I just did a quick check and USYSA has a coaching education article indicating that U16s should be playing possession style soccer. There is no discussion of why it would be age appropriate for U16. I think U16 is far too early. I believe it is appropriate for college (U23), not high school (U18). Adjusting for soccer age would mean that it would be appropriate for elite U18 teams. At the younger ages we should be preparing players to play possession soccer at U23. That starts with teaching fundamentals to U-littles. Continues with mastering fundamentals and the direct and counterattacking styles of play during the teen years. Possession style play builds on direct and counterattacking play. Possession style is a refinement of direct play. To play possession style also requires playing direct when opportunities arise. Possession style is not a short passing style. It requires both long and short combination passing. Teams that play zone defense will also mark man to man during a match. Similarly teams that play possession style will also play direct sometimes. For instance if behind and as time is running out, teams will have to start taking more risks and play more directly. In every match there are two teams and both cannot be ahead at the same time and wanting to slow the game down. So possession style is not a replacement for the direct style. Tactically speaking possession style seeks to wear out the opponent by making them chase the ball until they tire and space opens up. This strategy won't work in youth matches with unlimited substitution rules. Possession style also is a counter to a team with superior physical abilities, but with unlimited substitutions that won't work either. For U-Littles especially, we don't want to make matches a fitness battle. In addition if both sides play a possession style, there will be less shots taken which might be good if "not losing" is the objective, but not so good if you want forwards to get finishing experience in the matches.
In the beginning in the US it was more of direct game then a possession. There was a lot more heading the ball. like it was in Europe. It was an ethnic game. When kids played club it was an ethnic game. They did not play a lot of other sports. However in practice we practice mostly in a small space and small sided play because that is what you always have near the ball even with 11 on a side. Until someone could make a break out pass. Most coaches at that time here came from a European back ground. I like everything about the game direct and possession. If you travel a lot in Europe and south America you saw both. I think the perfect way to play is learn both and use both. Not one way or the other.
What should be the progression for teaching possession style play starting at U10? At age 8 and 9 (U10) I stressed "keep-away" tactics. Maintaining possession of the ball while penetrating and creating a scoring opportunity is the foundation of the game. It goes hand and hand with teaching "pass and move" tactics. So I am pretty confident most people would agree this is the place to start. Intuitively I pair these tactics with teaching passing techniques. At U10 and U12 the emphasis is typically still on ball skills and fundamentals. But where do you go from there? Does anyone have a way to break down possession style play into component parts? I was thinking about these stages (numbered for discussion convenience only): 1. On-the-ball play (individual skills and tactics) 2. Nearby off-the-ball play (SSG, close support and short passing) 3. Weak side off-the-ball play (far support and long passing--breakout passes) 4. Switching fields and switching thirds (team tactics stretching zone defense) 5. Transition to attack (making that first pass) 6. Putting the whole package together: "Playing safe" tactics (playing with patience and discipline) Some of these obviously are going to be covered at U10 and U12 anyway, i.e., #'s 1 and 2. But the issue is more complicated. For instance possession style play requires quick accurate passing, i.e., placing the ball on the team mate's proper foot with a lot of pace and no spin. So at what point do you begin teaching passing to the correct foot? I consider it an intermediate topic, but is it?
When you first teach kids to dribble you teach them to use both feet and keep moving I would say dribble towards me. Where am I to get them to watch the ball at bottom of their vision and me at the top of their vision at the same time. You want them to dribble with their head up. So they can see the field and team mates and opponents at the same time. Then I put them all in a big circle and tell them dribble trying not to lose the ball. They start to run into each other. Then you tell them dribble where a player just left. Then they start bumping into players less. They are moving into open space less congested space. But they don't understand it now, but they are doing it. Then play a game like dribble keep moving hold the ball and try to knock the other players ball out of the circle. So they have to protect the ball from that while dribbling at the same time knock the ball away from the opponent. Last dribbler with the ball in the circle wins.
Don't know why this clip is labeled "shooting." Begins with some nice passing exercises. 1 and 2 touch. Pass and move. You can see how these skills are necessary for possession style play. I would expect that these type exercises could be introduced at a younger age then these players who appear to be over 18, college players. Question is how young? Elite U14 and regular U16 maybe? Can you realistically expect U12 players to succeed at 1 and 2 touch restrictions? One thing about exercises like this, it requires 3 or 4 players with equivalent skills to be challenging to each player. They don't have to be equally skilled, but skilled enough to keep the ball in play even if not perfectly weighted and accurate. For technical exercises you don't want to practice sloppy play. So the challenge has to be appropriate. More space would give the players more time to make the play and be more forgiving of errant passes.
Rca the guys should be familiar with the exercise before they start to video tape them. Very sloppy and these players have no shot. The object of any exercise ending with a shot is to score on the shot. They I guess never heard of using the outside of the foot for a shot They are shoot where they are looking a lot of the time they are looking at the keeper After the player makes the pass that springs the shooter he is watching the play. He should be trailing that player.. You can do the last one with a 13 yr old haha. Maybe if the player used two touches. Ended with free kick practice, camera should be behind the goal
The way it's shaping up for us is that at U11 is when we started to introduce the possession stuff, not intentional but falling nicely in place. The possession purists, from what I've read, are okay starting right away with stuff like rondos. But U6 through U9, IMO, should be mostly about the individual skills. U10 is 50/50 individual skills some more but start introducing more of the concepts like 3v0/4v0. I could buy an argument that at u9 you could do 75/25 (skills/possession) and by "possession" I mean developing the passing and receiving technique that will make it necessary. What I think, and it's from a limited perspective, is that you'll spend a lot of time smacking your forehead at u9/u10 as to why they don't get it—there's a mental component and they might not be ready for it yet. Our legit rivals do that and they produce good teams, by the time we are mid-teens it all seems to average (as to which approach was better at U9/u10). Frankly, I'm biased, because while both teams are good we out-produce them in terms of "playmakers"—and, IMO, those are the kids that will go on to be the key players for their college teams. At u9/u10 I would've spent more time learning how to shield the ball. Helps with possession. Again, at that age, just get the passing and receiving down. Then for the full year at U11, be patient, and introduce the foundations of possession play. This is of course adjusted for skill level—so move everything up a year or two. One of the guys I talk to about this insists you can do this with any age and skill level and he's not a win-first coach either. I guess, it's just what you want to see out of your players.
An aside, I really dislike from a technical viewpoint how the 5v2 rondo is typically played (5 in a circle stationary). It is typically used for a warm up, but, because of the difference in intensity between the 5 and 2, it is not an efficient warmup. Put the same players in a grid with unbalanced sides (4v3) and you see more movement. Don't really understand why. 3v3 with a neutral balances the intensity and movements even better. I saw and used "circle" warmups a lot with adults nevertheless. A juggling circle followed by a 5 v 2 rondo accommodates staggered arrivals nicely. I have had really good results with unbalanced keep-away games (no goals) with U10 (ages 8 and 9). It is great for teaching the principles of play, vision, off the ball support, as well as pass & move. I did 3 and 4 a side from 4 v 1 and up. It was a good tactical game for the use of their new skills practiced earlier without pressure. Then followed by unrestricted SSGs to goals to allow them to use their new tactics and skills in game like conditions. My thought is that this basic practice plan could work for older ages too, with the progression seen in the first part as techniques progress and progression seen in the second part as tactics are refined. These would be possession items 1 and 2 I mentioned earlier. At some point though the practice format would need to change when the training shifted from fundamentals to the functional type training associated with teaching team tactics. I associate this step with possession items 3, 4 & 5 I mentioned earlier. This practice format should suffice through U18. Only when the players are ready, having developed the necessary skills and tactics, would you introduce the actual possession style play, the item 6 discussed earlier. The thing that struck me about the video clip that I linked earlier is the general lack of skill displayed by the players in the first 20 minutes of the clip. It was on par with what I would have expected from better than average high school players and I thought on the clip that these were older "elite" players. The skill displayed was insufficient for successful possession play. (Maybe I am being too harsh.)
I like a 5v2 but sticking the fifth attacker in the middle. So they play to him as a target. It's good for developing your center mid and all around speed of play.
I like that. As a progression having the target interchange with an outside player would increase the intensity of the larger side and introduce more game-like movements.
It works well with our real-game formation and frame work. So as you can see below we can play 7v3 or 7v4 and the ball circulation mimics how we would play in a real game—our CM is the playmaker, so the ball goes through him a lot. In a 5v2, which we do a lot, just take away the LM/RM equivalent and have the full backs run the length of the flanks.
I want a middle guy as well, and I want them continually changing that guy (rotating, leaving space, occupying newly opened space).
At what age have you found success with this, and do you have any "tricks" or suggestions that have worked for introducing this concept?
Not an age thing really. More of an understanding and experience thing. I've seen u10 that can do it well and I've seen u16 that cannot. Start with 3v0, 3v1, 4v0, 4v1, 4v2, then add a guy in the middle of a 4v2. But you have to be patient and stick with each form until they look really sharp at it. The whole series could take a year from 3v0 to 5v2. Pep Guardiola does the 5v2 and variations at Bayern and he's got the best possession players in the world right now. So it can take time.
As a club, and to a lesser degree as a country, the preferred approach is to teach possession play. I get that, I think it's a better platform for learning any style of play in the future. Part of me wonders though, at least this round, my best players are more suited for direct play. I have several guys who can just run at you and make life hell and a part of me thinks that I've got a restrictor plate on them when we play possession. On the flip side, when we're executing possession well, we're carving teams up with movement and passing. I think in the long run the possession lessons will serve them better.
I think being able to play both is super. Start long attack with an intercepted pass can't get it off by the third pass. Then go with the possession game. You can still play a possession game even when you bypass the mids. If the target player is able to play that ball back to the bypassed mids. I am also believer in a dual theme practice. Which is also learning to defend everything your teaching them with your attack.
I'm inclined to believe in that—playing both—like many have pointed out the last edition of Barca could possess but could play direct if you gave them the chance. "Possession" is a bit of a misnomer because one of the first principles you teach in possession is to look to play the forward pass (if it's given to you). Our typical opponents do not offer enough resistance to force us to circulate. So while that vertical pass may not always be on, the forward diagonal is on like 90% of the time. My coaching game isn't sharp enough to run dual-theme. What I do is, I tend to run a very few set of drills and most of them work for both attacking and defending. So on defending theme days, the attack still gets worked on, but my coaching points are more for defending. I think we can get to a point in the spring where we could defend effectively with 4 plus a keeper against 7. I can only think of one team that could work on finding the numerical mismatches.
You have the multi-theme approach correct. Restricting coaching comments to the primary objectives is a good practice. There are three ways to inherently make your training multi-themed and more effective: use progressive exercises that build on prior training, include both defending and attacking movements in exercises (I am using "movements" in the general sense that all coaching is training movements), and end the session with some unrestricted play. Ending with the unrestricted play is very important for long term development. Not every exercise needs to be in a progression, but each session should be a progression. You get very efficient training if you design the session and exercises to introduce a new progressive element while reinforcing the prior training by including the prior movements. The coaching points should be directed at the new progression. I think it is generally a mistake to make coaching points about the secondary theme. IMO it distracts and confuses from the objective of the exercise. There are times, however, when you may have to correct something off-topic immediately. A matter of player safety is an obvious example. Regarding coaching points generally, I will use shadow play or similar exercise to introduce a topic and when I want to interrupt and make coaching points. Like a real-life chalk talk. I don't believe in interrupting play to make coaching points. If you want to keep the players attention, interruptions should be exceptions, not routine.
If that was in response to my question, that's not what I was asking about. I was referring specifically to the language I had quoted, namely to the "middle" guy and the notion of players rotating in and out of that position that cleansheetbsc referenced. I've done a couple other SSGs that involve a middle square in a larger grid and some kind of scoring system that rewards successfully playing into and out of the middle square in addition to scoring for possession on the outside, but I've typically ended up with one guy just wanting to stand in the middle, a couple of same guys always wanting to be in the center (often at the same time!), or no one checking to get there. I also end up with kids being in a good supporting position on the outside and leaving that to fill the center, when it would make more sense for them to maintain their position and have the center filled by someone on the far side from the ball.
Gotcha, sorry. Yeah, the step in and steph out has never been effective for me. I just let them stay there because we are trying to relate the role to actual positions on the field and the CM is the fulcrum to our attack. Even if you watch Bayern run this drill, the middle guy does not change out in the variations I've seen.
Resource: "Possession Teaching Your Team to Keep the Darn Ball" by Dan Blank. Dan Blank is an experienced college coach and lays out the specifics regarding how he trains his players to play possession style. This is not an x and o tactics book. This is a training book for teaching players how to play possession style. I am very impressed with the book, well written and easy to understand. Since he starts from individual skills and 1v1 and progresses from there, there is something in the book for every coaching level.
It's a great book. To reinforce what rca2 said about it: the author goes into sufficient detail on how to coach possession. Whereas most other books will give you pages of drills and drills—you don't need that many—a fact echoed in many things I've read before. The more important thing are the things you demand of your players and the things you look for and how to fix and improve those things.
@elessar78 This question is also considering our past discussions and your recent post in playing out of the back. Thinking back to when you were coaching younger players, say the soccer age equivalent of U10 or U12, is there anything you were teaching that a futsal format would not have been a good vehicle for? I expect it would be a great fit. Here are the points I see: -- keepers often playing with their feet like a centerback and distributing short with their hands. -- the need for and space for pass and movement in order to be effective attacking (conceptually a "CM-less" system like the 442 is "wing-less:" the roles are filled temporarily by players moving into the spaces), making reading the game, overlapping runs and diagonal passing very important. -- lots of 1v1 dribbling challenges. --enough players to learn about width and depth, numbers up, and vertical space. --small spaces requiring tight control and not a lot of room for long runs, so timing and ball skills are more important than physical advantages. --high tempo and no place to hide, so lots of touches for everyone. Kids playing 2 5v5 games on a field are better format for development than 1 7v7 or 9v9 game on a field with subs sitting out. I really don't see why USSF thinks they have to go through 7v7 and 9v9 to get to 11v11. You don't need an adult-sized game to teach ball skills and fundamentals. (Yes, 7 is a side. See Law 3.) That progression only makes sense if you are teaching team tactics to U-Littles, which is not supposed to happen. I could see going with an intermediate size side at U12 as a transition from Fundamentals to team tactics at U14. But what rationale exists for 2 steps? It is inefficient so it has a downside. Of course good coaching is more important than the official format. None of the above thoughts are new. They have been around for at least 2 generations.