Possess the ball - a
new philosophy
by Craig Foster
One of the challenges facing this country, and
particularly the FFA in their quest to make improvements in the long term
to Australian football, is to develop a culture of football, which is
almost the complete opposite to where we are at this point in time.
A culture, which values the ball over the athlete, skill over strength,
and football intelligence over graft and effort.
We will need to develop intuitive players who are adaptable during a game
by instinct not input, and the natural precursor to this of course is
first to develop intelligent coaches.
As Johan Cruyff once said, how can the student be better than the teacher?
So, to produce outstanding players we need excellent coaches who have an
understanding at the highest technical level.
This is indeed a long-term project requiring tremendous improvement in our
licences and methodology, but in the meantime one area that can be
addressed is to continue to advance the understanding of the football
community, particularly at the grass roots level, of what represents ‘good
football’, and of the importance of a philosophy of play based on
possessing the ball.
Yet when we talk about a culture of the game and particularly a philosophy
of play, all those reading this with a good understanding of the game will
know that all around us are signs that at present our national philosophy
is deficient.
For instance, visit any junior club around the country and you will see
more running than playing, and most players being encouraged to play the
ball forward as soon as possible, regardless of the quality of the pass or
any evaluation of the option chosen.
In other words, there is a predominance of lumping the ball forward for
big, quick and usually strong kids to chase, to the detriment of players
who prefer to hold the ball and build up play in a slower and more
intelligent manner.
This is a by product of a poor football philosophy inherited from England,
which values fast play over good, and which manifests itself in poor youth
coaching.
But this is a short sighted strategy which is anti player development
since, whilst this may win games for now, this style of play produces
technically deficient players who will be learning nothing about how to
play the game which is precisely, and only, what junior football is for!
And not only is it boring for the players, enforces results over fun and
enjoyment and therefore arguably produces a larger drop out rate of
youngsters in the early teens, it is in fact also ineffective once the
players mature and their physical strengths converge as adults.
Every junior club in the country should be teaching their coaches to
appreciate that until the very late teens, the total focus must be on
producing players who understand and can play the game, that is to say
they can control and manipulate the ball with great skill, maintain
possession both individually and collectively, intelligently construct an
attack and respond well in defence, and that teaching these principles of
play fundamentally must take total precedence over results.
And we will only be starting to improve when every youth coach is judged
on the quality of players he produces, not on the amount of trophies he
wins.
We must all recognise that effort and running alone don’t win football
matches, technique, skill, and intelligent players do. That is why Brazil
and Italy have nine World Cups between them, Germany three and Argentina
two. Because their football cultures, and their philosophy of play, are
based on these characteristics.
If you want absolute confirmation of the need for change, this year take a
look at the Under 14 or 15 National championships where tour best juniors
come together, and you will see that I am right.
These championships are shockingly low on teams that are both technically
(that is the individuals are capable), and tactically (the team works
together, demonstrates good cohesion, and can solve problems
collectively), competent at keeping the football for long periods.
Or, better still, take a look at our national teams.
Both the Joeys and Young Socceroos who failed at even the earliest Asian
pre-qualifying stage could not keep the ball, clearly neither could the 17
girls. In fact the only team that played with any reasonable tactical
skill was the Under 20 Young Matildas, as yet our only youth age team to
qualify though Asia, who were intensely trained to do so and proved, as
did the Socceroos, that when our teams are well coached they are capable
of adaptation.
This inability to play to a high level is a factor of both culture and
philosophy.
And it remains a fundamental problem even at the highest senior levels of
our game.
In the last few weeks you might have noticed Sydney FC struggle for long
periods to keep the ball against pressure, likewise Adelaide United
against the Vietnamese, and the best sign of what our poor philosophy of
football and no insistence on playing from defence at junior levels
produces, is to see Australia struggle to play under defensive pressure
against China in the second half of the recent international.
So, enough of where we are, let’s explore some key elements of a good
philosophy of football.
Here is a start for any youth coaches and parents interested to know where
they now stand, and in what direction they should be heading:
1. To play the ball on the ground at all times, which requires both
supporting play and good technique;
2. To play short passes, which requires players to support each
other in attack and defence, and is harder to defend and anticipate;
3. To play only longer balls in response to a movement by a
team-mate not in the hope of one - to move and ask for the ball after
which the pass is delivered;
4. To play longer passes, and particularly those in the air,
predominantly only when there is no closer option and always into the feet
of an attacker, never just into space for them to chase;
5. To discourage young keepers in kicking the ball long unless
there is no other option (and even here one can almost always be
manufactured) and at all times have the keeper roll the ball to a
team-mate so the team can begin to play immediately from the back;
6. If, at any time, a youngster has no option to find a team-mate,
they should be encouraged always to keep the ball. This may mean shielding
it, keeping it moving to wait for a pass, or to dribble forward to attack
an opponent. At no time should they be told to kick it away regardless of
the position they play or where they are on the field, and if the child
loses the ball they should be encouraged to try again;
7. To encourage players to express themselves through their
football and recognise that everyone is not the same, and shouldn’t play
so. Some play fast, others slow, some play simple, others read situations
and find more complex solutions, and some have enough skill to
individually dominate a game, while others can only dream of doing so, but
all should be allowed to find their own game not forced to conform to a
uniform way of playing;
8. And, to SLOW DOWN, or more specifically, vary the speed of play
during a game, which requires a team to hold the ball. After working to
recover possession, every young team should break forward only if they
have an advantage in attack, otherwise they should slow the play down and
possess the ball, back and across the field, resting and starting to
position themselves in attack to take advantage of overloads in numbers,
or weaknesses in defence. Youth coaches need to understand that the object
of football is to keep the ball and to score goals through breaking down a
defence with passing and skill, not by booting the ball forward hoping for
a defensive mistake.
And of course a change in philosophy has ramifications for youth training.
It means that at youth levels, the only suitable training sessions should
be completely with the ball, with every player touching the ball between
500 and 1000 times, refining technique and 1 v 1 skills, learning the game
principally by playing in small games of 2 v 2, 3 v 3, 4 v 4, 5 v 5 and
overload practices such as 4 v 2, 4 v 3, 5 v 2.
In this way good coaches can coach the key moments when in possession, the
opponent in possession or the changeover, build awareness in the players
to aid understanding and decision making, and allow the players to develop
a fee for the game that comes only from thousands of hours playing it.
But at the same time the uneducated coach - such as the voluntary parent
supervisor - can, by playing these games, give the players a structure,
which aids their learning process without having to coach specific points
of play.
All fairly straightforward, but a long, long way from where the bulk of
our young teams are at right now.
So, how do you know where your club or coach stands from a philosophical
point of view? One of the best ways is by their instructions to the
players.
If the coach encourages players to slow down and relax on the ball, to
take their time, to possess the ball, to support each other, to play
together, to take opponents on, to take up positions at angles to each
other, to circulate the ball quickly around the team, to play one and two
touch football, to create triangles and diamonds in their play, to pass
backwards when no forward option is rational, to use the goalkeeper to
maintain possession, to read game situations and play away from pressure
not into it, and to recognise and create numerical overloads, they are on
the right track.
If you hear a coach telling players to ‘get rid of it’, ‘clear their
lines’, ‘get it in the box’, ‘get stuck in’, ‘don’t play at the back’,
‘don’t take risks’, telling a keeper to kick the ball long or players to
‘hit the channels’, run a million miles.
Your child is in danger of becoming a boring and uninventive player, and
is most unlikely either truly to discover the joy of playing the ball, or
to even excel in the game against other players who have spent a decade or
more possessing the ball.
And as to the physical aspect and all those coaches who want to make their
young players run instead of learning to manipulate the ball and the game
itself, yes, at the elite level players are very strong and often gifted
physically like Thierry Henry and Kaka, but just like these two the best
are footballers before athletes, and value technique over physique,
because they recognise that runners don’t make it to the top any more in
football.
And don’t forget that Australia has always been physically strong, but we
only started to improve when Guus Hiddink finally told the players to keep
the ball, to play out from the back (or in his words, ‘to start the attack
from defence’), to use space more intelligently through better positional
awareness, to stop hitting the ball forward in hope or desperation, to
understand how to utilise the team’s spare man to keep possession, to
support the ball possessor in attack, and to be patient and play in all
directions in the build up phase until in a position to strike at the
opponent.
These are the principles, which underline the correct philosophy of
football, and the very ones every junior club and coach should be required
to teach. |
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