Possession Soccer/Positional Play Thread

You are so right with this comment! To master skills you have to have the energy for masteing it. When you wear down the energylevel, less skill mastering takes place!

 

"Tiki-taka (commonly spelled tiqui-taca[ˈtikiˈtaka] in Spanish) is a style of play in football characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession. The style is primarily associated with La Liga club Barcelona, especially during the era of manager Pep Guardiola. Its development and influence goes back to Johan Cruyff's tenure as manager in the early 1990s all the way to the present. Tiki-Taka is also associated with the Spanish national team under managers Luis Aragonés and Vicente del Bosque. Tiki-taka moves away from the traditional thinking of formations in football to a concept derived from zonal play." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki-taka

You will find this definition of Tiki taka all over the web as a label for how Spain played, but imo it is wrong as a description of how Barca played. Barca's style was a refinement of combination passing. It was definitely not a short passing style of attack.

Typically combination passing is taught as a rhythmic mix of long and short passes such as short, short, long, short, short, long. In the past combination passing was actually taught by many coaches in drills with weaving patterns. Like dancing to footprints painted on the floor.

Barca's rhythm was different. Barca always looked for the long penetrating pass opportunity first. If not there, they start by flooding the strong side with superior numbers and maintain possession with short passing until the defense shifts numbers to the strong side creating space on the weak side. At that point a long breakout pass shifts the point of attack to the weak side and play is direct to goal from there. The whole point of the short passing was to set up the long pass by sucking more opponents to the strong side. Maintaining possession was not the objective; scoring goals was the objective.

"Traditional thinking of formations" is hogwash. Thinking of "formations" as spots on the field is not traditional. It is contemporary lunacy. Traditional thinking is considering "positions" as roles rather than spots on the field. Traditional thinking is zonal. The field is tactically divided into thirds and channels. Different people use different numbers of channels. I learned 4 channels. USSF currently uses 3 channels. Pep uses 5 channels.



I personally first encountered tactical channels and zones in JV basketball in 1966. In a middle of no-where small Midwestern town. The idea of tactical "formations" being fixed spots on the field is contemporary USSF @^&@%. This was not USSF doctrine in 1990. Sam Snow at USYSA would have us still teaching fluid, dynamic soccer, but for USSF thinking they know more than USYSA does about how to teach children to play soccer.

What Wiki misses is that the big difference between Barca's style and other team's is that Barca players generally make shorter runs letting the ball do more of the work. This is the opposite of the work load required of a wing half in a typical 442 or 352 system. Moreover the way Pep coaches, his system is a very controlled way of penetrating into the final third with his best players on the ball. At that point, however, the players have complete tactical freedom. Pep feels that it is the coaches job to get the team into the final third in good shape, and after that it is up to the players. He actually spends more training time working on defending than attacking. Like the earlier Dutch Total Soccer, the key is defending high and a relatively compact shape.

 

On the other hand, I think it is correct to describe Spain as playing a short passing possession style. Although Spain was number 1 in the world and won a world cup with this style, it's weakness in 2009 was that it had no Plan B. Bob Bradley took away Spain's short passing possession game by how he had the team defend.

The US defended the central channels in depth and gave Spain the outside channels along the touch lines. Spain essentially was limited to penetrating along the touch and shot from outside which set up the US counterattacks. Trailing, Spain needed to chase the game, which they did not have the tools to do well.

I don't think Bradley got the recognition he deserved for that game plan.

 

I am learning a bit more about Pep's style of play. What is distinctive about his possession style of play is that he wants his team's possession to be in the opponent's half of the field and he wants the players to change positions to make the attack less predictable and harder to defend against.

Some people compare the movement to basketball, running the baseline or moving from high post to low post. Pep doesn't give his players complete freedom of movement until the final third of the field. Before that he has strict rules as to how the players change positions. Essentially the rules are designed to keep the team spread out (width and depth) without the players playing on top of each other (spread out in terms of 5 channels as well the thirds of the field) so that the defense is maximally stretched before play enters the final third.

At the same time I now understand why clubs have stopped talking about teaching kids to play tiki-taki and now talk about "positional play." The simple answer is that some articles and books were published quoting Pep as saying he disliked the term tiki-taki and that his teams used "positional play." In my mind, Pep is playing a refinement of Dutch total soccer. (See first paragraph above.) That thought helps me understand his system.

Do clubs actually teach kids to play Pep's system. No. The label may have changed but what the clubs are teaching is the same. Most clubs don't even teach rotational movement systems, which is less complicated than Pep's system. Pep's system is designed for the best professional teams in the world. It take professionals more than a season to master Pep's system. I think a lot of people think positional play refers to fixed "formations" when it actually refers to changing positions systematically.

This is a lot of surmise on my part. There are 1000's of clubs out there and I don't actually know what they are teaching. I do know how a lot of senior teams have played in the US and I know what USSF and NSCAA tells coaches about team tactics.

 

Thanks elessar78. The clip mentions the 98 finals, so I guess it was made late 98 or 1999. The first mention is on a slide at 1:30. "Good positional play" (also described as "effective" positional play) is one of six elements of "Dutch Style" soccer. Before Barca became popular, clubs would promote "Dutch Style" soccer (unless they were promoting Brazilian style play).

The description of what I call the "classic Dutch 433" begins at 7:15.

The exercises at 12:00 look the same as Arrigo Sacchi used with Italy getting ready for the '94 finals. I don't know about the later ones. I imagine he used the same approach with AC Milan. My understanding is that Pep's "positional play" system was what he used as a player at Barca and learned from Cruyff. The build up and approach to the final third "positional play" Barca and Pep used is described as very different than these exercises.

 

I think the US game plan in the U20 match against Ghana is very interesting to watch. Instead of distributing to a CB close to the penalty area, the back line was very flat and moved about 30-35 yards upfield. The keeper distributed to mids or forwards in the middle third. The US had numbers up because some Ghana forwards still defended the space behind the US backs. Apparently the Ghana game plan was to press high, and the team did not adjust to the unexpected US tactics.

The US had previously had problems with fatigue and being strung out when counterattacking, forcing the team to play a counterattacking style with 2 unsupported forwards. This new tactic meant the US started possession in a good attacking shape in the middle third and effectively shortened the field by 30 yards, greatly reducing the amount of running required by the US. The Dutch system and the US Ghana game plan are both examples of a possession style play which does not start with distribution to a CB or FB near the penalty area.

PS: Happy Holidays to everyone.

 

I have an attacking question for discussion related to depth. It is about team shape related to breaking lines.

This is not my practice, but I have played on other adult teams that required their striker to always play as high as possible to stretch the defense lengthwise. (Very frustrating.) Obviously this stretches the distance of the gap between opponent's back and midfield lines. The problem I pose is that maximizing the gap between those lines is only advantageous in limited circumstances.

In 11-a-side the offsides rule generally leads to CBs holding near the half line so the opponent's defense is usually stretched when defending high. The resulting stretching is why end line pressing is not popular.

Increasing the gap between the opponent's midfield and back lines is important when a team is "breaking" the midfield line. Increasing that gap when trying to break the back line is not helpful to the attack. It helps the opponent by making it more difficult to break the back line. What actually helps the attack is having the back line playing higher.

There are two factors. First it is easier to break the back line when the keeper is too far away to support. Second the more space behind the back line when it is broken, the more dangerous the attack will be. Even if only one attacker breaks through, more space means that the attacker will be able to move more centrally to have a better finishing angle. With multiple attackers, more space is more opportunity to change the direction of attack which greatly complicates the opponent's defense.

Edit: I just thought of a third factor. The more compact the shape, the shorter the distances required for the ball and the runs to travel, which makes the attacking team tactically faster. Tactically faster means harder to defend against.

How teams defend is important to understanding the dynamics. A well coached back line will manipulate the gap as a primary defensive tactic. 1) It will push up as a unit to trap opponent's in an offside position. Not only to force a turnover with an offsides trap, but also to disrupt the attacking team's rhythm and force them to retreat. (This last defensive tactic is safer because it doesn't depend on perfect timing (and alert ARs) to spring the trap at the last second.) 2) It will also drop back, increasing the gap, when the opponent's first attacker looks up to make a through pass, trading depth for preventing the breaking of the line.

This is a new subject to me. I only coached U-12 and below, not juniors, so this was not a topic. The adults I coached used mobility and forwards didn't have fixed positions. Sometimes the runs would be intended to draw the CBs further away from their keeper. Not just the gap was a factor, the direction of the CBs movement was crucial in taking them out of the next play which would be toward their goal.

So how should we coach CFs (No. 9s) regarding increasing or decreasing defensive depth. Should the cue be the third of the field, who is on the ball (halfback vs. back), or some other cue?

 

Now consider some of the bad points of Ajax 4-3-3

All teams are divided into LEFT SIDE PLAYERS, RIGHT SIDE PLAYERS and CENTRAL PLAYERS.

So, a "unit" would be right back, right mid, and right striker.

Players RARELY move between these units.

So if you are the world's SECOND best right striker playing behind the world's BEST right striker, and perchance the Left striker gets injured.

You still sit on the bench, and they fill in with another left side player or bring one up from a lower age group.

That is what I was told any way.

 

I have heard the same thing elsewhere too. Consideration of skill sets is very important for planning functional training.

Thinking about this in the past lead to my view that for youth and junior player development purposes there are only four field "positions:" CB, CM, CF (striker) and flanker (wide player--attacking FB, winghalf, winger). The classification is based on looking at skill sets. The wide players all should have the same skill sets without differentiating between left side and right side, unless coaches are intentionally developing one-footed players. For youth players, I thought of matches as being circuit training with the stations being the different positions. So this is the technical reason I rotated players through the positions. (The other reason was tactical, to imitate interchanging between lines in the senior game.)

Exactly where a senior player is assigned to play is based on the coach's comparison of the player's effectiveness (attacking and defending) to others on the team with the same skill set.

Any further breakdown of positions is going to be situational depending on a team's system and organization chosen for a competition.

This left/center/right specialization is so wrong that I have to wonder if the idea is a translation error. It promotes future player interchange between lines, but not interchange within lines. If at a session you wanted to work on interchange between lines, the session would look like this, but maybe the players already had mastered interchange within lines. Training methods are not tactics.

 

Has anybody had any experience with World Class Coaching or bought this e-book on possession style training plans:


Thanks.

 

No experience with experience thw WCC books, but i do enjoy some of the videos and their podcast. In general, im not a fan of a "book" of activities on a topic. Its most likely stuff you have seen or could find online.

 

I suspect it depends on the width of the field. If the field is wide enough, I think (1)131 would be interesting. 4 players defend behind the ball. That is your precursor to a 4-man line. It is also close to the (1)231 for 7v7.

 

I like it too, but consider the context of the drill. This is functional training in the traditional sense of the word--teaching team tactics. It is not teaching fundamentals. The decision making is very limited because the movements are constrained. This is not the best way to teach fundamentals. Compare this exercise to rondos and how we approach the first 3 steps of the progression with U-Littles that elessar78 mentioned mentioned earlier: no pressure, non-directional, directional.

Consider what I think is the most important premise: Fundamentals are things every player must know, regardless of what "position" the player will eventually play as a senior. To teach each player fundamentals, each player must be facing similar tactical problems, performing similar movements and making similar decisions. (This is the strength of directional-less exercises and the strength of not assigning fixed positions in directional exercises.) Otherwise a coach is only teaching fundamentals to selected players. This in fact is what happened too often in the past with some players being relegated to limited positions, typically "the defense."

 

I've found my kids grasp the concept of "steady" as in "steady quarterback" "steady pitcher" so "steady midfield" or "steady wings" works better than "neutral/joker/etc...".

 

I think a good shape for 5 field players and a keeper might be
Forward center option
2 flank options
1 center mid
1 center back
Plus keeper

 

I like it nick. I did the same with my teams in years past. I explained it to them that it was like an airplane. 1 centerback (tail), 3 midfielders (wings and the center), and a center forward (nose). Told them that a plane cannot fly if it doesnt have both wings, they were easily able to understand that. Then it was just constant reminders that the wingers need to work up and back.

 

I agree, but I think you also need to generally get rid of most restrictions. What I have noticed is that functional training in the traditional meaning of the phrase usually involves a lot of restrictions. Players learn fundamentals better when they are free to make mistakes.

 

What it has is perfect shape especially for a center mid. It has a forward and 2 flank option and a back option. You can still move with that shape using the ball or player movement or both at the same time. If the ball is on a flank. That player has a forward option. He has a back option. He also has a second attacker option the center mid. If he goes to the center mid he might be able to shoot, or he can through pass if he can't. Can't do any he switches the field to the other flank option or he can back pass to the back option and maybe he can switch the fields. Lots of options. No player is isolated. If he is isolated he could easily lose the ball.