Possession Soccer/Positional Play Thread

We're in our last season of 9v9, G05.
What is working best for them is 3-4-1, in possession they get into your 3-2-3, with the wings pushing up.

Playing 4 in the middle, they're more eager to push up to support than they would be to drop for defensive support with fewer numbers in the middle.

 

I think 341 and 323 without restrictions play the same. How the defense and attack is organized makes more of a difference to a coach than how you classify the system, i.e., defensive shape vs. attacking shape.

As Jyby pointed out, players, however, will often be influenced by labels, i.e., midfielder vs. forward. How coaches talk about tactics is not necessarily the best way to describe tactics to players.

 

Here is the best practice plan I have seen in a long time. I was thinking about how to adapt this to younger ages. My first thought is to simply reduce the size of the SSGs to 3 or even 2 for U8s. Size of the zones and geometry of the zones could be changed as well.

 

Hola mi amigos! Just trying to set the mood.

Here is a new clip summarizing a 3313 system as used by Argentine Coach Marcelo Bielsa to play an attacking/pressing possession style of play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcelo_Bielsa


The commentator says that Bielsa has a reputation as crazy. I don't see anything crazy. What I see is an implementation of the classic Dutch Style of attacking soccer.

The wingmids play like aggressive wingbacks.

To compare these diagrams to the current USSF 433 with a 6, 8, and 10 in the midfield, think of the back line splitting with the 6 dropping back in between the 2 CBs. The 8 stays in a central position, which gives you the shape of the back six in possession.

The 10 (a true playmaker, this is an Argentine coach after all and ties the attack together) doesn't move much from his central attacking position above the 8. The wingers spread wide giving you a classic Dutch 3-4-3 attacking shape (4 6 5/2 8 10 3/7 9 11).

I especially like that his front line is free to move making them difficult to defend, which I found very effective in coaching adult recreational soccer.

The wingers are wider than the wingbacks so the wingbacks are threatening the gaps between the opponents CBs and FBs. This reminds me of Pep's tactics.

The clip points out that good technical skills is required to make this system work, but then good technical skills are what we are trying to develop.

Another way to look at this (which I hate) is as a bunch of triangles. (I prefer thinking of it as having diagonal passing lanes.) This 343 shape has natural triangles everywhere.

 

Awesome. Thank you.

 

Sometimes people describe things incorrectly, but I am going to assume that Coach Belli has accurately described how he coaches the youngest players. What he calls positional play has no relation to Spain's meaning of positional play. That is all I am going to say about Spain. His concept of positions is not the same as my use of the term.

The problem with shadow play is that it is not game-like. Because it simplifies tactical problems by eliminating the opponent, it is a useful tool to teach team tactics in small doses. Because it simplifies tactical problems by eliminating the opponent, it has to be immediately followed by play with opponents.

The trap with pattern passing drills is the word "pattern." Patterns are predictable. If the drills become routine, what decision making is involved, what off-the-ball movement is involved, where are the opponents and the cues they provide? How does a pattern drill lead to an understanding of the principles of play? (Versus impose tactics on players by coaching instruction.)

The first attackers options are determined to a very large extent by the supporting movements of the players off the ball. If players off the ball are required to stay in a fixed position within a rigid team geometric structure, the players are not learning how to support off the ball and are not making decisions about movements off the ball. In short, there is no creativity at all in play off the ball.

Teaching players the principles of play means that they understand space. They know to look for and play into the open space. You don't have to teach team tactics, like changing fields, if the players know to play into the open spaces. Regardless of size of the game, shape of the field, or restrictions, the players will look for and play into the open spaces. If the open space is on the weakside, that is where they will play into. Because of the fundamental principle, not because of a coaching instruction for a specific tactical problem and not because of pattern passing drills.

Even the final pass and finishing can be explained as playing into open space. A team is creating space in the danger area and playing into it.

@elessar78 We have talked many times before, so I know that your rondos are not static but designed to require movement off the ball. I don't know that about Coach Belli.

 

I just thought of a way to explain my view of coaching team tactics in a nutshell.

Defending is order. Attacking is chaos. In attack the system of play should bring some order to the chaos, not eliminate it. Likewise on defense the system of play should bring order to "bunch balls" feature of taking away space, not eliminate it.

 

This is probably a dumb question but what other style of soccer is there other than possession? Is labeling "possession" just over emphasizing and indirect passing style like Tiki Taka. What are the alternatives to attacking by distributing the ball? Ok, dumb questionS...

 

Why is one preferred over the other?

 

I am a bit old and set in my ways, but the way I see tactics is that counterattacking soccer is not the same as playing direct. I think of possession as what I used to describe as indirect. I think a better description of possession-style is patient. So I see at least four major styles of play: Old school "Latin" (little energy expended off the ball compared to on the ball), direct (as in taking the quickest path to the opponent's goal emphasis on penetration), possession (patient/emphasis on high percentage plays), and counterattacking (unbalanced team/defense heavy).

I consider Spanish "positional play" to be an evolution of "Latin" and that off the ball movements are orchestrated by the positional play system.

At the highest level of play today, teams use mixtures of all styles of play and vary their style to fit the circumstances of the match. In that regard, former styles of play have become situational tactics.

I think many people have a mistaken view of possession style soccer, when they equate possession style with "building-out-of-the-back". The object of possession style soccer is to possess the ball in the opponents half of the field, not in your own defensive third. A better way to view "positional play" is that it is a tool to maintain good shape while penetrating into the opponent's half (not getting stretched out of shape by long passes to isolated forwards). The attacking emphasis in "possession style" should be on breaking the first defensive line as soon as possible, preferably with the first or second touch.

 

I was reading Coach Dan Blank's new book and something he said triggered my thinking on positional play. To steal a phrase from Coach Blank, when teaching team tactics coaches need to distinguish between positions and positioning.

Positional Play is about positioning, not positions.

 

I thought that this link had been shared in this thread earlier, but I don't see it. The word "positional" is used similar to the meaning "position" has in chess to describe the present state of pieces on the board.

http://spielverlagerung.com/2014/12/25/juego-de-posicion-under-pep-guardiola/

I wanted to take a short quote from the article, but understanding comes from the whole essay, not a short except. Positional play is like chess. The team strives for superiority in general, but there is no one specific way of being in a superior position on the board.

The general goal is to create superiority behind a defensive line--superiority in terms of space, numbers, and/or player quality.

Positional play is an advanced form of attack. It is deliberate, but really a hybrid of possession and direct play. Rather than just breaking lines as in direct play, the objective is to break a line while having a tactical advantage. Rather than just maintain possession, the objective is to penetrate lines.

Positional play is not finishing. It is how the team gets behind the last defensive line.

 

Ever wonder why on some teams the lines between CF, CAM and winger are blurring?

Pep bases his training and positional play tactics on a 5 channel grid for the playing field. These 2 extra channels just inside of the flanks (a/k/a half spaces) are important to his view of the game. This article gives a detailed explanation.

http://spielverlagerung.com/2014/09/16/the-half-spaces/

For context, the objective of Pep's positional play at Barca was to end up with the team's best player in possession of the ball, 1v1, in a half space in the attacking third with the team in good shape to support. This article explains why the half space instead of the center channel.

While Pep may be the most famous coach using positional play, he is not the first or only coach to do so.

 

What's more important here, the spaces (half), or the players in the space?

 

Have you access to part 2 of this article?

 

Pep only coaches the best professional players. So I would say having great players is necessary to play his way.

There are, however, some things we can take from his approach. For instance the half space position and its openness to the field is what happens when a winger cuts inside on a diagonal. So when the winger has the ball, he should not be discouraged from cutting inside.

 

This topic deserves a bump and I wanted to say what I have finally decided about "Positional Play". Positional Play is simply players striving to always be in a good position.

For a long time I was looking for "missing" information about how movement off the ball was organized in "positional play." After rereading some material, I decided I was chasing a ghost because there was no universal principle on off the ball movement. Although I figured that the great coaches must be talking about something more, it turns out that they are doing exactly what I was doing 25 years ago--using small sided keep-away games to teach tactics and develop skills.

"Rondo" is simply a foreign word for small sided keep-away games. What Pep and the others do with their Senior Team in training is come up with a game plan that fits their available players and that week's opponent and then drill the players to get them ready. So however they coach in training is specific to the circumstances of that team and that competition and not a general principle of wider application. That also explains why they don't talk about it. It is their game plans.

The only difference between Pep and I, and it is an Atlantic Ocean to cross, is he is much, much better at play analysis and coming up with tactical solutions. There is no secret principle to playing good soccer. Only secret game plans.

I know there are people out there that well say "Duh!" to this, but the realization was news to me.

Of course this means that almost everything US Soccer does as far as tactical doctrine is wrong. Good soccer is not about "formations" or "positions". It is about skill and positioning. But I am always saying that.

 

The breaking down of a zone defense by ball movement is the short term impact but the breaking down of a zone defense by fatigue is a long term impact. Long term both in terms of a particular match and long term in the development model. It becomes much more effective in the senior game played without modifications to the substitution Law. Although the senior players are fitter, the field is also larger with longer faster passes.

I think if the NCAA starts following the FIFA Law on substitutions it will promote better soccer. Except for a season of coed competition, all my competitive experience was played under NCAA rules. My team only had a few subs so we all typically played full matches or very close to it against teams that platooned 10 subs in 23-minute shifts. The 10 pairs of fresh legs midway through the period had no advantage over my team while it had all the disadvantages of inserting all new players into the game. I was playing on a military team with infantry soldiers who could run all day long. Aside from a couple Europeans, my teammates and coach were all Hispanic. We had no problem dealing with the typical frantic attack attempting to beat opponents by sprinting.

As it was happening, I never saw any advantage to not being able to play competitive soccer earlier in life. I was never exposed to bad coaching and was playing with skilled players developed in countries with soccer cultures, so that probably explains why I am so quick to criticize what I consider poor coaching and play. I was used to very direct play but I think that was because the college teams always high pressed, giving us spaces to penetrate. As a result it took me a while to later appreciate the more subtle possession style play and counterattacking from a lower line of confrontation (a/k/a delayed high pressure).