U14 Thoughts

Field Size

The U14s will use a 4-3-3 formation this spring and summer, and as we began outdoor training last week on Betsinger Field, I started thinking about the numbers.  On this blog, the numbers game has come up before, as we managed the Rising Stars issues.  In an ideal world, we'd live in communities that have level, full-size spaces for soccer.  But, in the Rumsfeldian sense, we go to training with the pitch we have, not the pitch we want!  So, here's a rough sketch of how we'll organize our training sessions, specifically the scrimmages, to manage the spaces on the field the best possible way.


Roughly, the field paces off at 100 yards in length, and if we don't mind a bit of variance in elevation, we can get 60 yards of width.  That's 20 yards smaller than max dimensions in both directions.  On a full-size field, with 11 men, we end up with this formula: 120X80=9600 square yards or 872 square yards per player.  That's a lot of yards.  On the other hand, at Betsinger, we have 100X60=6000 square yards or 545 square yards per player.  Still a lot of yards, but only 63% as much space.  So, to adjust for our guys to have the appropriate space in which to work, it looks like this:  6.88 players should be on the Betsinger field per team;  6000/7=857 square yards per player.

Here's the kicker.  I don't know what the field size is at Rising Stars, but for teams to play 7v7 in there is far too cramped for that facility.

So what would that layout look like, with six outfield players and a GK, if we're trying to field a 4-3-3 in a game?  Well, much the same as our indoor lineup:

The yellow, in possession, become a 2-3-1.  The black
team, in defense, plays a 4-1-1.

Instead of the indoor version of our six man outfield formation, a 2-3-1, we'll play with 4 in the back on Betsinger to get the boys trained up on using the width of the field.  I expect to use a lot of "half" field games to train the wing backs and wing forwards a little differently, but even when we simply play full-field (so to speak) we must now use the width we have as opposed to managing the incredibly narrow indoor surface at RSSC.  Wide play will be an important part of our game plan, and it is imperative that our wide players begin to get the functional training for those jobs.

The notable field adjustments would be the addition of two "midfield" lines.  The yellow team would treat the dotted yellow line as midfield when they attack, and the dotted black line as such for the black team.  In this way, the normal visual cue of where to stand as a midfielder is more accurate to a full-size park; in training last week, when we scrimmaged, our backs (who are asked to hold a high line) would sensibly step to midfield.  At this point, we had a 9v9 game taking place in a 50X60 box, and no room to breath!  So this coming week, we'll adjust, put in the multiple midfield lines, remove players to make it a 7v7, and see if that doesn't help.

The trouble with this, of course, is that we aren't playing with 11 men, and thus are missing much of the additional complexity that having those extra 4 players will bring.  But we'll do shadow & pattern play with no defense, just 11v0, and try to address those layers of complexity that way.  Perhaps, as the whole club moves to outdoor training, we'll find a field that is sufficiently big enough.  I'd settle for something along the lines of 110X75 (750 square yards per player)....  Football fields, of course, have the proper length if the back of the endzone can be used for a goal line, but the exterior dimensions of a football field are only 53 1/2 yards (120X53.5=583 square yards per player).

To teach possession football most effectively, a club must have spaces that are full-sized; players need that space to spread a defense out, create time for themselves with the ball, and create numbers-up/isolation situations.  None of these things happen if the field is so small as to allow the defense to cover the entire thing and still have small spaces between defenders.

That said, extremely disciplined spacing, very fast ball movement and technical players can alleviate much of the challenges posed by a small field- and that's just what we'll do!