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Post by jose81 on Nov 9, 2011 17:59:41 GMT 8
buddha: oh...ok. Manolo Utd womens u17 did well during the abbas cup. your vision of high IQ football kinda reminded me of them.
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Post by buddha on Nov 10, 2011 6:18:19 GMT 8
narko, thanks for the excellent J.Wilson article (big J.Wilson fan here).
My point is this: in local football, most teams we've played against are fairly limited to 4.4.2. Why? From a tactical point of view, is fairly easy to counter (you simply overrun the midfield and create 3vs2 or 4vs2 situations). My opinion is that it stunts the development of our youth players and stifles their versatility. We end up bemoaning the lack of footballing IQ.
The advantage of the 4.4.2 is that it is the only formation that logically covers maximum space. For teams that are limited in ability but heavy on athleticism (and I'm thinking of the Stoke City of 2008) the 4.4.2 works. (In fairness though, in the Man U - Man City derby, ManCity employed a very fluid, very versatile 4.4.2.) But I don't feel it is the direction we want to take youth development.
My point of reference when developing my own youth players is always the midfield. When I see a young kid who has the potential to be a good centerback I start him in midfield. As his confidence on the ball, vision, positioning, and passing range becomes second nature I move him to centerback. Those with the potential of being forwards I also start at midfield. Once they have developed good link-up play I move them back to forward. The only difference is with my wide players (I try not to call them wingers because they don't always play as such). I develop my young wide players by starting them on defense (as wingbacks) because I want them to learn to hustle and tackle and not just wait for ball service. As they begin learn their lessons and understand their role more I slowly move them to their preferred positions.
If we want our local players to stop playing long balls we've got to wean them off the 4.4.2.
Just my two centavos. Cheers!
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Post by narko on Nov 10, 2011 10:21:01 GMT 8
Buddha, I hope there are more of you training kids all around the country. You have the right approach and mindset. It is a good idea not to specialize young kids early. Let them play in various positions. What you are doing is a step in the right direction in helping them develop their football IQ. You are right in that 4-4-2 is a very limiting formation, especially in terms of player development. It is being blamed for the stagnation of the quality of English football players as mid-table Premiere League clubs and the lower league levels also favor this formation. 4-4-2 is the easiest and simplest for a coach to implement and takes little time to get players familiar with. Gauging from your observation of the widespread use of 4-4-2 in youth football here, it appears we need to improve the quality of coaching. 4-4-2 can be effective, but in terms of player development, it will not help enhance their footballing IQ and their versatility. As for your 4-6-0, I remember reading how Scotland (I think, not sure) used this formation. Well, the media characterized it as such because the coach didn't field a striker. However, look at Spain. They can play without a striker if they want but I bet you nobody is going to think that it will be an ultra-defensive formation. Football has evolved so much and in the Philippines there is a lot of catching up to do. I like what you're doing, more power to you and may your tribe increase. with that, i'll leave you with some of these interesting excerpts from an interview of Xavi Hernandez: "But some claimed Spain were boring at the World Cup. You kept winning 1-0. That's upside down. It's not that we were boring, it is the other team that was. What did Holland look for? Penalties. Or [Arjen] Robben on the break. Bam, bam, bam. Of course we were boring – the opposition made it that way. Paraguay? What did they do? Built a spectacularly good defensive system and waited for chances – from dead balls. Up it goes, rebound, loose ball. It's harder than people realise when you've got a guy behind you who's two metres tall and right on top of you. So, what's the solution? Think quickly, look for spaces. That's what I do: look for spaces. All day. I'm always looking. All day, all day. [Xavi starts gesturing as if he is looking around, swinging his head]. Here? No. There? No. People who haven't played don't always realise how hard that is. Space, space, space. It's like being on the PlayStation. I think , the defender's here, play it there. I see the space and pass. That's what I do. That's at the heart of the Barcelona model and runs all the way through the club, doesn't it? When you beat Madrid, eight of the starting XI were youth-team products and all three finalists in this year's Ballon d'Or were too – Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and you. Some youth academies worry about winning, we worry about education. You see a kid who lifts his head up, who plays the pass first time, pum, and you think, 'Yep, he'll do.' Bring him in, coach him. Our model was imposed by [Johan] Cruyff; it's an Ajax model. It's all about rondos [piggy in the middle]. Rondo, rondo, rondo. Every. Single. Day. It's the best exercise there is. You learn responsibility and not to lose the ball. If you lose the ball, you go in the middle. Pum-pum-pum-pum, always one touch. If you go in the middle, it's humiliating, the rest applaud and laugh at you." For the full interview, it's here: www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/11/xavi-barcelona-spain-interviewRegarding training for defense, you might want to try this drill out. It's how Marcelo Bielsa trains his teams for defense. He now coaches Athletic Bilbao and they just recently held the mighty Barca to a draw last Sunday. Would have won that match too if not for Leo Messi goal in added time when an Athletic player bumped into his goalie in a scramble n the box and led to a loose ball. "In training sessions, he divides the pitch up into squares and runs through drills where they sprint after the ball in packs of three or four players, while he preaches the need for the pressure to arrive before the pass has gone. Together they race towards to a designated point like a bomb disposal team, sprinting to deactivate that device before it blows. Intensity is his great obsession."
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Post by buddha on Nov 10, 2011 11:59:00 GMT 8
Ah narko, you know my pleasure spots! Lol! You got me at Marcelo Bielsa. This eccentric coach is brilliant! I started following him after reading up on the 3.3.1.3 that he employed with Chile in the 2010 WC. In fact, Chile was the only team in the WC that really gave Spain a run for their money. So yes, if Barca is famous for their intense pressing and high defensive line, Bielsa is even more obsessed with pressing! ZONALMARKING.NET has an excellent breakdown of the Athletic Bilbao - Barca game. There are four downsides to a high pressing game: 1. It requires very fit, athletic players. 2. The team must be very disciplined. 3. It draws a lot of fouls. (A few seasons ago Messi and Co. collected more fouls than the Barca defenders! Bielsa's Chile also collected a lot of unnecessary fouls.) 4. Your forward line (attackers) should be willing to be the most hard working unit of the team - chasing down every pass and aggressively winning balls. There is an art to pressing though as it is unrealistic to execute a full press for the whole 90 minutes. Typically, a high pressing team (such as Barca) applies very high pressure during the opening 15 minutes or so. Then they continue with what some coaches call a 'false press' which is a concerted effort by the team to fool the opponents into thinking they were still pressing. What you do in a 'false press' is to aggressively move towards the ball BUT with no actual intention to win it back! What you then hope to happen is that it causes hurried and misplaced passes which you can then feed on. I've been encouraging a high pressing game when I started the team last year although I've kinda relaxed my stance on that because my lads aren't full time athletes (our school doesn't have a sports varsity program and we're doing this just for... fun) and I felt I couldn't demand anything more of them. Maybe I should go back to intense pressing, you think? Brilliant interview. I've gleaned quite a bit off it. And thanks for the drill! I'll see what I can do with it.
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Post by narko on Nov 10, 2011 12:41:50 GMT 8
There is an art to pressing though as it is unrealistic to execute a full press for the whole 90 minutes. Typically, a high pressing team (such as Barca) applies very high pressure during the opening 15 minutes or so. Then they continue with what some coaches call a 'false press' which is a concerted effort by the team to fool the opponents into thinking they were still pressing. What you do in a 'false press' is to aggressively move towards the ball BUT with no actual intention to win it back! What you then hope to happen is that it causes hurried and misplaced passes which you can then feed on. I've been encouraging a high pressing game when I started the team last year although I've kinda relaxed my stance on that because my lads aren't full time athletes (our school doesn't have a sports varsity program and we're doing this just for... fun) and I felt I couldn't demand anything more of them. Maybe I should go back to intense pressing, you think? Brilliant interview. I've gleaned quite a bit off it. With regard to our playing style, you hit the spot there buddha concerning how we should play defensively. As we improve and one day begin to challenge more established football nations, our players are going to start coming up against physically bigger and stronger players. It's going to be difficult to go one on one against these players, notice how Henrichsen was overpowered by the bigger Timorese winger for Timor Leste's second goal. Henrichsen was matching him stride for stride but his body check couldn't put the Timorese player off his stride. Our defensive style should be as you described regarding false pressing, which is to cause the opposing player to make hurried misplaced, or at least, unproductive passes. Positional awareness should also be another facet of our defensive play. Slide tackling is impressive, when done properly but highly risky. It should always be a last resort. I read an article once that one of the best European defenders Paolo Maldini rarely needed to do one of those spectacular slide tackles because more often he was always in a good position to stop attacks without needing to make a slide tackle. However, pressing defense and positional awareness again requires a high level of footballing IQ and this is something we should start to inculcate and develop in young players. I noticed here in Metro Manila that some 9 and 10 year olds are doing slide tackles. I think it will benefit them more in the long term to learn how to defend properly without resorting to slide tackling by playing smartly and developing positional awareness, developing their footballing IQ by learning early how to read and react to the flow of the game. Besides, they'll learn to do slide tackles when they get older.
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Post by buddha on Nov 10, 2011 13:25:37 GMT 8
Thou speakest the truth about slide tackling. It's discouraged in my team and what is instead encouraged is 'shadowing.'
Paolo Maldini and Fabio Cannavaro were both very adept at reading the game. Sol Campbell on the other hand... and for all we know he must still be sliding into the sunset (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbMsp6IRjw).
The enigmatic coach, Michel Bruyninckx, is famous for discouraging slide tackling (and he goes farther by not allowing the use of shinguards during training! But that's going a bit too far for me) and yet he's produced players who've gone to play for professional clubs around Europe.
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As for that 4-6-0...
Strikerless formations have been cropping up over the last few years. It was most successful with AS ROMA two or three seasons ago when they had Totti as a trequartista and went on to have a successful season. Sir Alex Ferguson briefly flirted with it too when he fielded big John O'Shea, a defender by trade, up front. He got mixed reviews on that. Scotland, as you've mentioned, used it and failed. Probably because there was just too much media pressure when the public learned their team was employing such a tactic. And lastly, Barcelona under Guardiola has not been averse to playing without a striker... total football for the purists.
Many say that strikerless formations are going to be the formation of the future. In theory it's actually very sound but in practice... well, that's another story.
I'm forced to deploy my college team in a strikerless formation simply because we don't have an out-and-out striker. We've got two very good widemen (our Zimbabwean 'winger' is exceptional!), one ballwinning defensive mid and one play-making defensive mid, a good backline, two excellent attacking mids, and the rest are OK players BUT ABSOLUTELY NO STRIKER! I don't know whether to laugh or pull out my hair.
Another formation we're working on with the college team is a 3-3-4-0 which is still strikerless (the top four being made out of two wide players and two trequartistas).
It's working in training but we haven't tried it out competitively. We might end up resorting to a dry 4.4.2! hahaha!
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Post by royg on Nov 10, 2011 14:57:34 GMT 8
Very nice read Narko and buddha! Thanks for sharing!
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Post by jose81 on Nov 10, 2011 21:37:18 GMT 8
I have a new topic, its under GRASSROOTS.
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Post by Caz on Nov 11, 2011 1:04:03 GMT 8
Very educational, guys! Thanks!
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Post by narko on Nov 12, 2011 10:07:25 GMT 8
Great interview of Xabi Alonso: www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/11/xabi-alonso-spain-england-interviewNotable excerpts relevant to this thread: "You shouldn't necessarily pick the best players; you have to have a collective identity." "I don't think tackling is a quality," he says. "It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game. At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply: 'Shooting and tackling'. I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play. How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand football in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort, and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition. "Technique is vital and intelligence is fundamental. You need players who interpret the play, who can adapt and do not just have one concrete skill or characteristic."
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Post by narko on Nov 12, 2011 10:19:21 GMT 8
Some more interesting insights in relation to developing our playing style: Fernando Hierro, the former sporting director to Spain's football federation, told a Uefa seminar after the 2010 World Cup victory in South Africa: "Our philosophy is based on developing qualities in the youth teams while remaining faithful to a certain playing style based on wanting to dominate possession and a desire to carry the game to the opposition. The idea is to make the pathway to the top as smooth as possible. I know that traditionally a lot of national associations try to have the age-limit teams mirroring the style of the senior team. But our point of view is that it should be the other way round. The senior team's play is based on what we do in the youth teams."One of those sages mentioned by Benítez – Meléndez – says: "The key is the work that is put in by the [RFEF] in every region of the country. These players join us when they are 15 and are taught to play within a specific framework which doesn't change throughout the age groups; it lasts right up until they enter the senior set-up. The philosophy of Spanish football is to develop our players from grassroots with our own personality, our own way of understanding and style of football. It's easy to say with hindsight after winning the Euro and the World Cup, but our great philosophy is to build upon the successes of youth football." For those interested, full article is here: www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/11/spain-style-englandGauging from the above, the PFF and the various FAs in the regions have their work cut out for them.
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Post by buddha on Nov 13, 2011 8:56:45 GMT 8
So Spain loses to England. It was a contrast of footballing philosophies. A more interesting match was the Turkey and Croatia's match which was in most ways a mirror of the Spain - England game. Could we be wrong about our assumption that formations dictate the style of play? I have been a very strong critic of the 4.4.2 on this thread but I'm also trying to be open-minded. The Turkey-Croatia was a perfect match up between a 4.3.3 (Turkey) and a traditional looking 4.4.2 (Croatia). Turkey dominated 70% of possession while Croatia had only 30% of possession. But that did not bother Croatia who went on to have 13 shots on goal compared to Turkey's 2 shots on goal. Croatia won 4-0. Keeping in mind that possession football and attacking football oftentimes are very different so we've got to ask ourselves if attractive and artistic possession-based football is what we should develop or do we want attacking, results-based football? ---- Sometimes all this discussion on what is the best tactic (formation, philosophical approach, personnel, etc.) very often sounds like a "my kung-fu is stronger than your kung-fu" which is really pointless because my kung-fu and your kung-fu both have it's merits. Do we really want to pattern our football after an attractive style, say, Spain? It might end up like a scene from "Gladiator"... In the not to distant future the Azkals play breathtaking tiki-taka and only to lose to Singapore yet again and Michael Weiss walks the sidelines shouting, "Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?" ---- Ok, here's Michael Cox's excellent breakdown of Turkey vs. Croatia: www.zonalmarking.net/2011/11/12/turkey-0-3-croatia-tactics/
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Post by jandrew87 on Nov 30, 2011 1:57:01 GMT 8
I really think with our size and agility, we are very similar to Spain or Argentina. I repeat, this is with size and agility only. The main difference is of course the technical ability of our players. However, with the progress of the PFF in their attempts to develop a great grassroots program, I think our country is capable of developing "media puntas." "The basic role of the media punta is to form a link between the midfield organizers and the striker(s). In a 4-3-3 formation, where a single striker is accompanied by two wider players who push up a high line, the media punta is a single player who stays ahead of the two remaining midfielders - the 'organiser' and the 'holding' player. It all sounds a bit textbook-ish, but the obvious role of the media punta here is to ensure that there is never too much 'distancia entre lineas' (distance between the lines), the affliction that Spanish coaches fear most. In fact, the legendary phrase in La Liga circles at the moment - and it was used to describe David Silva last Tuesday night - is to 'mover entre lineas' (move between the lines). As we'll come to see, La Liga teams are now experimenting with more than one media punta, if they have them in stock. And if you get them all oiled up and working, it makes life very difficult for defenders." source of the quote above: please read before proceeding to understand my comments. soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story/_/id/970499/phil-ball:-media-punta-power?cc=5901I believe that through time, this type of style suits us Filipinos. Just look at our Basketball players, they are technically gifted with the ball and can do so many things but often times our size limits us. And no i'm not saying that we should stop playing basketball, i play both even though i'm 5'6-5'7. I'm just pointing out our giftedness with creativity and flair with the ball coupled with our speed and agility, but the only concern there is our agow buko style of play, which completely contradicts how football should be played. nevertheless, i believe thats as a result of the influence of the NBA style of play in our country. From how I see it, I believe we are capable of playing an offensive 4-5-1. Yes this is often a defensive position but it is starting to become more offensive with the transition to possession. Meaning, the good offense leads to a good defense. However, the structure should promote compaction in the middle should we lose the ball. On the break, the 4-5-1 can easily transition into the 4-2-3-1 (the offensive 4-5-1 of Spain) and even to a 4-3-3. Take a look against Kuwait, when we played a 4-5-1, we actually did really well. The times when Kuwait has taken the lead was when we started giving up too much space because of fatigue (the first game) or because we were chasing the game with the opponent a man down (second game). Also, noticed that when Schroeck (operating as the MF underneath the striker) was playing the second game, we had better chances. Angel played that part for the first game and some of the second game, but I don't think he has the speed and agility to play the media punta well. He has the technical ability for sure but his stamina and pace is lacking. However, since the chemistry between our players was evident due to lack of time together, alot of Schroeck's through balls and passes were to empty space. Also, Schroeck has been playing as a DB for most of his life but was converted to a MF by Weiss, which really opened up alot of his game. According to the article, the "media punta" is the only position that you have to be born with. Meaning, the certain quality of speed, agility, IQ, and technical ability must be innately present. When Eckard evaluated our grassroots, he stated that the Filipino children have plenty of natural ability, it just requires better coaching and opportunities. I believe we can develop into a nation that is similar to Argentina and Spain, or the Japan of the Southeast with a blend of Hispanic flair aka the Pinoy Style haha. I believe we are a country that is capable of developing media punta's. Just imagine, if we develop Filipino players in the physical, mold, pace, and agility of Emilio Caligdong with the prowess, aggressiveness, and awareness of Schroeck, the technical ability of Angel, and the passing vision of James Younghusband. Those players would be in the EPL or La Liga for sure. We would also be in the top 3 in Asia, right next to South Korea and Japan. For more info on the media punta or the false 9, follow this blog! thefalse9.blogspot.com/ (they provide one of the best tactical game analyses on the web). if you are a coach, whether it be grassroots u7 or all the way up to the seniors, this blog is site that you definitely should follow.
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Post by jandrew87 on Dec 20, 2011 1:18:10 GMT 8
barca destroyed santos 4-0. Pep used 3 defenders and 7 midfielders during that game. if only Weiss is like Pep and Filipinos played Catalians we would be on top of Asia right now...
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Post by jandrew87 on Dec 20, 2011 1:21:56 GMT 8
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