While driving to a Fusion game this past Saturday I heard a great phrase used to describe the style of play of my favorite English Premier League team, Arsenal. One of the London teams, Arsenal under head coach Arsene Wenger play the kind of creative, flowing style of attacking football that can be immensely entertaining...even when they don't score. Scoring wasn't a particular problem in the game I was listening to as Arsenal defeated Sunderland 4-1 but one of the radio commentators noted that as beautifully as they play it can still seem sometimes that Arsenal wait too long to take the shot. "Sometimes" he said "they just keep passing it around, searching for the killer ball."
That is a fair description of how Arsenal play. They pass and dribble and pass again, overlapping and interweaving, until finally the last pass puts the ball in a position where the goal is undeniable. The first goal of the game, a header for Alexis Sanchez, came at the end of a run that included more than twenty-five completed passes. That's something like 20 seconds of continuous possession!
Here is a nice compilation video of Arsenal highlights showing their signature style of "possession football"
But while it's true that Arsenal do play to find the killer ball I don't think that it's much of a criticism of a team to say that they are too patient. My own feeling watching most games, whatever teams are playing and at whatever level, is that far too often the players aren't patient enough. Teams and individual players try to play too directly rather than taking the time to find an opening or even create one by drawing the defense out. I want my players to have that patience, that confidence in their individual skills and their teammates' skills to know that they can take time and a longer path to find the goal.
Girl Power played the final two games of their season this Sunday and the girls were brilliant in both games with the first match bringing a flurry of goals. The second game was a hard fought 1-1 draw against a very tough FC Kentucky side. In both games I was particularly impressed by the new level of competence the team is achieving in playing "positionally". Specifically, we're seeing more of our players understanding how to be patient in their particular role and let the game opportunities come to them rather than getting drawn into chasing the ball. The result of that is that you see many more opportunities created where a player is in just the right position to receive that final pass. I think this achievement is for them a combination of having the experience to read the flow of the game better and of having confidence in each other, knowing that they are working together.
There was one run of play in the second game that particularly stands out for me. I think the players involved were Olivia and Eileen with Liv being in the #2 fullback position and Beanie being ahead of her in the #8. Liv brought the ball up after recovering it in our half and made a quick pass up to Eileen. Eileen found her path blocked by two defenders so she quickly turned back and dropped the ball to Liv who then immediately sent it right back up past those defenders so Beanie could run around them and back onto the ball. It was brilliant but the best part was that they executed it with a kind of casualness, like it was the easiest thing in the world to take a moment out of the soccer game to play a little "monkey in the middle".
Girl Power displayed a lot of that sort of play in that game and it was beautiful but late in the second half their style changed a bit. FC Kentucky had managed a goal finally on one of their rare shooting opportunities and in response our squad seemed to become a little more desperate. We saw less quality passing and more efforts by individual players to dribble-penetrate through the FC line. The girls seemed to be taking turns picking the ball up in midfield and dribbling straight into the heart of the defense, usually with good success until they got to that last defender. No one seemed to be able to break through.
Obviously it can often seem like the girls have more success when they pass the ball around, when they break through a defense as a team rather than as individuals. The truth is though that as both their game coach and their trainer I have to have two different views on the games. As a coach working within the games to teach the players a tactical perspective I naturally want every player to recognize the passing opportunities. I want them to see how they can exploit the openings in a defense by cooperating. But as their trainer I also want to see everyone putting their 1v1 skills to the test. As the trainer I still want them to be fearlessly, even selfishly, pushing forward with the ball. So when I see a player dribble into traffic rather than releasing the ball I see two things. I see that they missed a tactical opportunity that I'd want them to be aware of but I also see a technical deficiency that could be addressed. If a player chooses to dribble into a crowd in an effort to get to goal on their own and they lose the ball does that mean that getting through the crowd was impossible, a bad decision? Or does it mean that they didn't execute technically? As the trainer it's the later that I see. I see players who actually might have gotten through if they'd just used that one move we've worked on so many times...if they'd tried a fake shot...or shielded the ball. So even as the other players and even the parents might be thinking "she should have passed the ball" I might be thinking "yes, maybe...but maybe she could have gotten past that last defender if she'd tried something else."
My feeling is that we still have to let players at this age have the option of dribbling. I don't want players who are merely competent dribblers in 1v1 situations, players who can dribble but who prefer to pass. I want players who are excellent in 1v1, who can reliably dribble-penetrate with confidence and who can then choose their options calmly and with patience, exploiting whatever weaknesses they can discover. A team full of players like that can then find many paths to the goal. They can work together patiently relying on the combined quality of their individual skills as they search for the killer ball.
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