Little Things Make a Big Difference

If you have been around sports for any length of time at all you have undoubtedly heard a coach state that it is the little things that make the difference between winning and losing, between being good and being great.  I mention The Details of the Process on a regular basis.  That coaches constantly speak about the "little things" is testimony to their importance, but how often do you find the "little things" identified?

Toes up / Heel down / Strike with the ankle bone ... these are little technical things that make a difference.

Here is a small tactical detail to remember that can make a significant difference in a teams ability to defend.

Great defensive teams move on the movement of the ball.

 

Poor defensive teams move on the completed pass.

 

 

Think of the times you have seen a team chasing the ball around the field as the opposing team strings pass after pass together. Perhaps you have even been on a team that has chased the ball around the field?  Not much fun is it?  And it is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. In a word, it can be demoralizing.  To prevent this from happening TEAMS must defend as if they have one heartbeat shared by 11 players.  Great defensive teams know everytime the ball moves they must collectively move with it.

 

What about great offensive teams?

 

 

Great offensive teams move before the ball moves.

  

Poor offensive teams move when or after the ball moves.

 

 

Small but subtle differences between defending and attacking.  "Little things"  that make profound differences in the quality of play. Good teams pay attention to the details of the process. Great teams never allow themselves to become bored with the details of the process.  It's a matter of choice.  Choose wisely for the quality of your game depends upon it.

 

 





If you can't pass, you can't play.

(originally published August 4, 2012)

I have at times referred to Graham Ramsay on this site. "If you can't pass, you can't play" is a phrase I have heard him utter often during the camps he has conducted for us. I have myself repeated it to players and teams I coach. It is a basic and simple truth of the game, but I have come to realize it is also much more and that players tend to receive different and varying messages from the phrase.

Technical excellence
Vision
Soccer IQ or Game Intelligence
The Will to Prepare
TEAM First attitude

The ability to pass begins with mastering proper technique and maintaining it at the highest level. "Toes up. Heels down. Strike with the ankle bone." is a mantra echoed during training sessions around the soccer world. Unfortunately for many coaches and players alike the process of passing begins and ends here when there are actually several other significant elements that go into being able to pass the soccer ball.

"Vision" is another word commonly associated with passing. Left to stand on its own "vision" implies "seeing the pass" within the context of the game about you. At first glance this seems like another basic and simple truth, but once again there are layers of complexity involved.  Every player has "vision" but what separates good passers from the rest is what they see and when they see it.

Soccer IQ or Game Intelligence are terms that apply to a players decision-making process.

When do I shoot?
When do I dribble?
When do I pass?
Which direction - diagonally, forward, backward, laterally - should I pass?
What do I do after having passed the ball?

The correct decision is the one that scores the ball or maintains possession of the ball for your team. In terms of passing the decision-making process is all about possession and creating scoring opportunities. What is the longest secure pass I can make?  How many defenders can I defeat with a single secure pass? What is the safest pass I can make to relieve pressure and maintain possession? What is my next movement after having passed the ball.

Timing is also a critical element in Soccer IQ. The timeliness of a players decision making often determines the success of failure of the action take. Too early or too late breaks the rhythm and flow of the game and can lead to lost possession.

Hall of Fame basketball coach Bobby Knight stated "Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."   Preparation is the king consideration to successful passing. Before your first touch on the ball, you need to have a plan for how you will play the ball.  EVERY option for play must be explored before your first touch - Do I shoot, dribble, pass? Which technique should I use to execute my decision? In what direction should my play be made?

A willingness to pass, a willingness to share the ball with teammates must also be in evidence. If a player is unwilling to pass he will soon find others are unwilling to pass to him. However, is a player truly unwilling to pass or is his decision-making process leading to the pass short circuiting? Is the player selfish or merely struggling with proper individual pattern of play?  It is important to analyze and work with the player to establish good on-field decision-making skills for these are the basis on TEAM play.

When any of the above facets are missing a players ability to pass is impaired. Aside from technical excellence a player must get in the habit of collecting all the information available concerning what is happening in the game.  Scan the field constantly and consistently, but especially before receiving or winning the ball. Secure the ball in a manner that leads into the play you will make based on your scanning of the game. Then look to the play you have decided to make and execute the correct technique.

What happens if part of the process breaks down or is skipped altogether?  

For instance, what if the player fails to scan the game before securing the ball?  The focus is on "winning the ball" and figuring out what to do with it after that fact?  "Win and whack" is often the result. A player "wins" the ball only to turn it over by creating another 50/50 ball when his winning touch is nothing more than whack the ball in whatever direction he happens to be facing. 

Or what if the player does win and secure the ball but has no plan for how to play it?  If he has space and time he may look up and find a quality play to make. If he secures the ball under pressure without a plan for play excessive touches will ensue as he attempts to find space and time to get his head up and find a play. Often times the player will eventually find the correct play but his excessive touches have broken the rhythm and flow of the game.  The timing that would have made the pass easy is lost. A success rate of late or mistimed passes is significantly lower than well timed, accurate and properly weighted passes. It is often the lack of preparation / vision / game intelligence that dictates success of a pass more so than a lack of technique. 

Once again, success is found in the details of the process.  No single detail of the process can be ignore or overlooked without impacting the quality of the process. "If you can't pass, you can't play" runs much deeper than imploring players to pass.  Is the player selfish, inept or does his thought  and decision-making process need a tune up?  As coaches we must be able to discern the root cause of a players struggles and do our best to help them fine tune their game. As it concerns passing, this can be a more complicated process than it seems at first glance, but since a player really cannot play the game without being able to pass effectively we must be diligent in improving our players ability to pass.

Opposing Principles of Play

I have published these and similar thoughts before. They are extremely important for both coaches and players to understand.  Consider this a short guide to transition from playing AT soccer to actually playing soccer.

Attacking Principles of Play                                  Defending Principles of Play

1) Penetration to score                                            1) Delay the Attack

2) Depth to stretch the defense vertically                2) Support behind 1st Defender

3) Width to stretch the defense laterally                  3) Compactness

4) Movement of Players & Ball                                4) Maintain Balance

5) Creativity & Unpredictability                                5) Discipline & Patience

 

Great defensive teams move on the movement of the ball.

Poor defensive teams move on the completed pass.

Great offensive teams move before the ball moves.

  Poor offensive teams move when or after the ball moves.

Opposing Principles of Play

Attacking Principles of Play                                                 Defending Principles of Play

1) Penetration to score                                                             1) Delay the Attack

2) Depth to stretch the defense vertically                                 2) Support behind 1st Defender

3) Width to stretch the defense laterally                                   3) Compactness

4) Movement of Players & Ball                                                 4) Maintain Balance

5) Creativity & Unpredictability                                                 5) Discipline & Patience

Player Development: What it does and doesn't look like.

Here are a couple of videos that demonstrate what player development should and should not look like.

Kick and run may generate wins at first,but development is needed to play good soccer and sustain results.

 

There is no real development without the ability to possess the ball.

Move. Control. Pass. Move.

A couple weeks ago during a discussion analyzing a teams play I made the following statement, "I don't know that they have the technical excellence to play possession soccer."  That comment has haunted me for several days. I awoke this morning with a better understanding of why.

Possession soccer is actually quite simple to play from the standpoint of technical skill.

Technically all a player must have in his arsenal are two basic skills he has been working on since his very first practices.  1) The ability to control the ball and 2) the ability to pass the ball. 

The picture of possession soccer many of us have involves a series of short secure passes that move the ball about the pitch quickly in a variety of directions. This description infers possession soccer is a slow probing style of attacking soccer. That does not have to be the case at all. The pace of play sessions I conduct at camps are all about possessing the ball at pace after all. In fact, we have achieved some very good results in increasing the pace of play with teams whose technical skill level could be described as average at best.

Why?

"You haven't taught it until they've learned."

John Wooden

 

 

As I reminisce about this summer's camp season the above quote of legendary basketball coach John Wooden has often been on my mind. In a team environment one will find not all players learn in the manner. Something I have discovered over the years is that not all teams learn in the same manner either.

 

 

I am a student of the game. My soccer library consists of over 100 books, hundreds of magazines, over 250 videos and mountains of notes I have taken while attending camps, clinics, symposiums and even from my own practices and games.  My wife is very tolerant of my studies.  LOL. When I find something that I really like I latch onto to it and use it over and over be it a coaching phrase, terminology, a warm up, small sided game or game related activity. A recent example of this is the phrase "making offers" that refers to players making purposeful off the ball movement in order to receive a pass.  I truly am an old dog learning new tricks!

 

At a team camp a couple of weeks ago I was going through my standard coaching methodology using tried exercises in an effort to improve a tams speed of play.  First day went well as did the morning session of day two. The afternoon session of day two we hit a brick wall and hit it hard.  I had utilized a type of non-directional transition game to reinforce the concept of organizing early and taking advantage of an opponent before they got set up.  It was working beautifully, in part because we were playing in a large area with adequate time / space available.  When I attempted to use the same theme of transition in a directional, smaller and therefore faster paced environment is when we hit the wall.  Everything we had worked on, strove for and had begun to have success with was abandoned as the players reverted to old habits.  An exercise that had worked well with my own teams and for other team camps just wasn't going to get 'r dun this time. I knew I was going to have to change things up for the next days sessions.

 

On the way home that afternoon I thought about the wonderful success we had had the first 3 sessions of the week and pondered why things fell apart during that 4th session. I had made a comment to their head coach that I would have to approach things differently in the next session and would think on that before returning the next day.  I defined the problem as how to move the team from success with non-positional, non-directional play towards playing in a more game like environment.  Lucky for me, I am a member of an email group of coaches from around the country that exchanges ideas on all things soccer. On of the members had the perfect exercise to segue from non-directional play to directional play with purpose. He calls it Possession with Positions.  It is brilliant variation on some standard attacking exercises I had previously used but never fully embraced... likely because I never fully appreciated how they might be employed. Here was my colleague teaching me a new approach to an old coach tool. 

 

The next day I returned to the foundational work we had previously done with the team before quickly progressing to Possession with Positions. Voila!  It all came together in rather quick order. A different approach for a different team. It was that simple.

 

As I traveled home afterwards the question I asked of myself is how to recognize the need to adjust my teaching approach before hitting the wall as we had in this camp?  I found myself admitting there were red flags in the early sessions to indicated the exercise I employed that eventually broke things down would not work with this group.  Primarily, one of the better players and dominant personalities was never going to "buy in" or play the practice game as it was intended to be played.  My mind was drawn back to helping one of my sons solve a math homework problem. We got the right answer and I'm feeling pretty good about things only to have my son return from school the next day and informing me we did it wrong. What?  The answer wasn't correct?  Oh, the answer was correct, but we had solved it wrong. ????  Evidently they were teaching "new math" and I helped him solve it the old school way.  That was the case with the transition game in question here. They were solving the problem, just not as I had intended or wished for them to. Thus the need for a different approach.

 

A few days later I watched the team compete in a pre-season tournament. To my delight, and I think that of the team and their coaches, much of what we worked on was in evidence in their play. They looked quite good in their play and went on the  championship game.  John Wooden's quote came to mind as it was apparent I had some success in teaching them because they were enjoying success with what they had learned! 

 



Coaches need to pay attention to the details of the process too.

I am constantly reading, watching and learning about the game of soccer. Over and over again I am struck by the smallest of details in the process of coaching and playing the game. Today I want to look at the technical aspect of this by taking a well known exercise and tweaking it just a bit to enhance it.

I do not recall exactly when I first saw this exercise although it seems to me it was at a licencsure or diploma course from my early days in coaching soccer.  The exercise is typically called the Dutch Diamond and is employed as a warmup. It's the simple type of exercise that offers repetitive touches and serves to develop muscle memory.  Like any exercise worth the time to use it comes with coaching points. In this case, preparing to play, quality of first touch and the correct execution of a push pass.  There is also movement after the pass although it is not necessarily game related in the simplest version of this exercise.

Using four cones set up a 20 yd x 20 yd grid and divide the players between the four cones.
Begin with one ball being passed around the outside of the grid. 
The touch sequences are all 2 touch and begin coutner clockwise with right / right,  then right / left. Change directions to clockwise utilizing left / left and left / right touches on the ball.
Pass and follow.

Simple and useful exercise when executed properly.  The coaching points listed above can help improve upon it. The video linked below illustrates a very simple means to drive those coaching points home even more effectively.  It's a quite simple tweak of the exercise.

Breaking Lines  (Thanks to Randy at soundsoccerdotcom)

I add 2 cones to each corner forming a "L" or "V" shape dependent on abilities. In this manner we can perform all 4 sequences without resetting. By adding two cones to each corner a greater emphasis is placed on preparing to play (receiving across the body) and quailty of first touch (pushing the ball across and break the line to lead into the second touch)

The after pass movement portion is still not as game related as I would like it to be so I continued tinkering with possible progressions.  What I came up with was to have the passer make a diagonal run through the center of the grid instead of following their pass (a sometimes useful play in-game, but one we over-emphasize in skill exercises, imo).  For the purposes of this warmp exercise that the players will be merely exchanging positions between two diagonal corners as opposed to circling the grid matters little as the touches are the same at all four corners.