Eleven Part Harmony

One of our favorite training games is a simple game involving a ball, a wall and 1 or more players. Our kids call it Slam! We use benches laid on their sides as a surface to pass the ball against. It can be a competitive game or a nice training tool that sees individuals setting personal records for consecutive touches. When playing as an individual I encourage players to listen to music, sing, hum or play a song “in their heads” to help establish a rhythm in their play. When harmony is established between body, ball and bench the number of consecutive touches add up quickly.

Every soccer team strives to control the ball and the pitch (bench) through their play(ers). How a team sets about doing this is based in their formation and systems of play. A teams shape is a point of emphasis and often talked about among coaches and players more than formation. In our zonal defense system we look to occupy space more so than mark individuals. We stress the Ball, You, Man individual triangle principles, but with our primary focus on supporting our teammate pressuring the ball. It is this support being provided that establishes harmony in our defensive system.

Think of it in this manner, we are not about one person defending, but are about 11 players defending, together, in harmony. To do this we must move together, collectively, as if we have one mind, one heart beat. One player being out of sync can be like a singer missing a note. Sometimes no one except an expert may notice, but other times everyone’s attention is drawn to the person being off key, or out of positional shape.

When we transition to attacking, our team shape changes with emphasis shifting to player movement, ball movement, establishing a rhythm and manipulating the opponent’s defense. Think of this as forcing the opponent to dance to the music we like and we of course are selecting a genre they are not comfortable with. That is, we are taking the opponent out of their defensive harmony.

Soccer truly is The Beautiful Game when a team plays in harmony with one another. This perfect harmony can be a rare thing to achieve though. When teams are not in harmony, they are nothing more than a group of individuals. They will have difficulty moving collectively and struggle to play with one mind, one heartbeat. The desire might be present to do so, but their shape, their support of one another is lacking.

People often refer to what we are discussing as team chemistry. It’s difficult to describe exactly what this is but it centers round the player closest to the ball, either when defending or attacking, having as many options as possible available in the forms of support and team shape to solve the problems he encounters in the game .

When defending, a compact team shares the workload of defending. When a team loses its defensive shape we often find an individual or small group doing most of the defending and expending most of the energy. Not only is this unfair it also negatively impacts a team’s ability to transition from defending to attacking as those compact links established in proper defensive shape often offer the quickest means to escape pressure, switch fields and penetrate the opponent’s defense.

We’ve been discussing harmony, team chemistry and playing with one heartbeat as means to describe team shape and support. It might do well to consider for a moment how chaotic a soccer game sometimes appears to be with small skirmishes breaking out sporadically around the pitch as the ball ricochets about the field.  First a small pocket of action involving a few players here followed by a small pocket of action involving a few players there. There is no rhythm established as action is based on winning and whacking the ball. People sometimes refer to such soccer as watching a ping pong or tennis match. Lots of back and forth action, but a lack of rhythm due to the lack of  shape and support.
 

Contrast this to the calmness a game can express when 11 players are seen working in concert with one another. When the collection of players functions as a team and the workload is shared there exists a level of comfort through shared understanding and trust that allows the beauty of the game to come forth.

It is important to note that as we strive to develop our harmony on the field a byproduct will be the disruption of the opponent’s harmony. When defending we seek to break the opponents rhythm and disrupt their harmony by denying what they seek to do and making them play in a predictable easily defended manner. Conversely, as we strive to manipulate the opponent’s defense to create and expose seams we can attack through we disrupt their defensive cohesiveness and chemistry. It is here our unpredictability in play becomes important. The ability to interchange “positions” without losing overall team shape can devastate an opponent’s defense. That in playing for one another we are playing for the team. Understanding that making purposeful off the ball runs without the expectation of receiving the ball each time we do so can disrupt an opponent’s defensive harmony allowing for a teammate to receive the ball. When we understand that off the ball movement dictates the movement of the ball, then we can begin to purposefully manipulate a defense to disrupt their harmony.

And so it is that our own harmony has a direct relationship with the opponent’s harmony. To establish our rhythm is to disrupt their rhythm. In a sense, it is the team able to involve more of their team in collective play that is able to dictate the game.  If we are able to play with 11 players in harmony while the opponents can only muster 6 or 7 to be in harmony, we have a distinct advantage.