Edition 15

Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. Today's topic is zonal defending. I have received a few questions regarding zonal defense and was originally going to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of both man to man defense as well as zonal defense. However, I kept coming across the same problem which was that there are very few differences between the two types of defense.

Typically, the way I organize the backs is to play with a sweeper, stopper and two marking backs. Assuming we are playing against a 4-4-2, the two marking backs are responsible for the opposing two forwards. The stopper would mark up the first center
midfielder down field and the sweeper would provide support for everyone. A flat back four would have four players across the back each responsible for an area of the field. While this might seem very different then the man to mark marking, I will now discuss some of the similarities. The marking backs in the man to man defense are responsible for the two forwards, however, it is extremely unusual for the marking backs to follow a forward all the way across the field. If the two forwards make switching runs across the field, it is expected that the two marking backs would switch their marks. The same thing would happen with a marking back switching marks with the stopper. On the other hand, in a zonal defense the players primarily are responsible for their area of the field however, this really means each of the players
are responsible for the players who are within their area of responsibility. As a forward runs across the field, she would be marked by whomevers zone she goes through. As long as the players understand that they are matching up with the players within their zone, then they can realize that man to man marking is almost identical to zone. The main difference is that in man to man marking their is one person responsible for defensive support while the others have marking responsibilities with a secondary responsibility being supporting the others. In zonal defending, everyone has to assume more responsibility with their support. Therefore, while it might appear as if their is more support in man to man marking, the truth is that there usually are more people looking to support in a zonal formation.

Another advantage of zonal defending is the amount of communication that takes place in a zone. While most of the communication that occurs in man to man marking comes from the sweeper and keeper, there has to be a great deal more communication by teams that play zone. Once a team starts communicating in back, it tends to spread to other parts of the field and since communication is one of the most important parts of the game, this forces a team to play better and better.

Based on what I have written, it would make a person question the reason for ever using a man to man defense. One of the advantages is accountability. It's easier to figure out who lost their mark in man to man defending. Besides accountability and also familiarity (most coaches and players have a better understanding of man to man defense as opposed to zonal defense), there is no reason to use man to man marking over zone defense.

In the next issue or so, I will discuss defending in the offensive third of the field instead of this subject which is dealing with the back half of the field.

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Have a great day.

Lawrence