Give Us Back Our Game

update - November 2007

“In the early years, after training with the team, I’d go and play on the streets with my mates, using rubbish sacks as goal posts; I didn’t want to miss that. It’s a way of playing without rules – much more fun………On the street, you play in a small space with few players and that changes your approach, with no rules and little space, you become cleverer, more flexible. We risk losing that”.

Fabio Cannavaro

Let Them Play

I have been lucky that I have been able to observe many fun days over the last six months with children playing 4v4 and other SSGs. Ten minute games with the kids refereeing themselves and no coaching from the side.

I learn something new about how children play this wonderful game every time I watch.

At a recent event with kids from 10-13 years old, I watched a lad who was doing the same two or three moves all the time. It looked as if these moves were coached, and in several cases did not work as they were the wrong solution for the problem he had to solve.

By the second game he was only using them a couple of times and by the third game and beyond, not at all.

He then began to make it up as he went along and found many better solutions when trying a move or trick. This was not coached and he was certainly not conscious of the change, he just did it.

I watched another of the teams who for the first couple of games (10 minutes each) were very vocal, calling for the ball, before playing in almost total silence. They all seemed to be playing in the zone and any calling would have broken their deep concentration. They knew what the other was thinking and what they were going to do and they played the best football of the morning during that spell.

These are not elite players but kids in grass roots football being allowed to use their imagination and be creative.

Arsene Wenger

The Arsenal manager talks about this when describing how elite players learn, but in my experience, this works at grass roots level as well.

After two decades as a professional coach, Wenger has come to the conclusion that the greatest coach in the world is the game itself. His reasons are mind-bogglingly scientific.

“Football has many billion different situations but there are some analogical ones. When a player makes a mistake he tells his brain: “I have made a mistake – why?”

He works out what he should have done instead and stores it in his memory. So if he meets an almost identical situation his memory opens the door and tells him: “You have met this situation before and you lost the ball, so this time you have to change it.” It’s basically called experience, and using it is the sign of a big player.” As he spells it out, the intellectual thrill of the theory animates him so much he is almost up and out of his cosy chair.

Amy Lawrence (The French Evolutionary – Le Foot)

Why 4v4

In the fun day sessions we play predominantly 4v4 but also sometimes 3v3 and 5v5 for variety as it poses different problem solving skills.

The Dutch introduced 4v4 as a training tool in the mid 1980s. It is the simplest version of the game where you have options forward, backwards, to the left and to the right.

‘4 v 4 generates many match situations, involves all the players, with small numbers guaranteeing repetition of opportunity to problem-solve and learn (i.e. see it, make a decision, execute a skill).’

John Allpress – National Player Development Coach The FA

The co-founder of GUBOG, Rick Fenoglio from Manchester Metropolitan University compiled a year long study of Manchester United’s 4v4 pilot programme (U9s). When comparing it to the 8v8 game he came up with the following findings.

– 135% - more passes

– 260% - more attempts on goal

– 225% - more 1 on 1 encounters

– 280% - more ‘tricks’ attempted

Martin Diggle, a development coach at Bolton Wanderers has talked to many coaches and academics around the world and did his own study on decision making in small sided games.

GAME SIZE	MINIMUM	MAXIMUM	AVERAGE
3V3	17	27	22.5
4V4	18	27	23.5
5V5	8	24	16.2
6V6	9	20	13.4

These figures were based on 10 minute line soccer games with the player in possession.

Kids at all levels of the game need this game therapy for their enjoyment, their football development and for the sheer celebration of being a child.

From my own personal observations, from the research above (and this is just a small section) and from the hundreds of email I have received from coaches now using these games, the transformation and enjoyment of players has been nothing short of staggering.

Keep them ‘playing’!

“We have to be faithful to the way we want to play the game”

Arsene Wenger.

Thanks to Ryan O’Malley for his help on this article

Paul Cooper