Champions League

Chelsea V Barcelona

Tuesday, 2.45pm @ Stamford Bridge

Read a good, brief analysis of some of the defensive changes at Chelsea since AVB was sacked and Di Matteo took over at Zonal Marking.  For the match with Barca Tuesday, I thought it would be a good addition to ZM's comments to add these pictures for anyone thinking of watching.  The big questions left unanswered at this time are how high a line Chelsea will dare to hold (presuming ZM is right about the arrangement of the team) and what they'll do about keeping Messi from getting the ball.  Or, more accurately, where they'll "live" with him getting the ball- he's going to get it, the hope will be to control where he gets it.
*additional preview by Michael Cox here (added Tuesday, 11.15AM)

Here's Chelsea's new-ish formation, a more conventional (and pragmatic...indicating a sluggish first leg, perhaps?) defense with two lines of four defending.  The trick is to limit the space between the center backs and the holding mids  (yellow box).











If the two holding mids drop toward the center backs, Messi will find little room to get the ball in front of the back four, and so he'll have to come quite deep into his own midfield to find the ball.  Which should work OK for managing his touches from Chelsea's perspective.  The two problems this brings up are the three midfielders will have lots of room and time to both just hang on to the ball and pick the back line apart, and, 2, the flanks will be a 2v2 situation and someone like Alves or Tello, Keita  (and on and on...) could get into very dangerous situations from wide areas.  The wing backs for Chelsea will have to be very sharp.



If Messi comes deep, there will be a block of four central defenders between him and the goal.  But if the attack can expose the flanks, he's awfully good at making runs in the box for balls in from wide areas.

The misery of dealing with hugely talented, and well-organized sides.

Good luck, Chelsea!

End Of An Era

Salute To A Mentor

Peter Gardner of Brunswick, Maine Retired Last Week

Career HS Record 463-128-49; 6 State Class A Championships/4 Runners-up

It's a funny thing, how a bunch of folks (mainly in Central NY) will read this about a person they've never met, never even heard of, from Maine.  But those who support this blog I hope to have influenced in some positive way by my efforts as a coach, and today I have the gently bittersweet opportunity to note the retirement of a fellow I have admired for a long while from coaching.

Peter Gardner lives in Richmond, Maine, and drives probably 30 or more minutes to get to work at Brunswick High School where he has served as a math teacher, assistant principal and for 39 seasons, the boys varsity soccer coach.  My connection to Coach Gardner is simple; I played against his teams for three years (he creamed us, most times...though we lost a one-goal match at their place one time when my buddy Matt broke a  tied score by clearing a ball out of our six yard box, into our teammate's face, and into our own goal...) and went to Europe twice with an organization he worked with leading soccer tours of Italy, France and England.  We got creamed there too...

Summers in college I played on a team Peter's sons had pulled together in a summer men's league.  It was a hard-drinking and hard-working group of 20-somethings, with the odd older guy with kids, and a couple of college guys like myself.  All blue collar fellows, working in the shipyard in my hometown of Bath, construction and the like.  In some ways, it may be the best team I ever played for.  Peter coached that group of miscreants, and we did very well each year.  Looking back, I have to marvel at his patience with us, and that he'd put in even more hours in the summer coaching adults (sometimes only technically) who really didn't need a coach.  But I learned a lot from him those summers, and much of my management style is based on his easy-going and blunt, yet friendly, rapport with the players.

When I left my first job post-college in Iowa, I returned home to crash for a couple months while my position at Clarkson here in NY got sorted out, and to keep out of trouble I did some substitute teaching around my hometown.  I worked at Brunswick High a couple times, and caught up with Coach Gardner, and in doing so, got to know him a little better.  What was most remarkable was that he recalled not just that I had played for Brunswick's general rival, Morse High, but that he had specifics in mind when we were talking.  Incredible powers of recall, and sincerity to boot.

Anyway, this is a guy who was a class act in all circumstances, was widely admired by everyone who came into contact with him...and as folks who conduct themselves in this way tend to do, he was a winner on the field.  Happily for me, I have had the good fortune to know, even slightly, and play for and against a guy who will be remembered for who he was, not just that he won a few games in his career.  The game is diminished for losing him, but I hope I am not the only person reflecting today on my efforts, and my approach to coaching, and that those of us who are taking note of Coach Gardner's retirement will ultimately continue his legacy (even way out here in CNY!) and even, if we're lucky, improve upon it.

U10 Video

U10 Boys In Training

April 4, 2012

What progress we've seen in these boys over the last few weeks.  I have to say, I'm very proud of the club's decision to withdraw our youngest teams from the indoor league tournament the last couple weekends.  League play is one thing for these guys, but the tournament play is a totally different animal.  That we do the one tournament a year is, believe it or not, the cutting-edge of long term player development, and it takes guts to buck conventional wisdom the way the board did at the April 1 board meeting.

The point being, we have continued to hammer the U10s with passing technique, the concept of the 1-2 (give and go) and the introduction of the use of space to expose the defense and then exploit the defense via ball movement which is, of course, far faster than a defender can run.

Here's some video of a recent training session...I'm excited to post another clip in a month or two and see the difference.  Enjoy!

Colgate V. Akron - U14 Homework

Akron Attacks The Middle

Easy to analyze, difficult to stop...why?

Akron, in this video clip, attacks the middle of the Colgate defense.  Watch the video, map the ball movement, and answer the two questions at the end of the post.



Here's a pic to help clarify the players involved:

The back 4 are circled, holding mid is the rectangle
(other two mids are unmarked) and the three
front-runners are in triangles.

Here's the video clip...map the ball movement player by player and try to figure out the defense's movements (what player tracked which Akron attacker).  

Two crucial questions:

• What should the Colgate defense have done instead?  
• How did Akron create this dilemma for Colgate? (think technically, rather than tactically...)

Colgate/Akron

Akron Nicks Colgate, 2-1

A good game on Saturday night saw Akron take a 2-goal first half lead, and despite Mike Reidy's goal late in the second half, Colgate could not level with the 2010 National Champions (and 2011 round of 16 participants).

Akron held a massive edge in possession, and later this week some video will pop up here to show why.  It was a great experience for the Colgate boys, they performed well against a hugely talented opponent, and it was heartening for this coach to watch two teams play who were both interested in keeping the ball on the ground and playing with thoughtfulness.  Akron are the real deal.  Check out their program here.

MLS Stats

MLS 

V. 

Champions League

Was checking out www.mlssoccer.com the other day and noticed something about the Union/Whitecaps matchup.  The chalkboard program (found by selecting a game score, which takes you to the "matchcenter" where there is a tab labeled "chalkboard" for that match) at that website allows you to look at individual players passing, tackling, turnovers, shots and other significant statistics.  The Union, as an example, had one player who completed 45 passes in that game.  I was (as any good soccer snob would be) prepared to mock this "high" score, until I looked at, rather randomly, the Zenit/Benfica matchup from the Champions League, where the most completed passes by an individual on either team was 39.  Looks like the MLS isn't quite so badly run-and-gun as I thought.  I wouldn't yet call it a league based on possession just yet, but I'm encouraged.  And, yes, it is a very small sample size...

But here's Barca...I love these guys if for no other reason than they do things differently.  That they also tend to be the better team 9 out of 10, too, makes a compelling argument for admiring them.  Check out this from the match with AC Milan earlier this week.  Recall that this game was an away match for Barca...the San Siro is not generally a friendly place for away teams!  Granted Milan held the floods back well (though didn't score themselves either).  But look at this completion percentage chart:

Six Barcelona players had more completed passes than Sheanon Williams 44 for the Union...and Xavi completed 122 passes.  Stunning.

post script:
Milan succumbed 3-1 at the Camp Nou Tuesday the 3rd.  Messi converted two penalties, Iniesta finished a rebound the Milan defense fell asleep on, and generally Barca looked comfortable, despite the score even at 1-1 for ten minutes in the first half.  For the griping Milan did after the game, Pep Guardiola's comments at the end of this link are insightful, and it can be little argued that the result did not reflect the qualities of the two teams.  For instance, the 21-3 advantage in shots for Barca...

5 v 2

Colgate/Rhinos Analysis

Here are three screen grabs, one of the Rhinos when, having taken over possession, arrange themselves to initiate an attack from the defensive third.  The Colgate side was a little more circumspect defensively than they would be against college-level opposition, using a lower line of confrontation.  The second one is the same basic situation, reversed, and we can see some subtle differences in the quality of execution.  Lastly, we see a capture of a situation wherein the many little details that make up the game get a bit less attention than they should, and Colgate loses the ball.



What is notable for youth players is that both teams, from vastly different levels of the game, approach this moment of the game in roughly the same fashion.  Those young players hoping to get to the highly competitive collegiate level or beyond need to be comfortable and familiar with this arrangement whether they play in the group of five (or so) organizing the attack or in front of that group (wingers/strikers/attacking center mids/etc).  Seeing too, how the pros execute versus how the Division I guys do is a stark comparison, but all the players are excellent soccer players.  The devil truly is in the details.

Here's the photographic evidence (forgive the picture quality, we had to reload the video on the computer from disc after the machine crashed from the cold!):

The Rhinos first team set up a conservative, but efficient and well-organized shape in the back.  The ball is being passed by the center back (yellow arrow) to take advantage of the college boys lack of defensive shape (red circles).  The right winger is on an island, and the other five are going to have to hustle to help him out.  Which means tired players quicker than necessary.  The Rhinos, on the other hand, have stretched the field out (dashed red arrow) well and have the time and space to play a long ball if need be, so the Colgate back line must drop a bit to keep the ball from going over their heads. The Rhinos enjoyed about a 70% possession rate in this, the second half, in part due to Colgate's fatigue, but also very much due to this sort of excellent spacing, good, quick ball movement, and safe technical execution.

Here's the other side of the coin.  Colgate, having advanced the ball to a holding mid who was probably a little wider than he ought to be, and has now dropped it back (yellow arrow).  The shape of this 5v2 is clearly different from the Rhinos version above, as is the defensive shape of the Rhinos.  The player who forced Arpey (the CM for Colgate) to play backward is hustling back centrally to stay tight as the team shifts to the far side, where after the subsequent pass, Colgate loses the ball out of bounds at the red X.  Because both the CMs for Colgate are facing the back line, are too near defenders and/or hiding behind defenders, they are not good options, so the play must go to the right back, where the move is closed down and the ball lost at midfield.  


Other options players might seek here:  The far CM needs to get one side or the other of the Rhinos FWD, so that he can be passed to by the Center Back.  Arpey could follow his pass deep, dropping into the space between the two CBs and simply gathering the ball again while facing forward.  The left Center Back is also an option here, and that would either invite the Rhinos forward, creating space in the midfield, or allow the backs to look long up field for a forward.  Note too that the Colgate forwards are only 20 yards from the holding mids; the Rhinos are able to hold a higher line, and further compress the midfield.

This is a good example of high pressure defending by the Rhinos.   They have squeezed the Colgate side into a tight spot, as we can see from the very short distances between the maroon players.  Additionally, the amateurs are all staring at the ball; even if one of the three supporting players got the ball, he's no idea whats next because all their heads are turned toward the ball.  Furthermore, the GK, who gets the next pass, is also staring at the ball, is flat-footed and inside the goalmouth.  Were he to stop a bit closer to the ball, and open up to face the field, when the pass does come back, he'd do better than what he opted for in this instance: a touch and a long ball out, which went perhaps 35 yards up the middle of the field where the Rhinos won it (and why wouldn't they, half the Colgate players are in the corner!) and began another long stretch of possession. 


This is a result of a professional team being that much sharper and aggressive, but it is also due, too, to the failures of the Colgate players to execute good spacing, and positioning themselves to see more of the field.  The ball movement becomes too slow, too predictable, and they take away their own options by being sloppy in these areas.