I started writing this piece about a year ago to expand upon a presentation on this topic that I did for a coach education series that my colleague and I put on during our COVID lockdown period. I had been tinkering with it for a while here and there and then MK Dons scored a goal after 56 passes. They posted the video on Twitter and I was immediately brought back to the original opening to this article (which is just now a bit later) as I read through the comments. Here are a few favorites: ‘Got to love 3 minutes of sideways/backwards passes around the halfway line, thrilling stuff’ ‘Gave up after 20 back passes and sideways passes in your own half. Rubbish goal. Nothing Club.’ My personal favorite: ‘This was painful to watch. If no goal had been scored at the end, it would have just been pointless possession; the opposition weren’t pressing so it’s not like they were being stretched / tired out.’

All interesting takes, especially the last one as the move in fact did end in a goal being scored, so perhaps there was purpose to everything they were doing after all and that’s what created a goal. Here’s the passes and the goal:

And so the original opening is breathed new life – We have seen it so many times at the higher levels of the game: players that are five yards away from one another playing numerous passes back and forth. Sometimes it happens after they have just won the ball back, other times the team is very much in control of the ball. It looks sterile and static and these exchanges, from a broader perspective, are often criticised by TV and Twitter pundits and fans of the game as being without a purpose, echoed in the same chambers as those who misinterpret teams that use the ball in a patient manner to create opportunities, actions, and movements in front of the ball as teams that have ‘possession without a purpose.’

There are similar narratives tied to short passes in other areas of the pitch. Despite being more dynamic and perceived to be played with more purpose, short passes within combination play around the opposition’s box are met with shouts of ‘they’re overplaying there’ if the ball is lost when trying to break down a compact team. ‘The furthest forward pass is always the best pass to play’ is being propagated more and more (and many times it seems to be contrarian for the sake of it rather than given any analytical thought) when a team looks to build from the back and provoke the opposition higher up rather than play direct passes. Most coaches will agree that if the furthest pass forward is going to be successful, without any risk, and the receiving player is going to be able to perform their next action, then yes, it is the best pass to play, but that is rarely the case that all those conditions are met and it is more likely that furthest pass forward is a high risk pass and, many times, will leave a receiving player isolated, especially with the way more teams structure themselves in possession.

The question about whether to play the furthest pass forward can be a subsequent question following a risk vs. risk adverse debate and is dependent on the game model (as all things should be). As a coach, it is incredibly important to understand why your team (and other teams) does certain actions and it is important to understand your expectations of players in different situations (something that you can read more about here: How Do Players Make Decisions?). Are you willing to take risks or do you remain cautious? What is your team’s threshold for playing that risky pass as opposed to continued control?

As mentioned, there are definitely situations when just about every coach would agree that the furthest pass forward is the right one. No risk of the pass being intercepted? A clear ability for the receiving player to perform a next action cleanly? One might argue that all that should be weighed into the argument is the decision and execution of the pass, but the judgement should equally weigh the abilities of the receiver, as the two must coexist, so really you have three actions to weigh: is the pass going to be successful, is the receiving player going to cleanly receive the pass, is the receiving player in a position to continue the build up or in a position to finish. You cannot separate the decision to make a pass (or any action) without understanding the situation that that pass now puts the team in.

So, with these shorter passes, we need to look at their purpose and the situation that is created from them. These short pass exchanges can serve a multitude of purposes: primarily to unbalance and destabilise the opposition by provoking defenders and to enable the team to establish structure when in possession. When you watch a game and see these passes, they have such a difference to them, clearly exemplifying differences between passes and Bielsa’s idea of 36 ways to communicate with a pass, for me, is well represented in these two distinct instances.

Destabilising and Provoking the Opposition

This is certainly the most common usage of these passes in terms of influence on the game; the ability to destabilise the opposition with quick movement of the ball and players is a hugely important tool for team’s that have a lot of the ball and come up against teams that defend in medium and low blocks. I made the statement in a previous piece (The Importance of Coaching Dribbling and 1v1s) that a 40 yard dribble is much more destabilising to the opposition’s shape than a 40 yard pass. As I said before, if that 40 yard pass leads to a finishing opportunity then it is the right pass to make, but if you are playing against a medium or low block, how many opportunities do you have to make a 40 yard pass that leads to a finishing opportunity? It is rare if the team is organised, but that 40 yard dribble would tear that defensive structure apart. Look at Messi’s goal against Real Madrid from the 2011 Champions League Semi-Final:

I won’t pretend that Real Madrid are set up brilliantly here, particularly with the massive gap between their midfield and back four, although it has be noted that this is a direct result of Messi being in his false 9 role meaning Ramos and Albiol are not directly marking anyone. However, the ability for that dribble to turn an unthreatening ball position into a goal is incredible. To me, this is significantly harder to defend than a 40 yard pass because the defenders have to continually react to each touch and change of direction and, in terms of destabilising an opposition’s defensive shape, short, intricate passes force the defenders to have a similar reactionary approach as a dribble to this extent.

When we look to open up drilled defensive shapes, we need these quicker, more explosive movements from a dribble to force the defenders to continually readjust and recover and draw them out of position. However, dribbles are not very efficient. Since Opta began collecting take-on data, Messi has completed the most take-ons and his success rate is around 57%. And because there are few players that have the ability to consistency to apply that ability into mazy dribbles like Messi, we look to these short passes to provide the quick and explosive movements with a more consistent and accurate approach than a mazy dribble and perhaps these passes can take even more players out of the game. With a dribble, defenders could follow the dribbler, but with quickly exchanged passes, defenders are sucked into the ball carrier before it moves away quicker than a dribble. This leaves the covering defenders with more distance to cover as well and with a greater variation and distance of movement of the ball as well as the ability for the changes of direction to be more extreme, it makes it harder to defend.

The video below is from Barcelona v Real Madrid, November 2010. Real Madrid were defending in a mid-block and pressing, but Barcelona were able to consistently drag the Real Madrid players out of position. You can watch Xabi Alonso throughout man-marking Messi and then Pepe towards the end of the clip completely drawn in as he has to apply pressure to Iniesta with the Real Madrid midfield caught out and allowing Pedro and Iniesta to easily float behind them.

This certainly highlights the dynamism which the short passes create as well as Bielsa’s ideas of non-verbal communication from a pass that I mentioned before. While this is certainly a team at the top of its footballing abilities, it nonetheless demonstrates how effective short passes can be in opening up a defensive shape by provoking the defensive players out of their blocks to press the ball all while still allowing the team in possession to have significant control of the match.

The Structure Passes

More nuanced than the ability of short passes to destabilise defenses is their role in allowing structure to develop when in possession. Teams need structure when in possession, when defending, and during transitional moments. All teams have structure to a degree, from Guardiola’s teams to Sam Allardyce to Jose Mourinho. One of the most identifiable examples of this is Guardiola’s positional play structure in possession, starting back at his ‘tiki-taka’ days at Barcelona. That Barcelona team is held in such esteem, yet there were both contemporary and now revisionist critiques of that era, which again, seem mostly solely based in the need to be contrarian. However, this era at Barcelona and Guardiola’s subsequent spells at Bayern Munich and Manchester City offer us a good example of one of the purposes of these short passes. For a frame of reference, here’s a quick video of De Bruyne:

What is the purpose behind DeBruyne’s exchanges with Walker here? City had just won the ball back, you could see Phil Foden asking for the ball in a more advanced position, so why didn’t De Bruyne play it forward? There is an importance, especially in team’s that rely on positional play to create an attacking structure before progressing the ball. That is, they are looking to allow the team to create their attacking shape where they can then look to create any of the four types of superiority: qualitative, numerical, positional, and dynamic. In the video above, the delay in progressing the ball forward and the short exchanges between Walker and De Bruyne allow for the team to create their shape and structure and also ‘rest’ after regaining possession.

Just like how there was a ‘rule’ around the number of seconds to press before getting into an organised defensive shape, the same can be applied to a team in an attacking shape. Guardiola has said it takes 15 passes to create that structure and while that might seem hyperbolic, there is a lot that needs to be established: it isn’t just the team getting into their attacking structure and looking to find superiorities in the attacking phase, but there must also be time for the team to set themselves up to be able to counter-press and deny counterattacking opportunities. By biding time on the ball, the team is able to structure themselves for both the attacking phase, a counter-pressing action, and eliminate the opponent’s ability to counter attack, all which can be related back to the structure and the distances of the passes within that structure.

So these short passes are a tool for control. Control in the attacking phase, allowing the team to create structure to allow them to find superiority, but also control in the transitional phases of the game. Should you play the furthest pass forward, it doesn’t necessarily allow the team to create a structure that allows for these moments of superiority nor does it allow the team to organise for counter-pressing moments. This is why in the youth game we see so many chaotic moments: teams want to get the ball forward, no matter the risk involved, without setting up the team to be successful should they complete that pass or should they lose possession because of a misplaced pass and so messy transitional moments are much more frequent occurrences (of course coupled with decision making and technical abilities).

Importance in Counter-Pressing

The shorter the pass, the shorter the negative transition would be because of the players around the ball that are able to pressing the ball immediately and take away passing lanes quickly to suffocate the ball carrier. By maintaining an attacking structure where players are creating numerical superiority and doing so through playing the ball in tighter areas, with shorter passes, it allows the team to maintain structure to counter-pressing moments. If the team were to play more expansive passes, that means there is more space between the ball player and receiver, more opportunity for the ball to be intercepted and, likely, greater distances between the team structure as a whole and therefore a less than ideal structure to allow for the team to respond quickly and collectively upon losing the ball.

Applications In Youth Football

Of course, the details that are required to successfully setup your team’s attacking structure are tough enough with the limitations at the youth level (dependent on age, level, number of sessions per week, etc.) and then to also look to apply the necessary understanding in players to coordinate their positional play to be effective both with and without the ball is another step above. At the very least, however, we should be able to get across to our players the basic understandings of structure in possession in a small area around the ball and then expand outward as the principles are better understood and visibly applied within games and when the players have the maturity necessary to expand the game.

The objective of our game is to score goals. We do so by getting the ball forward and into dangerous areas and we do so by moving defenders out of the space you want to exploit. There are different ways to do this, but doing so in an organised, controlled, and patient manner allows for better development for youth players. By putting them in more situations to solve problems, they have to think about the game more and use their abilities and knowledge to solve the problems.

As with everything, these three categories of short passes are just tools to be used to reach the other team’s goal. The better we as coaches understand the tools we have at our disposal and the better we are able to communicate how and why to use them with our players, the better off our players will be, both from a developmental level and on-field-success point of view.