Quick Boys

FC Providence Recap

Hopefully no one from HMMS or Coventry will read this...

In the FC Providence match, our lineup seemed to cause some problems for the FC Providence defense.  However, whatever the source of the difficulty, the QBoys weren't quite attuned enough to fully take advantage.  Hardly a surprise; 12 year olds have a hard time seeing patterns across whole teams (it's why we play 8v8 at this age group-it's why we coach more technical stuff than tactical, or should be).  But I mentioned it in the team email after the game, and it raises some points that are germane to the understanding of a developmental model of coaching versus other approaches which put winning ahead of other goals.

Here's the general layout....QB's in red, attacking toward the bottom of the picture.  The ball, as a fer-instance is with our right midfielder (Marc, Wyatt, mainly):

The FCP kids seemed to be very wary of our wingers (and rightly so) and their wide midfielders dropped quite deep to help cover them 2v.1 with their outside backs.  That FCP played a 3-3-1, and we use a flexible 2-3-2 caused a lot of the mismatches for us.  While the red dots do look like a 3-3-1, remember that I label Jed a deep-lying central midfielder (often referred to as a "holder" or "holding central midfielder") and NOT a central defender.  This leaves Franny and Max 2v.1 with the opposing striker.  Good luck kid.  It also puts our wingers right in the lap of the opposing midfielders, or better yet, just past them; with a central striker and an attacking mid, the back line tends to collapse centrally- leaving our wingers behind the mdifielder, which in turns pins that player back against his own back line: he can't go forward because we outnumber their back line, at least on the strong side.

I wouldn't contend that this is what the U12 mind is thinking in a game, but they do go where the action is, and because of our players technical ability, in particular the obvious desire of the wingers to get behind the backs, it lures midfielders to sit too deep while defending to generate effective attacks.

We are fortunate to have several guys who are effective at taking on defenders in wide areas, and attacking the goal line.  To whatever degree it helped them to become so effective, it's been my demand of players at those spots all year; get the ball, beat the man and get behind the back line.  (The other offensive key has been to find the striker's feet, or the attacking center mid -Kades' position in the graphic above)  Given the reaction by the FCP defenders, it was clear that for whatever reasons, our wingers were well-respected.  So their defense was deep, and left our backs open.  Over time, better communication and composure will reduce the number of times that our wingers take too many touches, or take on more than one defender; for now, in game situations, they need to learn the primary role of a winger, which is to find as many ways as they can to get to the end line.

The backs will learn to recognize which of our players are being left open - for no defense can cover all 10 outfield players - and communicate that information up the field.  Being at the back of the team, they have the perfect vantage point to do this analysis for us.  Sometimes, like in the FCP match, they'll be the open ones, other times it'll be wide players, central mids, or what have you.

Most crucially, in the graphic we can see that Ingram is left 1v1 on the flank, while the ball carrier has attracted a double-team.  Andrea Pirlo, Leon Britton, Xavi, Schweinsteiger and the like find these 1v1 matchups that are favorable, and boss the team into attacking those areas.  U12s aren't quite there yet...and they haven't the ability on several levels to find weak-side situations - it takes strength and effective long-passing range, as well as solid teamwork and communication, and never forget, the receiving player has to be able to take a pass struck 30-40- or more yards cross field (think Steven Gerrard, David Luiz, bombing cross-field passes regularly in the range of 50 to 70 yards) and bring it down in one touch so effectively that he can then beat a defender who is working very hard to close him down.  I assure you, that skill, though so silky and easy in appearance on Saturdays in the EPL, is one of the most underrated skills in the game.  If anyone wants to try it and see for themselves, give me a call.

For our group, Jed has found his way fairly organically to this position, and we're lucky for that.  He's bounced around pretty much all the positions since August, and it seems we're beginning to find where he's comfortable and most effective based on, ever-so-importantly, his own estimation of his abilities and not those of an imperious know-it-all coach applying external definitions.  Here is what it gets us as we move ahead to U13 and 11-a-side:

 In the above graphic we see a generic version of our 2-3-2, or 2-3-1-1, or even a "crooked" 3-3-1...call it what you want, it translates very nicely to the scheme for next year:

The red players here represent the second holding midfielder and two wingers, bringing the team to 11- and I should mention the way things are laid out here would be in an offensive shape.  The central defenders are split wide to support the central mids, the wide backs are pushed up high to the midfield line, and so on.  Now, the decisions that need to be made most importantly for us are: are the guys playing as wide mids now going to be wide backs or wide strikers in the months to come?  Lots of variables will factor into those decisions, so no need to get ahead of ourselves here.

As I juggle today's need against the long-term interest of the player, these are considerable factors.  Balancing the unique demands of a given position against the more general needs of all positions is another area that takes some thought.

One final thought on the game.  I am encouraging the boys for several reasons, at this time, to both defend in a tight group (short, backs to striker and tight, left to right) and attack in a tight group.  Here's why:

1. Defending tight makes us tougher to break down.  Simple.
2. When we do win a ball, it's easy to make short, accurate passes in the zany transition moments to find a spot of space and some time to make better attacking decisions.
3. Once we are settled and can play forward with intent and numbers, most teams are sooooo slow to transition to defense there really isn't any need to spread out (favorite, and dumbest, thing hollered by parents from the sidelines across America in youth soccer) because there is plenty of space in the middle of the park.
4. If there isn't space in the middle, well, it's pretty simple - there's space on the flanks.  AND, if your wingers are encouraged to attack with the ball and take players on, those spaces are always there to "bail out" into when the middle gets jammed.  
5. But really, why attack wide, why spend energy getting all stretched out, when the individual defending and team defending are of such low quality that all the room you need can be found in the middle?

FCP did give us a more crowded middle than some other teams, but still, Danyal cut inside, and found CJ for our second goal, and Jed and Kades were giving them fits.  As the boys outlook matures and they develop composure on the ball, and communication, and the analytical skills to sort out the numbers game, we'll find players left with space (Franny and Max in this instance) and use that space to generate dangerous movements to goal.