It's Hard to Hold Them Back

 Once again the boys were completely dominant in a match where our opponent was struggling to play together with any organization in defending or attack.  This happens frequently in league play and in past seasons we've definitely taken our turn as the disorganized team that gets pounded.  Obviously it's fun to go out and win games, especially when we have so many different players getting onto the score sheet.  But at this point in the season it's also become clear that our Cardinal league division wasn't well constructed.  And that's a little frustrating.  The boys are playing well and progressing individually and as a team, but we haven't really been challenged yet by a team that plays as well or better than us.  Like the sorts of teams we're sure to see in tournament competition. 

Last Sunday's loss was a bit of a fluke and I blame myself to some extent.  Every coach should have some ideas ready for how to hold their team back if they are playing against a much weaker opponent, just to keep things from getting out of hand.   I don't like the idea of just holding them back.  As a coach, a match against a really weak opponent usually feels like a wasted match to me.  What I want to do is find a way to make these situations challenging to our players.

So what I've tried to do in these sorts of lopsided situations is to give the players specific tactical "restrictions" that are genuinely challenging.  I will ask them to play in a particular way that is difficult for them but that is also a way of playing they need to learn and master for our future development.  In our Sunday game the first restriction I put in place was that the midfielders and defenders would have to successfully play the ball back to our GK before we could try to take the ball into the other half.  The problem in that game though was that while I was able to explain to the team what I wanted them to do, I couldn't get complete buy-in from many of them and quite a few of the players were irritated with me that I wasn't going to just let them play.  I failed to get them to embrace the opportunity to work on some complex tactical play, and to do so against an opponent who probably wouldn't give us too much trouble anyway.  Rather, the players saw my tactical instructions as mostly just a way to hold them back from beating up on their opponent.  And that's my mistake.  They got the impression that I wanted them to run the race at a slower pace when what I really wanted was them to run their fastest but just to take a slightly longer route.  

In yesterday's match I didn't try to put any restrictions in place.  I figured with the field conditions it would be a slow game anyway.  I was getting concerned in the second half of the match though because we had too many players just sort of hanging out at the eighteen yard box.  I get that they could smell the blood in the water and were circling around expecting more goals to come.  But that's not a game situation we'll get against good teams so I felt like that was a lot of wasted time.  In the future, if we play against a weak opponent you can expect that we'll find ways to avoid that situation and take the opportunity to play in a more complex and expansive way.  One easy way to do that is that I'll ask the team to retreat to the half line every time the other GK either gets the ball in hand or has a goal kick.  By doing this the players will get the chance to re-start their attack from a neutral position every time rather than just pouncing on a poor play from the other team.  If I do put any sort of tactical restriction in I'll try to message everyone on PlayMetrics so you know what to look for.

Now We're Cooking!

 I'd like to share a few notes with everyone about the quality of the boys' performance yesterday and the coaching points Adam and I made with them after the match.  

Obviously they had a great game.  Six goals total from four different players is an impressive amount of offense (Yaseen, Brennan, Gavin and Rome for the Hat Trick!).  Even though we conceded three our defense was very solid too.  And here is what is really telling about those conceded goals...our opponent managed those three goals on maybe six shots total and all three of them came in situations that I would describe as defensive breakdowns where we made some catastrophic mistake.  Their goals were good ones where they took advantage of an opportunity.  But, for the most part, our defenders didn't let them get any real cooperative, creative play going.  We were tough in 1v1s and well organized defensively most of the time, both in transition defense and in our press.

On the other side of the ball, our goals came off what had to be at least twenty shots with something like fifteen of them on frame.  So we had some really amazing creative solo runs in for shots but we also had a lot of really good cooperative play where we were creating good chances.  And the best part was how many times we were able to create multiple attempts out of the same sequence of possession.  That aspect, to me, shows a new level of maturity and cooperation in the team, when they can bring the ball into the opponent third and create a shooting opportunity, see it blocked, but then recover the ball there and recycle it for another attempt.  

Our patterns of play were very consistent too.  We were mostly carrying the ball up the lines then either looking for an early interior pass to one of our dribblers or we were continuing into the corner area and looking for a cross into the box.  And that's another really significant element of their performance.  The goals came off those early interior passes and the shots were mostly from in front of goal following a dribble run.  But we created a lot of opportunities on the deep crosses too that just didn't get finished.

I had three points for the team post-match.

The first was this: As good as you played, you could have scored more.  I was happy to hear them all agree with that.  They had noticed it too.  Specifically, I think they are now fully recognizing how creating shooting chances is a matter of teamwork and cooperation and anticipation and trust.  And this is true even of the situations where we get goals from players who are dribble penetrating on their own.  The ability of our attacking group to maintain their space and move the ball quickly puts any defense in a position where they must hesitate to collapse into a double team on a particular player...until it's too late.  Rome was on fire yesterday but he definitely was taking advantage of a situation he and his teammates were creating with their ball movement.

My second point was that our defenders and GK had saved us a few times with their 1v1 play and their organization and anticipation in situations where our midfielders failed to transition to defense quickly enough.  We play a game called "Over the River" at nearly every training session and that game is all about "Transition".  Transition is when you're going from attacking to defending or vice versa.  It's a switch in your brain that has to flip immediately when the game situation changes.  So when our midfield is pushing into the final third on a promising attack and the defensive line is all pressed up past the half line, every player has to be able to recognize when that attack has collapsed and then turn to run back immediately, picking up the opponent's runners and resetting their positions.  This tipping point of transition requires constant attention from players and for young players it can be mentally exhausting.  But a team of players who recognize most of the transition moments will usually have an advantage over their opponents.

My third point was that we need to figure out how to come out of the gate faster.  We have seen in these first two games that even though we end up dominating the game eventually our team does tend to get started slowly after kick-off in both halves.  If we can't fix this some team is eventually going to take advantage of it.  I was really pleased with the boys when we discussed this post-match yesterday as some of them were definitely aware of it already.  I think Collin, in particular, was really animated in that discussion, like he'd noticed this already last week.

As we discussed these points post-match it was really wonderful to see how attentive the players have become and the extent to which they are developing their ability to self-analyze their individual and collective performance.  I told them that as good as they played, they can play better and my intention is to keep pushing them so that as we face tougher and tougher competition we will be ready.