Cliches in Football/ Soccer I. “The footballers here can not play possession football”.

  Author: Oscar Mendez.

 

I´ve Heard many times, journalists repeating over and over  “the footballers here can´t keep possession or give more than three passes without losing possession of the ball”.

Whether in the construction phase in the Offensive Organization, defending with the ball when they are winning or in other occasions that come up in the different situations in the game.

Many of these people which include sport journalists, coaches, fans, players, ex-players, think naively the same (in my opinion), that is “to maintain possession of the ball it is due to some cell, some mysterious reason or something hereditary”.

I personally suspect that they think that the ability of a team to keep the ball depends on good technical abilities exclusively.

Obviously for someone to pass and control, that player must have complete technical mastery of this fundamental, specially of how to control and pass the ball.

Personally  I suspect that the reason they think that these players  have problems keeping possession of the ball is because they think maintaining possession of the ball is purely a technical issue and not a tactical one, and they feel these players are technically inferior to others who can.

The thing they are leaving out or don´t take into consideration is. that the pass and control are collective technical fundamentals, part of the Technical Dimension.

 

 

 

Normally everywhere, it was one of the first technical fundamentals taught, even though it is part of collective technique and the child first in order to pass and control , he-she must have total control of its body, its surrounding and complete control of the ball, be able to see ball, teammates, opponents etc.

There are always at least two individuals involved, but it is often trained individually or mechanically ,analytically, very distant from the real situation where the athlete has many variables, dynamically interacting and not behaving as constant factors which takes away the complexity and reality of the exercise.

There must be “another one” for me to pass to or to control to- from.

 

Also, apart from the technical mastery that the footballer must have, directing the control to whatever action comes after, executing this without thinking consciously in thousands of seconds, seeing and taking advantage of space, looking for numerical superiority and avoiding numerical inferiority and choosing whether to pass , to dribble, to break away from defender behind or in front of him-her, all of this depending if the team is in possession or not.

All of this is complexity and can not be achieved by executing analytical exercises.

Characteristics to take into consideration for a team to maintain possession of the ball:

The main reason in my opinion that is never mentioned is the tactical aspect or dimension.

In order for a team to maintain possession of the ball and not lose it, besides  footballers having good individual and collective technique, they must handle tactical concepts / principles that, in addition to the coach knowing them, he or she must know how to teach and train them.

 

  

OFFENSIVE COVER

On Tactical Periodization, this a specific principle we focus on when we want our team to maintain possession and progress without losing it, besides what we mentioned on the technical dimension above, we must make sure that our team, when we are on possession, when we see it from camera view or from a sky camera, our players are not occupying the same lanes on the width and length of the pitch (as if we saw the game from a camera view , from the top). If our players are on different lanes, it will be easy for the player when he-she is in possession, have several passing options.

If they are in the same lines like Koeman´s Barcelona recently, where they were many players on the same lines, it will be more difficult because the passing options for the player in possession will be reduced and it will be easy for one defender to block passing lanes of several players.

 

 

Spacing.

By this concept what we look for is for our players to maintain a certain distance, not too far away from my teammate that he-she can pass me the ball but not too close so that our team will be easily pressed, when we have the ball.

If our players are too far away from each other, it will be harder for us to pressure after we lose the ball and will be easily counter-attacked after losing the ball because these players will be too far away from the ball .

 

We see many times as teams become divided in two, those who attack and those defending.

If we attack with few players, our chances of scoring decrease dramatically.

These aspects mentioned take time for adquisition by footballers, many repetitions and training.

We may not notice an evolution in a couple of weeks even-though as the sessions add up the footballers will begin to understand and execute this and we will observe a gradual improvement.

Anyone can analice or play in the park with friends, but not everyone can analice and play real football because of its complexity.

 

Distinguish all the Phases of Play or Moments (Offensive and Deffensive Organizatiion and Offensive and Defensive Transition).

Many players we hear different coaches say that they organize themselves through the possession of the ball.

When our team begins to understand when it is on the Offensive Organization or when it must look for quick transitions and that the players do it automatically implies they understand the game.

There are moments when our team must look for width without risking the possession of the ball so it can progress and finish plays with many players on opposing box, looking in most cases the longest way to the goal or to move the opponent where with patience, and at a lower rhythm, attacking free spaces.

There are other times where it must look for depth taking advantage of defensive disorganization explosively, so we can surprise them.

When we begin to recognize that we are attacking and not counterattacking, the footballers will need more patience, will have to focus on not losing the ball because our team will be open, where we will need a higher amount of passes with less verticality, at a slower rhythm, because when we counter-attack we look for speed, depth and we  run a higher risk of losing the ball because passes and movements will be forward looking to take advantage quickly of opposing defensive disorganization.

Having longer possession time than our opponent will not assure us of winning, but we do know now that teams who have more possession win more often  than teams who don´t in most cases.

 

Scientifically we now know , thanks to Big Data and Game Analysis, taken from thousands of matches from the most important leagues in the world (Germany, Spain, England, France and Champions League) that teams have a higher percentage of winning since they tend to shoot more, thus winning more.

In modern Football we fall back on logic and Science that is what leads us and is of constant support.

 

Obviously winning does not imply only having a higher percentage of posession, but it limits fortune percentage that is also a factor to take into consideration.

It is obviously not a factor  to take into consideration by itself, without doing a Qualitative assessment but it is not wise to deny it either.

This fact was observed on thousands of matches and it is indisputable.

It is time that people who talk and work in football, either begin to study or stop repeating things that have no scientific evidence because it influences peoples´ opinions and later we hear saying things that don´t adjust to facts.

How a team is going to play as we mentioned before many times will depend on a multiplicity of factors that we have talked about before and it is a matter of the Coach, Culture of the Club, characteristics of players, situation of club, economy, fans, journalists etc.

 

No way of playing is criticizable because not all of us begin “the race” on the same spot or place and with the same tools.

 

Trying to Progress on Numerical Inferiority.

 This mistake I see it many times where in the active zone  (zone where our team is trying to progress to), the opposing team has many players outnumbering our team. Normally happens when the opposing forwards move back in front of midfielders.

When our team on construction phase is building up from the back, in this case the red team, too many players stay behind the ball and we end up playing a 6-7 v 11 of opposing team.

It will be practically impossible for our team to progress-penetrate with a numerical inferiority that is so large or numerous.

 

 

 

The use of Rondos, Possessions, Positional exercises to train this.

It is important to train mobility apart from technical fundamentals that we talked about where we see more insufficiencies, we must also focus to train to recognize and exploit numerical superiorities, inferiorities, with constant changes of possession, on different intensities, spaces, touches and different types of difficulties.

Breaking away from defender for support and towards opponent´s goal.

Another important aspect is that players without the ball in possession phase, learn when they break free from defender to support or towards opponent´s goal. When to do this, when a teammate is being pressured we must support him-her, whether they are in defensive sectors or in the construction phase or near the opponent´s box. Many times we see a player being pressured, and teammate makes a sprint towards opponent´s goal. Others we see a team that has possession near opponent´s box but no one moves towards the goal, or they do it too soon or too late, as Johan Cruyff used to say “you must break free from ender on the right time, not too early, not too late”.

As the great Laureano Ruiz used to say (creator of F.C. Barcelona method) we must divide the team in three thirds when we are in possession of the ball, the first one we must try to be near each other, the second one move inside the space we occupy, the last one we must break free from defenders running towards opponent´s goal.

Other Tactical aspects to take into consideration:

Concepts like geometric figures on the pitch, game rhythm, variability of passes, repetition of passes, direct the attack and other principles of play that the coach must know and know how to teach for the players to learn and execute them on real game situations.

What many coaches must take into account is that not all players need the same atention, repetitions and help.

The difference between a footballer that will play professionally and another that won´t, is that many times the one that will reach professionalism will need less reps to master it and many times will not need any help to see it.

So we must remember to teach it consciously (saying it or showing it) but must learn it pre-consciously with exercises.

In this moment, we have a lot of scientific information, that knocks down many repeated and made up phrases, that do not have any foundation behind and that now we can recognize them that were based on speculation.

My intention on this article was to knock down another one.

 

 "We must want the ball a lot and have it very little".

 

Jorge Valdano.