In 2015, I took over a talented group of 1999/2000 players. They were a group that had played together for the last three or four years, so were connected socially and individually had good technical qualities. The first year that I had the team, five new players had joined, a very good centre midfielder, a versatile player that I ended up using as mostly one of my outside backs, but also in centre midfield (both as a holder and a shuttler-type in a 3-4-3) and centre back, a goalkeeper (which the team did not have a ‘full time’ player for previously), a centre forward that was clever and creative and played centre midfield as well, and a very skillful, athletic, but raw player that I played as a centre midfielder and, in the last year with the team, as a centre back.

Coming into that year, they were arguably the best team at the club and were competitive against other top teams in the state, so I had a good platform to build off of. The club focused on a ‘possession-based game with the focus being on technical development’ which led to the development of good technical players, but, while individually some of them had good tactical sense, they collectively lacked a bit of tactical sense and did not have good positional structure or a cohesive game model. The club wanted its teams to do two things: (loosely) play in a 4-3-3 (which is part of an overall game model) and possess the ball (again, part of an overall game model). However, there was little in terms of an overall game model and the training methodology was archaic in terms of how to best develop players and achieve the playing philosophy that the club wanted to.

During the early stages of my time as their coach, we worked on a number of different things. We were restricted in our space, usually having just a 20×20 yard area to work in, and it really wasn’t until a our first game that I saw their tendency to cross the ball from all areas of the field in order to create chances: get the ball wide, put it into the box, whether it be a deep cross or from wide of the penalty area. It was frustrating for me because it seemed like we were somewhat panicked in the final third and lacked any thought process, but also would give possession away cheaply with these aimless crosses into the box. There are a few reasons I do not want my teams putting big crosses like this into the penalty area, but for this team in particular, we lacked the necessary qualitative superiority to win those balls: neither of my centre forwards were an aerial threat or target and as a team overall, we were always the shorter than our opposition. On top of that, at the points where the wingers or full backs were crossing the ball, the centre forward was always isolated and the more advanced centre midfielders were not making runs into the area.

During my years of coaching I have always wanted my teams to attack centrally, to try to play through teams, and work the ball into the box, patiently waiting for our movement (and the ball-oriented movement of the defenders) to create numerical and positional superiority in certain areas of the field, so after taking over the team and seeing how they were used to playing, I wanted to use their technical abilities to now work implementing these aspects of my game model. Reflecting on it as a whole, I believe that the team improved significantly, both individually and collectively.

4-3-3/3-4-3

During the first two years with the team, we typically played a 4-3-3, occasionally changing to a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield and a 3-5-2, but majority of the time we played in a 4-3-3. The two wide players in the front three were good at beating their defender and so, for the purpose of continuing with the idea of crossing, I told them that, should we be attacking out wide and they had the chance to, I wanted crosses to be low and hard and that, ideally, they would be cut back from the end line into the penalty area. During some sessions we would work on this aspect of their play: we wanted to isolate our wingers in 1v1 situations or 2v1s with the full back or centre midfielder joining to get these sorts of balls into the box should the opposition be compact in the centre of the field and not allowing us to play through them. Often, I would alter the shape of our playing field to direct play centrally and to allow isolation in the wide areas.

As the team progressed with the game model, we also gained and lost players. In the last season together, we lost three players, one versatile player (centre midfield, right back, centre forward) and perhaps the two best wide players in the team, in terms of consistently beating players and being able to deliver the sorts of crosses we wanted into the area. Of those two, one suffered an injury and one left for another team. One of the players we gained was very, very good. There is a video of a goal scored by him in this article I wrote: The Importance of 1v1s and Dribbling. The changes in personnel and some of the weaknesses (our structure in a 4-3-3 when in possession allowed maybe a bit too much space for counter attacks) that I saw in the team led to a change in our formation from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3 with the middle four playing in a diamond. This gave us huge flexibility and fluidity and really allowed the team to expand on the principles and sub-principles of our game model. The video below is a good goal we scored early on in the season playing a 3-4-3:

The team were fortunate enough to have parents filming games, which as a coach, allowed for some analysis of the team and the game model that we looked to achieve. With that resource, I complied data on the goals we scored during our time together (was not able to record every goal because not every game was filmed) to try to best show how successful we were in having a cohesive game model. After compiling the data and thinking of a concept to deliver that information, my brother (Twitter: @motzdc Website: Oxism) developed a visualisation of it.

The orange dots indicate the location of the assist and the red dots indicate the location of the shot (on some occasions, players took a few touches prior to their shot so the white lines between the assist and shot dots are not 100% accurate in terms of ball movement, but are accurate in terms of the location of the where the assist was played from and the shot location). Within the details, you can see what the name of the goal scorer, the provider of the assist, the type of finish (right foot, left foot, header, etc.), how many touches the player took before the shot, the opposition’s name, the score when the goal was scored, the formation we were playing, and the situation (open play, set piece, penalty, corner, etc.).

You can see a lot of what we worked on in this graphic: we played centrally and looked to work the ball into the box. There are very little goals scored from wide areas. Remember, when I took over the team, they enjoyed playing wide and putting crosses into the box at almost every opportunity, so during my time with them I was able to get them to maintain the possession-based approach to the game, but almost completely change the areas of chance creation. We still used our width, but it was in order to create space centrally, but if a wide player was able to beat their defender, the idea of crossing was still to find those cut backs.

8v8

Going back to crosses, I continued the idea of low, cut backs with what was a U12 team (2003/2004) at the time. We played 11v11 during league play, but played 8v8 in the State Cup (just prior to the USSF switch to 9v9). Below is a clip of the team utilising similar sub-principles to the older team: playing centrally, creating space wide, playing the ball wide, stretching the opposition, and then finding a free player with a cut back.

Always Have A Game Model

In order to get the best out of your teams, you have to develop a cohesive game model that you stick to in games and that you work on in training (an article about making sure your training has context: Contextualise Your Content). Without one, where you instead only rely on your players to use their abilities to figure things out, your team will always lack a cohesiveness need to excel at the highest levels of their ability.