Just curious what you guys think of playing a 4-2-3-1 with U15 girls....I'm thinking about giving it a go this weekend. We have struggled this spring, moving up a division and have some younger girls on our roster as well...we are a mix of 13/14 year olds (couple of the 13 year old girls turned 13 during our fall season, we were at U15 then as well). We lost a good finisher to high school team, and have struggled scoring...moving up a division we sometimes get leaky in the backfield too. We have mostly played a 4-4-2 (diamond back, diamond mid, 2 strikers) and have tried a 3-2-3-2 recently with some good play....still allowing a couple of goals to sneak through in back. Thinking of at least starting this weekend off in a 4231 for the first half and seeing where the score is at half. I figure if we can clamp down on the other team's scoring...we will have our best shot at a win or at least a draw. And if we head to half 0-0 maybe can tweak the formation to add a striker, etc....go for a win. We don't have anyone with a real nose for the goal though...so don't see the point in 2 strikers at this point. Let the attacking mids help on the attack and see what happens, while keeping 4 to 6 defenders back while we are under attack, seems like it might slow the bleeding a bit. Right now we are 0-2-1 but we have only scored twice and are allowing too much to other team when we're under attack. Figure if mid and defensive play are our strengths...then let's play to those strengths and see what happens.
I think it's not the formation. If you're having trouble scoring goals run training sessions designed to improve your team's ability to create scoring chances from middle or wide play. The fix isn't changing the formation. The fix is changing what's happening WITHIN the formation.
I think the change is a good idea as a transition to a 433 system. Especially for girls, I think it is important to know how to play with wingers. I have to disagree with elessar78. I think a 442 is a poor system for young girls. It is more suited to adult males who have more strength. He is right that you need to improve the play too. Just switching systems won't help by itself.
Of course we are working on those things as well....it's not that we don't have girls that CAN shoot...we just don't seem to be putting ourselves in position to get the shots off in games. I agree working on skills is key and in fact had an entire 90 minute session yesterday all based on passing to create opportunity and on shooting. We are always working on changing things within the formation. But sometimes a formation switch can make a big difference, too.
4-4-2 I don't believe is a good starting point for a girls team. So I agree with RCA on that. Remember a formation is merely a starting point it's not solution for more wins. How does your formation look after you lose the ball. It should look different from when you have the ball. Shooting in practice is different then getting shoots off in real games. Your under a lot more pressure in games. Work on horizontal takeovers and shooting off them. You look better and you will get more shots off even in congested space. You moved up in class and you lost a scorer. Harder to win because of those 2 changes.
Hello. I think one thing here is anxiety. When something wont work, we try to find easy solution for get out of that nasty feeling. Changing formation is trying to do that.. easy thing to do to get rid of that feeling. There is no easy solution on big problem. One thing I see is teamwork. It is not working very well, if your team won´t score. If one member of a team is too important, there is no team... -Sami
My U14 girls team played the last few seasons in the 4-2-3-1 and were successful. However, you need to take into consideration the talent that you have on the pitch. If want to run this as a build up system then you will need very talented players technically. If you want to play on your side of the mid 3rd and counter attack then you need speed and distribution skills. It's very versatile but you need to train not the formation but the system designed around the players. Now what I found with my team was that we ended up winning most of our games 1-0 in the 4-2-3-1 because it can be very physically challenging. We changed to a 3-4-3 (5-3-2/3-2-5 hybrid) this season and have won all of our games by 3 goals or more. We are able to play most of the game in the attacking third. By having my back three as the fastest players on the pitch, we defend the counter attack quite well. Hope this helps
@yu4c3h013 I am curious about your 343 system. I expect that the wing halves drop into wing back positions out of possession, but how did you organize the forward dropping back to the midfield? If it was me, I would probably have the strong side (inside) winger drop back as she would be closest to the ball. This would save the CMs from having to defend the flanks.
Really what I do is I stress to the players that we play vertically compact. Rarely in the attacking 3rd do I have more than one player on our side of the field. We try to keep everyone in the same third. This way we don't have anyone caught too high and create gaps. When defending a counter attack, whoever can get back quickly are the first to set the defensive positions. We are also very good at getting in possession in the middle third as that's when we play man to man. Only zone defense in the d3rd. Hope that helps
Thanks for the reply @yu4c3h013 . That is pretty sophisticated for the age level. How do you keep your opponents from opening up space by pulling your backs out of position in the middle third? Zonal marking?
Don't underestimate your players and coach to the level of your smartest player. The key is for them to understand offside traps. LOL... I told my CB that if she simply says out loud "Set her offside" the opposing 9 will correct and come back onside. It really works at this age. Also we play to the keeper consistently which stretches the other team and creates space. The thing is that my team isn't a top tier team. We play in KSSL which is a mid line league in my state. KPL is the top tier. We do alright and the girls really understand when I take the time to show them on the whiteboard and then take them to the field and have them work the system.
Been a while but the team I was speaking of above here finished strong....I transitioned to more of a 3-2-3-2 and we had a lot of close games to finish the spring season, winning 2 of the last 3 as well. We had three spots to fill heading into this fall, and filled them all with girls that should help a great deal...we landed a new starting keeper, a new striker (I used to coach her, and she is an aggressive scorer...her dad reached out and wanted her to get back on a team with me, so that all worked out well) and just landed a pretty top shelf defender as well. We already had a very solid 15 returning, and these 3 gives a nice full roster of 18. I'm pretty optimistic about the coming season...ready to get back at it. We started scoring a little more...I think part of it was just the pressure of us not scoring often...once we got a couple, it was like a monkey of the back of our strikers/mids. In the 3-2-3-2 we would transition on the attack to more of a 3-4-3 or even 3-3-4. All in all...things started to come together nicely.