Fans, coaches, players and pretty much everyone in soccer is constantly talking about tactics. In recent years, we've seen trends come and go like the development of conservative 11-men-behind-the-ball approaches ( or so called park the bus style), the efficiency of tiki-taka during Spain's run at major tournaments between 2008 and 2012 the rise of the 4-2-3-1 which then saw teams moving to some form of 3-5-2 set up. How many times have I heard discussion about the benefits of high pressure like Barcelona, or playing a counter attacking side, etc. For some, they love this stuff. They will spend hours sharing their knowledge and insight into different set ups and styles of play, why they work, why they don't, why certain players can't fit into a certain scheme. A good tactical plan for a game can encapsulate everything beautiful about the world: artistry, hard work, intelligence, and the sudden harmony of different minds.
As much as everyone talks about them, though, there's a gap between how fans and players understand tactics. Fans see them as broad strokes and buzzwords, a way of making distinctions between different teams. Players see tactics as instructions, a few lines of code, the specific details on how to achieve goals. "Counterattack" isn't a specific or clear enough instruction. For one teammate, it might be a quick shorter pass on the ground, but for another it might mean expecting one long, direct pass in the air. One player makes the rune, the other plays a quick short pass and both look a little stupid. Both are trying to counterattack, but counterattacking means something different to each of them. For players, tactics are a way of to prepare for a game or opponent, a set of cues and instructions that players which step on the field with and hopefully execute as planned, when needed, and of course the opponent, will react exactly as anticipated. However, tactics as understood and undertaken by players is often very different from the pretty game seen on your television or from the stands. For a non player, and especially that highly interested fan who might have never played the game if he or she is really going to understand tactics, needs to understand all the intertwined aspects of what goes into team set ups, tactical instructions and phases of play. One really important factor to understand is a players individual accountability as I like to call it. Individual accountability refers to a player's understanding of his role at any given moment. It is the most important part of a tactical plan. If each player doesn't understand his role at every moment, the plan means nothing. It's just words thrown out in the locker room. There are a thousand decisions to make in a game. A team's tactics tell a player what to do in each of those thousand moments. Where on the field do we win the ball? Where should my first pass go when we win the ball? Where does the player on the far side of the field move after I make the pass? Every player understands every other player's thousand jobs. It's less important that the single player knows his individual job than that the 10 other guys know what he's going to do so they can plan accordingly. As the players improve their understanding of their own roles and how their roles are intertwined with each of the other 10 players on the pitch, the cogs in the machine start to align, and the picture from outside the field gets more attractive. When things on the field really click and we witness some great movement, passing, and finishing, it isn't a fluke or coincidence. Players have practiced movements tirelessly in training. Wingers know they needs to create width for the team at the moment of gaining possession. A quality striker knows to be an option short to receive the ball on the ground. The attacking midfielders know to attack the space behind the defense. They are clear on the their roles. As a result, a player on the ball knows where they will be and can put the ball to the best option among all the moving parts, as and when they want it. Each new pass and movement occurs seamlessly but also creates a new set of decisions to be made. What makes a team great isn't its tactics as a whole. It's the team's ability to get those thousand parts turning instinctively. The team that wins the World Cup won't do so because it has the best game plan. Heading into any game, no one can really say which system of player , tactical set up or game plan is better than any other. In the age of technology, with some much video available to detect tendencies and keep stats, teams can prepare not just what they want to do, but how to counteract what they think their opponent will do. The winning team will simply execute whichever game plan that it chooses well. Many teams try and keep possession with a pass-and-move philosophy so why does it work for some and not for others. Why do certain teams always seem to be changing their set up, while others step on the field with a set game plan seemingly each game regardless of who they are playing? very team accomplishes this differently. Some coaches spend hours on it on the training field. They devote entire sessions to going over every detail, having their players run to defend cones acting as the opponent, carefully explaining everything. They tell the center back exactly how far to move up and precisely when. They rerun the session every week to hammer it home. Some coaches get 11 intelligent players with similar tendencies who will naturally figure out how to play together, and let the players sort it out for themselves. They put 4-4-2 on the board and trust they have selected the right players. Some coaches make 100-page packets full of little circles and diagrams and associated bullet points, and go over it with the players in the meeting room. Each approach has won a championship; there isn't a perfect blueprint. he difficulty for a team is ensuring that all of the players have one mindset. The different players on the field, the different cogs in the machine, were molded in different ways when they were growing up. All of their coaches in the past had different views of the game. One coach might want his pressing wingers to force the ball inside to the crowded middle of the field. Another might want his pressing wingers to force the ball outside to the line with his outside back in support. If the player isn't clear on his job for his current team, he'll make wrong decisions. The winger will force the ball down the line when his defender behind him expects him to push the opponent toward the middle, waiting back. Lack of clarity. The opponent easily plays the ball down the line and breaks the pressure. The opponent gains an advantage. The present coach must make the players forget their old ways and accept the new. Even with the best teams, the best systems have leaks. Sometimes players mess up. Maybe they read the situation wrong. Maybe their technical ability lets them down. Maybe they get tired and their brain doesn't register what it needs to do. I talk about clarity like it's simple; the truth is that it's extremely complicated. It takes thousands of reps to make even the simplest ideas second nature. But the team that gets its stuff right more often than the other team does—regardless of the tactics in use—wins the game. We're not talking about tactics as the playthings of managerial genius. It's the players who win and lose games, as the saying goes, not the X's and O's on a dry-wipe board. But it's the roles that define the parameters in which they get to operate. And it's to the player's advantage to have a clear role. It helps the player show his best. For one thing, he can play quicker. He doesn't have to think about what to do. He doesn't have to waste milliseconds thinking about what his team needs. He knows the instant something happens what is expected of him. He can just act. He gets to where he needs to be and does what he needs to do quicker. More than just playing faster, a player who properly understands what he's supposed to do can play harder. When he knows that he is supposed to win the ball in a certain area, he can tackle with everything he has. When he knows that he is supposed to get to a certain space, he can run as fast as he can. He doesn't have to look over his shoulder to know whether his teammate his coming to support him. He doesn't have to worry about doing the wrong thing. His body instinctively knows the right thing to do. He knows that what he is doing is correct, and he can apply himself entire to the decision and action. It's a liberating feeling. Keep all this in mind next time you are watching a game, every time you see a player make a run, play a pass, or defending 1v1, remember you are seeing just one of the thousand moving parts in a game. Try and watch play away from the ball when possible ( easier when at games in person that watching on TV). Notice how the players work together and move with each other, and how, very often, they do neither. All of that goes into making the picture on your screen. The smoother the machine, the prettier the picture. Done right, it can be beautiful. .
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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