What kind of formation can we use to win?

[ZeekLTK]

I have a men's intramural team and our player pool is pretty limited because we play for an organization we're in, so we can't just go out and pick up new players that we need to fill positions like most other teams in the league can, they have to join us in order to play.

Note: The IM league is, I think, 7v7 for outdoor, and 5v5 for indoor. This post is for outdoor.

Last year we lost both of our forwards to graduation and unless we get a really good freshman or two (which can't be counted on) we now have a team full of defenders. We have two players who have never played soccer before last semester and used them as defensive subs during indoor (because they have very poor ball control skills, but we needed more players, so we got them to play), but with the loss of our seniors, it looks like these guys will be starting this coming season in outdoor. Then we have three strong defenders, a decent midfielder (who is more defensive than offensive), and two keepers who are "decent" in net, at best, and neither of which are any good in the field (even though we might need to use one of them in the field just because we lack players). We also have a winger who rarely shows up to games and doesn't have very good ball control either, but he's pretty fast.

So... what can we possibly do to get results this season (which, unlike the other threads I've read where development is the key and results aren't, in this thread winning is the *only* goal) aside from hoping we can get some new members who actually play forward? What kind of formation can we run? I seriously think it would be a waste to have anyone play striker because all it would accomplish would be taking a player away from our defense and essentially taking them out of the game because we would hardly ever be able to get the ball to them. And if we put one of the bad players (new guys) up front it would be a waste because once we got them the ball, they wouldn't be able to do anything with it. When I look at this lineup and try to get ready for the upcoming season, I feel like we're American Samoa preparing for World Cup Qualifying against Australia. We need to win, but honestly, don't know how.

We had (pretty much) the same roster for one of our indoor games (both senior forwards missed it due to something else going on that night) and it was a disaster. We put our best defender (since he was our best ball handler) up front and kept everyone else in their normal defensive roles. They had the ball in our half of the field for like 75% of the match and whenever we would get it up to our lone striker, we'd never be able to get enough players up front to help him out, so by having him up there, all we did was hurt our defense and take one of our best defenders out of the game. We lost 2-0, and I think we only had 1 shot the entire match. When they scored to make it 1-0 in the first half it was pretty much over, but we decided to continue playing our defensive formation just to keep it respectable, because if we had moved more players forward we probably would have lost 7-0 or whatnot. If we had kept our defender in the back we might have been able to squeek out a 0-0 draw, but there was honestly no way we were going to score in that game without our forwards. But that was fine then, because they were back the next week and we did alright during the season and made the play-offs, but lost in the first round. However, now we are faced with an entire season without our forwards... unless we can figure something out, we're in for a LONG season.

Pretty much here is what we have to work with:
Player A: Great defender, Decent striker
Player B: Great defender, Poor striker
Player C: Great defender, Terrible striker
Player D: Good defender, Decent striker
Player E: Good defender, Terrible striker
Player F: Decent defender, Terrible striker
Player G: Decent keeper, Poor defender, Terrible striker
Player H: Poor keeper, Terrible defender, Terrible striker
Player I: Poor defender, Poor striker

On a scale of 1-5 I'd say this is how those translate
5: Great
4: Good
3: Decent
2: Poor
1: Terrible


Edit: So this was the formation we ran last year (assume Player X and Player Y are the forwards we lost):

-------X-------Y------
-----------D----------
------E---------------
---B------A-----C-----
----------G-----------

Subs: F, H, I (if he showed up)

We had good success with that, but now without X and Y, I'm really lost on what to do.

[thepundit]

you've got to get the guy who's a decent defender up top playing slightly behind or level with the bad guy who's really fast. keep your solid defense intact. i hate to say it but what i'm seeing is a longball gameplan with the decent guy winning knockdowns for his speedy strike partner. encourage your forwards to shoot frequently even if they have very little chance of scoring. allow your right and left backs license to join the attack to a certain extent, relative to which side the ball is on. in indoor look to condense the space very tight in your opponent's half whenever possible with your central defender staying home to stave off the counter attack. that defense-first midfielder should look for opportunities to get shots and release the fast guy.

[spartanpele]

Put A & D up top at striker; B-center Def, C-left def, E-Right def; G at GK; F and whatever is leftover at midfield. Play longball from the back to the top and have your strikers and mids pressure everything.

When you sub, rotate in your bad players 1-up top, 1-midfield, and let them chase everything. Then on next subbing rotate them out and the other weak ones in plus rotate back in your stronger players for stronger players. (Never have all the weakest players out on the field at the same time.)

In the meantime, work on shooting, holding the ball, footskills, 1v1s at your practices....if you practice. If you don't have practices...then try to recruit some new talent, any talent, that has a clue as to how to play up top or the midfield.

Best of luck!!

[mzbrand]

I faced a similar situation a couple of seasons ago where I had a decent defense but no one capable of scoring. The bad news is that it seems to be a personality thing. As hard as I tried I was simply never able to turn even my best (defensive) midfielder or veteran defender into a scoring forward. I had to wait until a few of shooters finally showed up on my roster.

Of course this was with very young girls. Hopefully your players can work hard and learn new skills. But I would tag at least two of the players only as strikers (sounds like you've already identified two) and try to get them concentrate changing their mind-set. Playing defense is just a very different way of looking at the game and it sounds like you'll need to retrain a couple of your players.

Depending on how good your defense is you might try playing a low scoring, tight defense strategy. Basically you keep your best players in the back deliberately playing mostly in front of your goal. Then you score on fast breaks. If your fast player with iffy ball control can shoot this might be a good way to use him.

To try this I'd start with a 3-2-1 formation where you keep your striker as close to the opposing goal as possible. Longball may work here, but it would be better if you create an effective coordinated attack that you trigger under the right conditions. My first thought is to have your striker periodically switch fields at a point when it looks like the defenders can win control of the ball. If you're lucky you'll draw most of your opponents in toward your goal leaving your striker with some space to work with.

Good luck!

[ZeekLTK]

I realize I didn't really put together anything decent in order to see what kind of team we have. I appriciate the help, so far, but maybe this could help more.

Player A:
-Offense: Decent
-Dribbling: Solid
-Shot Acc: Solid
-Shot Power: Solid
-Stamina: Excellent
-Speed: Solid
-Defense: Excellent
-Keeper: Weak
-Experience: Solid

Player B:
-Offense: Weak
-Dribbling: Decent
-Shot Acc: Weak
-Shot Power: Solid
-Stamina: Excellent
-Speed: Decent
-Defense: Excellent
-Keeper: Poor
-Experience: Solid

Player C:
-Offense: Weak
-Dribbling: Decent
-Shot Acc: Solid
-Shot Power: Decent
-Stamina: Poor
-Speed: Decent
-Defense: Excellent
-Keeper: Weak
-Experience: Decent

Player D:
-Offense: Decent
-Dribbling: Solid
-Shot Acc: Poor
-Shot Power: Decent
-Stamina: Decent
-Speed: Decent
-Defense: Solid
-Keeper: Decent
-Experience: Solid

Player E:
-Offense: Poor
-Dribbling: Poor
-Shot Acc: Poor
-Shot Power: Decent
-Stamina: Excellent
-Speed: Solid
-Defense: Solid
-Keeper: Weak
-Experience: Poor

Player F:
-Offense: Weak
-Dribbling: Poor
-Shot Acc: Weak
-Shot Power: Weak
-Stamina: Solid
-Speed: Excellent
-Defense: Decent
-Keeper: Poor
-Experience: Poor

Player G:
-Offense: Poor
-Dribbling: Weak
-Shot Acc: Decent
-Shot Power: Weak
-Stamina: Solid
-Speed: Poor
-Defense: Weak
-Keeper: Solid
-Experience: Decent

Player H:
-Offense: Poor
-Dribbling: Poor
-Shot Acc: Weak
-Shot Power: Poor
-Stamina: Solid
-Speed: Decent
-Defense: Decent
-Keeper: Decent
-Experience: Decent

Order:
Excellent
Solid
Decent
Weak
Poor

I adjusted a few ratings a little from the first post and left off Player I because he hardly shows up anyways...

again, thanks for all the help/advice.

[Elroy]

Just keep a lot of beer in your trunk and enjoy the match!

[Roush]

Just keep a lot of beer in your trunk and enjoy the match!

Trunk, hell.... Pitchers on the bench.

[ZeekLTK]

Eh.... well the season ended tonight and we finished 1-4-1 (W-L-D)

Scores were:

0-2
2-3
0-3
0-3
1-0
1-1

Good news is we never gave up more than 3 goals in a game (which is amazing considering how much possession we gave up), bad news is we scored a total of 4 goals all season, one was on a penalty kick (in the 2nd game). :/

All but 2 of the goals scored on us came in the 2nd half of games. Our defense held firm for as long as possible, but eventually the other team finally broke through since 80% of the time the ball was on our half of the field since no one we put up front could do anything with it. It turned out the league was 9v9, so we had some guys playing who had never played before. At the very least we got to test out some new players and I think we have a decent roster heading into the 5v5 indoor season, which starts in February.