Writing and Reading - the beat goes on.

By my standards ... we had a bad season. And just like after a poor performance in a game, I am champing at the bit to get right back out there to put things right. The self-evaluation is on-going and will be until I can get back to working with this team.  Hungry? I'm starving! And surviving on leftovers right now.  Leftovers in terms of reading through notes on past seasons.  I write and read and re-read constantly.  Reading and writing are two of my favorite pastimes.  They have proven to be both cathartic and educational throughout my life. This is certainly the case this off-season.

What I am discovering ... or remembering ... is I have been here before. It has been awhile, fore sure, but nonetheless I have traveled this path before.  There is some solace in this. There is some frustration in this.  Two main themes have emerged (as they always do).  First is to focus on what I could and can control. Secondly, ask and answer the question "why?".  

Did I do a good job with what I could control? For the most part, I believe I did. Yes, that response indicates there was room for improvement in some areas. For me recognition and flexibility are key words in this process. I took some things for granted and therefore was slow to respond. I am coming to believe I was also too ridged in my consideration of the best formation and systems of play for this team.  In fact, where I once believed I was on the cutting edge in terms of formation and systems of play in local high school soccer I now realize this is no longer true. I allowed myself to become comfortable in success.

The past couple of seasons I have not been pleased with the defense played by my teams. Where my teams were once feared because of our vaunted defense we were now average at best.  I approached this from a fundamentals standpoint - we went back to basics and drilled the basics.  Some improvements were made but it seemed like opponents capitalized on every single mistake we made. Something was amiss and I was blind to what it was.

My teams have played with 4 in the back since the late 1990's.  It worked because of the prevalence of 3 forward systems. In today's high school game the preponderance of systems we face have 2 forwards and occasionally only one forward.  Four in the back is unnecessary. In fact, I am coming to the realization 4 in the back has contributed to our defensive woes these last couple of seasons.  If a defender has no one to pressure he is in a supporting role. Four in the back saw a redundancy in supporting roles and a decrease in concentration levels in those filling non-direct support. In a sense we were lulled to sleep by a false sense of security.  it turns out this impacted our effectiveness on both defense and offense.

So it is that in addition to reviewing and analyzing my own teams' performance I have gone back to analyzing the high school game in general.  Next years team will play a different formation and adjusted systems of play. I'm already moving into design mode on this.  No, I am not going to share the changes I am contemplating and instituting for I know some rival coaches read this blog.  Our readers will need to wait until fall of 2018 to fully appreciate what is coming. Suffice it to say, we are going back to forcing opponents to adapt to what we do.  The problems we are going to present opponents next year are going to be very different from those we have presented them these past couple of seasons.  

Change the Channel

This is a repost from 2013.  When a reader recently asked about "changing channels" I thought to write an article about this and realized I already had.  Changing channels fits with the theme of other recent articles advocating unpredictability in the attack. 


As we have progressed through the spring season we have installed more and more of our system of play. The past couple of weeks we have focused on flank play utilizing wing midfielders and wing defenders. These players typically man the outside channels.

A channel extends the length of the field from end line to end line although typical channel play takes place between the 18's.  Dependent on who you ask there are either 3 or 4 channels on the pitch.  The two outside channels and either one or two channels through the middle of the pitch. I prefer to think of the pitch divided into 4 channels as this matches well with zonal back 4 so prevalent in today's game.

Anyone who has played basketball knows a key to defeating a zone defense is to overload one side of the court creating numbers up situations that forces the defense to lose the shape it prefers.  The same holds true in soccer.

Our focus has been on overloading the wide channels by playing to flank players and running two other players toward the wings - some combination of forwards and center midfielders.   I like to run both forwards toward the flanks when possession is in the midfield area as this draws additional defenders wide and opens the center and weak side of the field. Early crosses into the center channels or even better, to the opposite wide channel can open seams to attack through when they catch defenses shifting.

Why play wide first?  Because it draws defenders from the space we ultimately wish to utilize - the center channels or the area in front of the face of the goal.

Sometimes it is advantageous to attack "straight" down the outside channels utilizing an outside back to engage defenders before dumping the ball in behind the defense for the wing or a forward to run onto. These "through" balls need to be played in a manner that affords your teammate the best opportunity to win the ball. Too often we see balls played too direct and with too much pace that opposing goalkeepers easily pick up. What about playing a flighted ball with backspin just beyond the defenders?  This will keep the ball away from the goalkeeper and the backspin will also serve to settle the ball back towards the teammate running onto it. Defenders often over run this type of serve and then are caught attempting to turn back to the ball allowing the forward and the ball to run by them.

Sometimes a defense will seek to press and put numbers up in the outside channel and nearest central channel. When this occurs we need to change the channel either via a drop and switch of fields or by a long diagonal cross. These long diagonal crosses should be played just over the head of the defender being isolated.  If the cross is going to the opposite wide channel it must be a flat diagonal cross over the outside defender on the weak side. 

Think of sitting in your family room with a group of people and the person in control of the remote keeps flipping channels every few minutes.  Each time you become interested in a show, he flips to something else.  Such behavior can really get on a persons nerves can't it?  Is the picture beginning to come in clearer?  Switching channels can serve to drive an opposing defense nuts just as flipping TV channels can drive people nuts!

Keep Your Shape vs. Crossing Lines

"Keep your shape" or utterances to that effect are common calls from coaches in youth soccer competitions. Most of the time, especially at younger ages, this implies staying in the teams formational shape; 1-4-3-3 or 1-4-4-2 as examples. In the older age groups the word shape becomes more synonymous with the word support.  Support (and balance) takes priority over formational shape as the latter becomes a bit more fluid.

Typically a formation will have three lines; backs, midfielders, forwards.  Dependent on how each line is employed there might be what we shall call "sub-lines" within each line.  For instance, in a 4-3-3 the midfield might be deployed in a triangle as 2 holding midfielders with an attacking midfielder in front of them.  The triangle shape might shift to one holding midfielder and two attacking midfielders but the players manning these positions stay with their "line."

The same is true of the back line where two center backs are often found flanked by two advanced wing backs.  In this case, the two advanced wing backs might appear to form a line with the holding midfielder(s), but their roles and responsibilities are still associated with the back line.  Similarly if two or more forwards are deployed one might be pushed forward as a target while another is slightly withdrawn.

"Stay in your position" is another call often heard at youth soccer contests.  It can mean the same thing as "keep your shape."  Often times when I watch youth soccer matches I see two teams in rigid formation moving up and down the pitch in synchronization. A picture of armies of the 1700's facing one another in rank and file across a battlefield comes to mind.

Now, I think shape or more specifically support is a critical element to team defending. The system employed behind the support strives to make an attack(er) predictable and therefore more easily defended.  This is sound soccer at any age or competition level.

If predictability of attack is a desired result of properly supported defending, then unpredictability is paramount to effective attacking.  This is where crossing lines comes into play.

In review, formations deploy 3 basic lines with possible sub-lines fielded within any or all lines.  Backs, midfielders, forwards.  When defending these lines define the teams formation.  All too often in the youth ranks they also define a teams attacking shape.  However, this makes the attack very predictable.

Crossing lines simply means a player moves from one line to or even better through another line.  The easiest way to depict this scenario is to picture a wing back moving up the field through the midfield line and into an attacking position abreast of the forward line.  The wing defender has crossed lines and therefore fundamentally changed the shape (or formation) that his team will attack in. If the responsibility for crossing lines from back to front in the formation / shape is shared amongst all backs this movement can prove to be unpredictable and extremely disruptive to the opponents maintaining their own shape or support system.

This movement is commonly defined as mobility, the fourth element to the game of soccer. In previous writings we have discussed the first three elements of the game of soccer; penetration, depth and width.  It is the mobility used to establish these elements that help define a teams attacking shape and the support within that shape.  More precisely it should be mobility between lines that defines a teams attacking shape and manipulates the defending shape of the opponent.

Crossing lines brings a fluidity to the game that rigid deployment in formation shape does not allow for.  In military terms it is akin to defending in a castle while an opponent uses speed and mobility to bypass the castle. In soccer terms, crossing lines adds another dimension to a teams ability to create numbers up situations to attack with. Think again of the wing defender. In front of him a midfielder engages a defender. The wing defender moves forward on the flank isolating that defender in a 2 v 1 situation.  Now the overlap combination passing sequence might be on or the defender might be set up to execute a wall pass / give and go sequence against. But the real value of mobility and crossing lines might be what is occurring on the backside of the opponents formation where your other wing defender might have freedom to run the flank all the way into the final third. Now, the opponents defense is stressed and under pressure of attack from both on-ball and off-the-ball threats on different fronts.

Crossing lines brings with it an element of danger when the ball is lost.  You will find teams that are adept at crossing lines when attacking filling their defensive shape from back to front regardless of originally assigned positions.  This is where pressing defenses come into play.  Upon losing the ball the nearest three defenders press to either win the ball back or slow the counter attack allowing teammates to reestablish shape behind the ball. Six seconds.  That is how long those pressing have to win the ball back. That is also how long teammates have to regain defensive shape behind the ball. 

In conclusion, one of the games within the game of soccer is the battle of Keeping your shape vs Crossing lines and the transitional phases of going from one to the other. 

The Process

The process of reaching our goals takes place every day.

The process is taking place when working on your own,

in every practice and during every game.

The process is taking place at every meal

and in the amount of rest we get each night.

We cannot allow ourselves

to become bored with the process.

Ultimately the quality of our performance,

our ability to achieve the goals we have set,

will be determined by the attention paid to

the details within the process.

The False Nine

The False Nine is a center forward with a non-traditional role.  The Nine position has long been defined by players who push high on the opponents backs looking to be played through for goal scoring opportunities.  The advent of zonal defending has forced changes to the role and responsibilities of the Nine position. Today the False Nine typically plays a bit withdrawn, often back to goal and is tasked with diverting the opposing back lines attention from others making forward runs and distributing the ball to teammates  This does not mean the False Nine is not a goal scorer, only that goal scoring opportunities for the position are generated differently than has been tradition. On my teams we refer to the Nine / False Nine as the Target Forward.

We expect our target forward to provide initial penetration by pushing opponents back toward their own goal, but instead of looking to be played through the primary reason is so the target forward can then check back to a ball played to his feet by a defender or midfielder.  The traditional Nine would push opposing backs towards their own goal looking for the flighted dump and run service from backs or midfielders.  The modern role for a center forward is to push the backs towards their own goal and then have them come back forward to defend against the False Nine receiving the ball at his feet.

As the ball is played to the feet of the False Nine and the opposing backs are stepping to meet that threat, wing forwards and mids, perhaps even a back are starting strong penetrating runs to be played through either directly by the False Nine or off a drop pass from the False Nine to a CM.  The through ball, or dump and run, is still very much alive but its execution has been adapted to beat today's zonal defenses  that have become far more common than the man-marking systems prevalent in days gone by.

I feel it important to note that a Target Forward does not present a stationary target.  Rather the False Nine / Target Forward must be very active and have a high work rate.  He must be in constant motion and vary his runs so as not to become predictable. In addition to "V" cuts that push defenders back before checking to the ball, bent runs back towards his midfield can also be employed. Sometimes the False Nine will drift to the weak side in order to check back to ball side. Other times he will move strong to ball side serving as much as a decoy as an actual target.  Deception is very much a part of his game.

Once in possession of the ball his primary role is not to take on defenders to create goal scoring opportunities for himself but to continue engaging defenders to create opportunities to distribute the ball to teammates who then advance the ball. Think of it in this manner - the False Nine is a creative distributor in the middle third of the field, then in the final third he is on the receiving end of distributions for goal scoring opportunities from the player he has played through. Still a goal scorer but also a facilitator of the attack = The center forward / modern Nine / False Nine / Target Forward.