half, my analysis supported the stats. The US did indeed complete about 183 passes to 153 (some guess work was required when the camera cut away from the action). It is amazing how differenta game looks upon a second viewing, especially with the primary lens changed from fan to coach. Through both lenses we were still significantly outplayed.
Looks like the old saying is true: There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Not all possession is created equal
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This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by
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This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by
Not offended at all. I agree with most of what you are saying and think it’s more a matter of semantics than world view.
I think the US coaching schools now recognize that what they have been doing isn’t good enough, but recognizing the wrong path does not automatically illuminate the correct path. I would not be surprised to see a complete overhaul several more times in the not too distant future. At least I hope so. Right now the only motivation I persoanlly see for taking a US Soccer course is the credential, not the education.
Damian, I’m curious if you have noticed whether the kids who play hockey do a better job of “getting their heads up” than those who don’t.
I’ve found that the easiest way to do stats is to film the game first and go back and take stats afterwards. If you pause when a ball goes out of play the typical 90 minute game will have about an hour of action to go through. Depending on what you are looking to measure you can often fast forward through the tape too, so it does not have to be a lengthy process. Arbitrary stats can be misleading so I think it’s better to start with a thesis to prove, such as “Jimmy makes too many bad passes in the final third” as opposed to just compiling some stats and trying to interpret them after the fact.
We did try to keep track of basic passing stats this year, simply to get a general picture of how we are doing in terms of playing a possession game, but we task this to somealliums and senior players.
Ive found that simply studying the video is usually more productive than tallying stats. In fact it’s amazing and a little scary how different a game looks when you view it away from the heat of battle and the sidelines. Recently one of our teams won a game and we thought they played great… Until we watched the tape and it immediately became clear that they started well but steadily got caught up in the other team’s jungle ball game.
Cameron,are you saying we can’t just pick and implement a national style? Isn’t that how Germany, Holland, and Brazil did it?
SHORTER Videos.
https://vimeo.com/96827774 5:45 Focus in this game was on attacking-from / building-possesion-out-of the back,
https://vimeo.com/96859382 9:36 Focus in this game was more on transition/counterattacking, but still with the ball on the ground and with the defenders very active in the play
Longer vids on my vimeo page if your curious what the club trained opponents like like when they are on the ball, or you can take my word for it that there is a lot of jungle ball. When the opponents do string a few passes together, they plays tend to go nowhere, starting and dying in the center of the field.
It will be interesting to see if this diamond MF scheme is more than a one-off. Last year I went to take the US B License and it should have been titled the “How to Play the US 4-2-3-1”, because EVERYTHING that was taught revolved around the tactics of this formation. It was explained that ALL US national teams of all ages and genders will be playing this “National Style”, and coaches in the course were encouraged to follow suit. Presumably, this shift in focus for the US Soccer courses went hand in hand with JK’s 4 year extension through the 2018 WC. If he changes horses midstream it shows a pretty deep lack of commitment to his own long term plan.
David, unfortunately no.
The season just ended and I stepped down from this team and left the club. Really nice kids but I reached my patience limit with the board. The final scene in the video was actually from our second to last practice. I used to periodically take little films of them during training and thought it would be cool to string them together to see the progress.
From now on I will definitely start documenting the teams I work with more extensively.
John, I have a few observations that might be different than some of the previous comments. I am coaching HS Boys and have had similar issues to your clip in our early games… lots of the ball, tons of possession, connecting lots of passes (relative to our opponents anyway… I am in Washington State, the spriritual home of Jungle Ball), and no end product in the box. During the past week we made a few key tweaks to the system and thumped our last opponent 4-0, so I think we are on to something.
First what I saw in your clip… on the first attack what really stood out was you had a cm driving forward with the ball and the four players ahead of her were all running away from her, “on the train tracks” in a straight line. There is nowhere to play a ball forward when this happens. The other thing I noticed right away is that in much of the clip when you get near the attacking third their midfielders are marking your forwards, with a line of defenders ten yards deeper. I noticed this right away because my boys had the tendency to do the same thing last year. I fixed the train track problem by establishing a team “rule” that one of the three forwards must always check back when a mf or d is driving forward, and I try to encourage a lot of diagonal runs to open up space (often BEHIND the player who is checking to the ball). I understand the idea of the false nine coming back for the ball, but I think you may find that if you push your #9 onto the last defender and get your #10 in between the lines you will immediately see lots of options open up and you will stretch the opposition. I think your players are plenty good enough to utilize that space and don’t need the #9 to keep possesion, at least not against the oppenent in this clip.
We’ve been hitting those attacking patterns hard and after only a few days we’ve been getting more and harder checks to the ball. Since we have done this in training and games the wingers are all commenting that they are getting a lot more of the ball (even my own “turtle” who subs in on the wing for me) It’s also opening up a lot more space for the central players. I haven’t really explored the geometry of it, but I’m so happy it works I am not dwelling on why.
Your speed of play can be faster and I’m confident it will be if you keep working on it. What I tell myself is that it’s all relative. It just has to be faster than the opposition’s pressure in order to work. Working the attacking patterns has been the most effective way for us to improve the speed of play. We’ve gone from Glacier-Paced to Almost-Not-Slow in short order.
You made a comment that you have a hard time getting the ball out wide, and I have a suggestion on that… try bringing your OB’s back more. I know that the high backs are en vogue right now, but I personally didn’t like it and keep my backs in a traditional “smiley face” crescent shape. This makes it much easier for our CB’s to hit the OB’s, and once our OB’s get the ball early and facing forward it’s no problem to hit the wingers. I feel it’s also easier for the OB’s to hit a one time ball over the top, and although we don’t do it very often, it’s helpful to keep the defenders “biting” on the run that precedes the check back to the ball. Sometimes we deliberately hit a few deep early balls just to set up the check for the rest of the game. If the wingers are marked tightly and check to the ball then there is a lot of space to hit the CM’s and #9.
Finally, we have been able to get the ball into the attacking third on the ground with great regularity, but we are nowhere near good enough to walk the ball into the net (though we spent the first two games trying). We could get the ball wide, no problem, but it was going there to die. We made a new team “rule” that every time the ball goes high and wide (on our soccer/football field that is anything beyond and wide of the “25” numbers) the ball MUST be delivered into the box, and three players MUST attack the box. As soon as we did this, we started creating chances and scoring goals. Some pretty, some not as much. But for now I will gladly take attractive build up play and ugly goals.
I hope there’s something her you can use. Good luck. Looks like you are on the right track. I’m assuming the AG is Arroyo Grande. I have a good friend who coaches down there… A ginger Scotsman named John McGuigan. Do you know him?
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This reply was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by
Shawn, I loved that video for the same reason. This is the kind of thing that you will definitely encounter when you encourage your kids to play out of the back. We’ve got an entire nation of parents now, who if they did play themselves, primarily grew up playing jungle ball, and have watched their other kids play jungle ball for years. Once you start teaching your kids to play correctly you will have the sidelines in a state of utter panic. It is very, very important IMO to keep your parents in the loop and explain to them exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. You also have to explain that sometimes it will break down and cost you some goals during the learning process, but the long term benefits far outweigh the short term risks. Even then, there are the parents that don’t pay attention or are just too dense to get it (one parent recently suggested that one of my players, our best wide attacker, would be a “natural sweeper” because of his “Big boot”, even though our centerbacks always play short out of the back and we’ve never used the word sweeper ever). We also had an interesting experience where we loaned the older team in our club 5 players for a tournament. Whenever my kids got the ball in the defensive third the players, coach, and crowd all called out something like this, in chorus….. “Clear it! Get Rid of it! Knock it!… oooh… nice pass!” But when one of the regular players cleared a ball under no pressure right the the other team’s best player at the top of the box, who subsequently scored, the consensus was that the defender was “unlucky”.
Passing away from the body (as opposed to across the body) can have a few advanatages in specific situations. It does create a better angle for a pass, so if space is tight and you are being squeezed in one direction it makes it harder to intercept a pass. Also, while it shouldn’t be an issue for short passes, if you are switching a ball from one wing to another or are hitting longer passes, the accuracy and pace is obviously going to be better with the stronger foot. I’ve been watching and this seems pretty common among professional players. In the 4v0 I demand that the players receive and pass across the body. In the 4v1 I demand they receive across the body whenever possible, but tell them they should pass with whatever foot conditions dictate. When I see a possession sequence break down, the receiving foot is almost always the culprit, not the passing foot.
I’ve been using rondos as a key training element with my teams for years and gotten good results, but I have to say that the the two details of receiving across the body and moving towards the receiver have made a huge difference. My current U9’s are executing on a level I used to want from my U11’s. Not just in training but in games as well.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by
