I'm curious as to your experience as a coach or even a fan (but really as a coach) with teams that have players, but can't get the ball in net. What were the reasons? How did you fix it?
To be honest, I have never had a team that couldn't score goals at all. When the teams had problems, it was because they were over-matched, short or missing players or else it was early in the season while the players were still learning the system. The issue was always scoring more goals than the opponents, which involves all moments of the game, not just attacking.
@Coach Stew, please be more specific. are they creating chances but not finishing? are they having trouble creating chances at all? what exactly is the problem?
Well, I was trying to keep it "general" as to others experiences rather than asking out our own flaws. But... We won 4 straight games against over matched opponents. We took lots of shots but only managed 3 - 4 goals in each of those games. Since then we have lost 4 straight and only 1 of those teams was better than us. We have lost 4-1, 6-0, 3-0, 1-0. In the first 2 we didn't get a shot and could barely get in there half. The next 2 games we played the majority of the game in our opponents half, had a few chances but should have been a lot more.
In the games you scored 3-4 goals, how were they scored? Set pieces, through balls into the final 3rd for a 1v1, combination play around the box, lofted crosses? When you say you could barely get in their half - how do you usually get there? If you POFTB, were they pressing to cutoff the entry passes into the middle third? If you play over the top were they waiting and sending the ball right back before anyone could win the footrace? If you rely on players to carry the ball forward, were the opponents winning the 1v1 or otherwise shutting that down with pressure and cover?
I thought to include this information in my post. In short, we scored through just about every scenario you described. We lack an "identity" in attack but by default I would say we are a counter attacking team, and with that, to get to goal with as few touches as possible. If we are not countering then we want to play direct because we are not efficient in possession.
There may not be a clear-cut answer. The reasons for lack of success in each game may have been very different. So in this abstract question, to me, scoring and chances come from being within shooting range of the goal. 18 yards and closer, realistically, Probably 10 yards and closer and the percentage is much higher. Even deeper can we get the ball to a teammate in the area in front of goal (between the pipes and closer than the penalty area). Absent this goals and chances will be few and unlikely. I'll paint a very broad stroke. A lot of the youth teams I see now play out of the back. Which is great, but one thing that hasn't been corrected in this mania to play out of the back is the other parts of the build up. Now we get into middle third and beyond without any ideas. The pattern play we focus on now in building out of defensive third is not yet being translated into the middle and attacking thirds. What I see a lot of is competent build out from the back but then teams are often trying to play that killer pass near their center circle. It's too soon! I want to tell them: you were sooo good building out of the back, keep connecting until and whilie you are in the attacking third. Teams seem to rarely be in the attacking third that they get desperate when they're in there. Teams with "stud" players can just take over in the attacking third, so they don't learn how to break down even moderate resistance through middle and attacking thirds. Train in the middle and attacking thirds. Show them, orchestrate them to be patient. Show them not how to move the ball, but how to move defenders. As you said, your team doesn't have an attacking identity. Why not? It has to be designed. How do you want them to play? My roadmap for my teams I've written down and we build on it through the months and years. -From the back we split the CBs the 6 drops in the middle, FBs up further on the touch line. -Every pass is sharp and on the ground, UNLESS we have a great reason to put it in the air -Look for splits, position yourself in the windows if you don't have the ball -In the middle third, look for up-back-through combos or up-back-switch-combos -In the attacking third, be patient don't feel like you have to score right away. Create the moment. -In the attacking third, work the ball out wide and down to the end line for a sharp cross on the ground in front of goal. -If we can't go wide and in to goal, look for 1-2 combos at the top of the penalty area. -If we lose the ball, we try to win it back in 5 seconds. 3 closest players attack the ball and the rest fall in to get shape -If they are building out of the back we press high with our front 3, in a controlled manner. Force the mistake and pounce. -If they are playing long ball, nearest player pressures to reduce quality of ball out. Everyone else get shape. This is an abbreviated template of the ideas we build through the years. I know what I want to see out of them. There's a picture in my head of what should be happening out there and the players execution should match that picture. If not, then I try to get them closer to that picture in training. Diego Simeone talks about how he's built an "intentional culture" at Atletico. A lot of lesser coaching lights (but successful at their level) also talk about intentional culture. Atletico is tough, defensive. So one part is selecting tough, defensive-minded players, the other is that the toughness permeates everything they do. The activities they pick, the intervals, the language, the tone of the sessions. Also, I think it's important to very critical on ourselves during easy wins. Did your team play well during the easy win? Or did they get away with sub par play because the opponent was weaker? The problems you see in the 4-straight losses could've been present in the wins but harder to see.
from my experience, you're always going to convert fewer chances than you would like. you can find countless numbers of finishing exercises to work on composure in front of goal. i don't remember which of the legendary coaches said it, but he recommended practicing finishing at every training session. if putting the ball in the goal is the most important aspect of the game, you should give it the attention it deserves. creating chances is another matter. if you're a team that plays on the counter, you need to make sure your "outlets" know where to be and that the rest of the team knows where to expect outlets to be. i worked on this a lot with my 19Us last spring. i wanted wide options and a central option for my backs and midfielders to play to when we recovered the ball in our defensive third. once you establish where your outlets will be, then you can work on some patterns of play from those positions to give players ideas on where they should be moving to provide the outlets options into the attacking phase. the patterns of play can be a foundation from which your players can improvise depending on the situation of the game. for example, my 19Us would default to playing through the middle of the field so I knew I didn't need to introduce a pattern through the middle. instead, i introduced patterns that moved the ball wide using combinations between the central players and the wings. the idea was to plant the seed in their minds so they could select another option if pounding it down the middle wasn't on.
Mistakes were certainly evident, and we addressed them. Girls were selfish in those games. Shots came fast and easy.Everyone was firing away and having fun. We had CB's "taking their space" and banging shots from 25+ yards out. Still, we missed easy shots inside the 18, high more than anything. Our better players also have an easy time at practice. We have 4-5 good players, 3-4 above avg. players, 2 avg. and 5 that are "family". Anything abstract, out of position, etc. the players do not understand the application to the real game. When we need to use the 5 "family members" the better players practice like they played in the first 4 games. We're a H.S. team. As much as I'd like, we don't have years to train. As much as it seems to be blasphemy, we're trying to win.
@Coach Stew Sounds to me like you have been scouted and found to lack basic skills in the back, so teams are high pressing against you and are successful at it. After the initial loss to a high pressing team, you can expect to see that successful game plan will be copied by opponents for the rest of your season. But then I wasn't there, so something else might be going on. The telling clue I saw in your posts was saying inferior teams were beating (I read it as dominating) your team. Inferior high school teams don't usually dominate by possession. If you "scout" your team like an opponent, you may be able to figure out some changes to make the match circumstances more favorable to your team.
We're very good in the back, selfish in the mid and "learning" up top. You are correct in that there isn't much possession in H.S. soccer, at least where we play. I've only encountered 1 team that will attempt to play out of the back. That team is also 30 deep, nationally ranked, full of ODA and high level club girls. That was the team we lost 6-0 to (it was 2-0 w/ 12 mins. left).
I have colleagues who coach HS and they def have installed a style of play over years. I think you just have to have a thing to hang your hat on. Whether it’s shooting from 25 or getting your forwards a 1v1 in the box-build toward that each session. Around here HS can have non-mandatory practices offseason so they have an opportunity to install a system over time.
we primarily played a 442 so i made sure my outside mids would get high and wide to provide wide options. if we recovered the ball on the left side of the field, the left mid was instructed to get out to the touch line. the right mid would still get wide but not necessarily all the way to the line. one of my two forwards would make himself available to give the central outlet option. as far as patterns of play, i'd set up around midfield with players in 3 lines: one where i wanted my outside mid to receive the ball, one where i expected my center outlet to be, and usually another line somewhere just off the center outlet. from that set up, you can design a passing pattern. perhaps center starts with the ball at his feet. he drops it off to the third line. the third line plays a long diagonal ball to the streaking outside mid who puts in a cross for the other two. i usually start with no pressure so everyone gets the pattern. then you can make the shooter defend the next group so it's a 3v1. if they're still scoring against 1 defender, have 2 of the previous group stay on to defend. i hope that makes sense.
Go to youbute, search for thatcroatianguy. He was one of the first people outside of the 3four3 folks to implement their methodology - club girls, hs girls. Watch the crusaders training video to see some build up patters, watch the "explaining the cues" video where he walks through a goal showing how the choreography plays out. Also the free 3four3 coaching membership is pretty painless and the "losing your man" and "attacking patterns" section are a big help. Edit: Also watch the "You're not Elite" video. I had an 01/02 boys team from u12-14 with a similar skill mix. The biggest improvement for the "family" players was knowing there were patterns and seeing them work. When it's all chaos the less skilled dribblers can get pretty discouraged, when they start connecting passes, getting the ball and not losing it/furthering the play, it really helps their confidence. Doing a lot of rondos also helps get them to that minimal level of ability - they may never win a 1v3 but they can usually get to basic recieving with an open body making a 10-20yd pass with both feet. That's when you get stuff like your weakest player going off script and hitting a cruyff after following the pattern 10 times and the defender overcommitting, taking off on a 30 yard run and putting in a great ball. It's also nice when the skilled players realize that the pattern you've been using to play cb->wingback->dm->wingback->am->wing->overlapping wingback for cross works just as well for dm->wingback->dm->wing->am->through ball to dm for shot and when they come off at halftime tell you "it was just like the pattern 1 but in the middle of the field..."
thatcroatianguy is John Pranjic, not sure where he started but he is through and through 3four3 now. He does their branded 3four3 podcast as well, might be their social media director as well. Great comment about patterns and applying the patterns elsewhere.
Thanks. I realize at HS level there are most likely set positions, that might reduce the likelyhood of that pattern recognition applying elsewhere on the field. I tended to run everyone through all positions of the patterns as you would expect at u12-14.
Another of the contributors from the early 3four3 comment section - https://thisguytoph.com/ The Dec 2014 section shows animated attacking patterns excercises for what looks like the 3-3 of a 4-3-3. The entire 2014-2016 span are a good intro to establishing a posession based coaching philosophy from the drawing board through the drills to videos of the end product. Good luck, I hope you get some seasons to implement what you want to do.
I am not a believer in heavy use of pattern play exercises. It is a place to start a progression. In my experience, coaches spend too much time on repetitive pattern exercises which involve no decision making or creativity. I can remember doing a 5 man weave in the 60's and 3 man weaves in the 80s. Most typically they were used as warmup drills. I saw licensed youth coaches using 3 man weaves as well as more complex pattern passing drills involving the whole team (no variation, no decision making, no cues, no creativity) decades later. The worst part about these drills is that they are not game like. Well perhaps worse still is if a team uses repetitive patterns in a game. As a coach I used pattern play to introduce team tactic topics, but I used them to show novices decision points and alternatives as examples of attacking play, not as set plays. For pattern play to be effective training exercises they have to involve game-like cues and decision making. In basketball especially, I have seen coaches that made efficient use of patterns to teach offenses. They teach variations of the patterns and decision making based on cues. Then comes the time that players leave the patterns behind and just read the game and execute. Effective players anticipate what is going to happen. When players use rote patterns to attack, they make the attack predictable and easier to anticipate. They don't look around, don't make decisions, and aren't creative. I am not just talking about the player on the ball, I am talking about the players off the ball too.
Which site is this information on? I looked through the 3four3 archives (14-16) and only found a couple articles/videoes that were actually about coaching. Man, They really push their agenda!
Sorry, for the coaching go to https://343coaching.com/ The free membership requires an email address, gives you access to 5 or 6 modules. If you want to pay then you get access to more content as well as their coaching forums, which has around 500 members from what I hear. They have an agenda, but I like it that they said back around 2012 "here's our u11s playing possession soccer being developed to the global standard" and today, those players are joining national teams, signing in Germany, scoring goals at 16 in USL, etc. They did what they said and were open about teaching others.
@CoachP365 They are a little misleading. They were not a club. They ran bi-annual soccer camps for elites and had a website for coaches. So yes you would expect that some of those elite 11 year olds would go on to success as they got older. They were not the only coaches training those players. To be fair, they may well be great developmental coaches for pre-teens. They most certainly know more than I do about coaching, but I am wary of the salesmanship. What I would be interested in finding out is if the clubs and coaches, using their materials with their players, were having success developing elite athletes. What we don't know is whether the clubs that those U11 players were from were using the 3four3 materials to train those players.
I think the 3four3 guys were coaching those boys. Started at either TFA or FC Man united. Moved to China’s USA. And then to LA Galaxy. Many on the Galaxy u-19 academy team were on that u-11 team. I’ve attended one of their 2 day forums. It was good. Very different than other coach training I’ve attended. I haven’t paid for their program yet. I wish the had a “pay by the month” option. I do listen to the podcast that they put out. Some good content.
@Timbuck Their web site doesn't say that. If that U11 "team" was a club team, it wasn't a 3four3 team from what the website said about currently changing their program to start a 3four3 club. So if the 3four3 guys were coaching at another club, it leads to the same question--whose curriculum did they use to train the kids? If those guys were coaching full time at another club, it would explain the 3four3 format.