I am looking for a good brief summary from a reputable source on playing with a box midfield. Something I can share with relatively knowledgeable players. Any suggestions would be extremely welcome.
Berwyn, couldn't find any relevant information in that thread. Interesting discussion, however, it doesn't fit our available players. Your input is extremely welcome.
yeah, i noticed there is nothing on the box midfield either. dont know much about it myself though...so im of no help either. sorry.
From my limited knowledge, the box midfield is best used when you have a highly skilled midfield (I believe Brazil uses some variation of it, if not now than in the past.) You traditionally have two attacking and two defensive midfielders like such: -------xx---------xx------ -------xx---------xx------ However, the d-mids are more skilled on the ball than a normal solo d-mid. Whereas a lone d-mid's main responsibility is stopping the attack, the d-mids in the box are more true 2-way players. The strength of the box midfield is dominating the middle. It has the ability to overwhelm a traditional 4-4-2 and even a staggered 3-5-2 (one with 2 d-mids, a center mid and two outside mids.) You rely upon quick strikers and overlapping defenders for width in attack. Conversely, you can get killed by a team that attacks all down the flank. Finally, I know this is elsewhere, but : http://www.fifa.com/Service/MR_A/43628_E.html Click on any team and get their formation and tactical description. A great resource for you and your players
I am not that familiar with this, but if I recall Spain uses it or used to use it at one time. There is no true wingers in this midfield. So since those 4 mids not spread out across the width of the field and are inside. That in and of itself creates space on the wing that anybody can use. A striker, a mid or a back especially a dribbler. I am pretty sure the US mens national team used it in at least two friendly games, but I can't remember against whom. That is all I really know about it, and that is not much. Richie
Yeah, I know it leaves the flank channels open for the wing backs and the strikers to use at their dispense. The 4 midfielders basically swamp the center of the pitch and overwhelm the opposing midfield...but they must be superior at handling the ball and playing very quickly(because the midfield is overloaded with players). Thats about all I can remember...thats probably why Brasil uses it, they have world class wingbacks and excellent central midfielders--attacking and defensive.
Great Help Thanks for the great help. Your references to Brazil make this whole deal fall into place. We have a Brazilian who is fond of this formation.
We are using this formation this year in high school. This is how we set it up. 3 man back line, box mid-field 2defensive and 2 offensive, three man front line consisting of 2 wings and a center forward. It is as described by CP Wilson above. This formation will work if you have 4 strong players to play the box. Our defensive midfielders make offensive runs that make it hard to cover any one threat. I like it this year because we have four really good midfielders and great communication between them. They cover for each other very well. It is very versatile if you have the people to play it. If you have 4 good midfielders, put your 2 toughest at the defensive midfielder spots and your best passers at the offensive spots.
Rags said "We are using this formation this year in high school. This is how we set it up. 3 man back line, box mid-field 2defensive and 2 offensive, Where did you see it used before you decided to use it yourself? This part confuses me the way you use it. "three man front line consisting of 2 wings and a center forward." Doesn't that kill your flank space that you want to keep open? I thought the two outside strikers play more withdrawn then the center player, and not far enough out to kill the flank unless one of them uses it when they has the ball. Also if one of your wing strikers lose the ball. How does the box midfield stop an attack behind your wing striker on the ball side flank? If "Our defensive midfielders make offensive runs." Would that attack on winning the ball be behind your strikers and possible one or two of your midfielders the ones making the runs. So you only have 2 mids maybe, to stop the attack before it reachers your backs. At those times even if your offensive mids just stay back in support and don't attack other then make passes are 2 mids enough to stop that kind of attack before it reaches your backs? Richie
Richie, one of our offensive midfielders shifts to the ball side to support the play. The other stays home. Your right about the flank, we've found that the three man front line breaks up a lot of opponents passing across the back line. Not quite as easy when you are showing three men forward. We haven't had much problem with breakdowns in our defense. I had my doubts about this formation working (I'm the Assistant coach) when the head coach decided to try this but it is working well. I think if we didn't have strong midfield players and good communication all around (some years are better than others) we probably would have scrapped it. I am curious to know how you would set up something with a box midfield.
Rags "I am curious to know how you would set up something with a box midfield." Some complicated tactical issues come up here. I hope you find some of these issues interesting. I do not change tactics at a drop of a hat. I do it over time, sometimes a lot of time over seasons. Also when it comes to expanding our game it is done over time. The goal for me is for the team to play a "good game" and win. That is my biggest weakness as a coach. I need time to get our overall game to what I consider is a "good game". I admire coaches that can get new players to play a good game in a short period of time I can't do that. But, what I consider as a good game most soccer people consider what we play as a great overal game. I would not use the box midfield because I can always open space on the flank if we need it. Just by having a wing mid move inside, and let someone else hit the flank space if we need it. ------------------------------------- However, the interesting thing about the box midfield to me is the extra time you get to play in that flank space. My way we could lose time in the flank space if our inside the field dribbler moved into the flank from the inside of the field because the ball kills space on the flank. In this situation the box can provide immediate space to dribble into the flank because you don't have to wait for the wing mid to move inside first. (that is an important tacticle point) --------------------- But our normal game is when we pass into the flank the receiver can move up in it if we have space or if he beats the first defender. Otherwise, we use the flank then immediately get out of that flank space. A lot of reasons to do that if your playing against a zone defense. You have the double team, it is used more on the flank. Another reason to move out of the flank is you only have forward and back and one out side angle passing option from the flank. Inside the field you have all 4 options. You get the other side pass option if you pass from the middle of the field. Plus beat the first defender on the flank, and there is support very hard to beat that second defender if he is in a good support position. So move inside after taking on the first defender your losing the second defender, and opening up the passing game more. Remember? You now have that extra passing option. --------------------------- I love the inside game. I like to use the square passing game horizontal and verticle passes, and I like inside combination play any way. Every practice is in part devoted to it. Our warmups before practice and before games has inside play built into it as well. So we normally do very well moving the ball up field using the inside of the field. However, we always have wings with that so we have the angle pass option if we need it. ----------- When we get close to goal apx 25 yards out, and have the ball in the center of the field. We set up to use inside combination play near our attacking goal. We bring in the wing mids to a more inside position. The inside the field dribbler can use them on give and goes or not their options, and we use a post up player as well. The post up player gets one or two touches to pass or shoot then he leaves to create more space, and someone else moves to fill the space he left maybe that someone is the dribbler. If the ball is knocked away to the side then that wing space is used by someone a back for example to retieve the ball. The ball can also be passed to the back, and he crosses or he can back pass to the middle and we are ready for another inside attack. So, if the ball is knocked outside the back also is ready to move into that space to retrieve so our inside wing player does not have leave the inside to get that lose ball. -------------------------- I like my mids positioning on defense to be very similiar to their position in support like when our team has the ball. It all depends where the ball is at a particular time and space. If the ball is on a flank with a wing mid? Positionally the rest are spaced and behind (staggered), the next behind him and spaced staggered, etc. That leaves no gaps in our offensive support. It also means no gaps for the opponent to attack if we should lose the ball. That is the key on not allowing the counter attack. We cover space from the flank to just after the middle of the field doing that because besides the backs, the far side wing mid also falls back behind the last back in the middle when the ball is lost. It takes practice and player discipline to do that. So the only space to counter is the far side space. If they try that we just overshift to that side. --------------------------- Long post I know, but as far as an inside attacking game we like to attack inside. If we lose the ball we leave no exposed space to exploit unless it is far side of the field. Counter needs space. We close that space by narrowing the spacing between players before we lose the ball. Richie
Thanks Richie, great post! You are right it is a long post with a lot of good ideas. Our defensive coverage works a lot like you have described, the only real option for a team is the far side and we shift over and cover well. It does take a lot of good communication, discipline and understanding. I'm amazed that our guys have grasped it so well. I'm a lot like you in that I do not like to make drastic changes, especially since I've coached most of these guys since they were in the 5th grade and we have run a standard 4-4-2 formation with a lot of success. One thing that I never liked about the 4-4-2 was that the outside players had so much ground to cover, having both offensive and defensive responsibilities. Maybe I was just not running it properly, but if I had a weaker player out on the wing in the 4-4-2 we suffered when our opponents attacked down the flanks. This formation for us is much stronger. The thing that I like about this (for us, anyway) is the versatility we have on a quick offensive rotation to the weak side. Unexpected runs by a defensive midfielder or defender down the opposite flank or into any space left unprotected, throw the other team into a tizzy. We use our center forward as the post-up man man, much as you described, He will also make an L-shaped run towards the wing when the wing has the ball, running towards him and then down line. this draws defenders and opens up space. P.S - Red Star I hope this gives you some ideas, by the way I thought CP Wilsons' description of this formation above was great.
Ideas Yep thanks for sharing. I have a lot to digest. It seems to fit our available players well, but it will be a big change in tactical principles for some.
if you think the wing mids have a lot of running to do in a 4-4-2...you should try playing on the outside in a 3-5-2. thats where ive played the last 2 seasons for my PDL team and for my college team. in a 4-4-2, ive found that i can kind of cheat with my man and pass him off to the right back at times, thus saving my energy a bit. but in a 3-5-2...the two outside backs are already marking constantly, so i constantly have to be marking as well. as a wing mid in a 3-5-2...picking and choosing my runs is the key to lasting the whole 90 minutes.