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Edition 11
Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. Today's subject will deal with defending
against a player who is faster then you.
First I would like to acknowledge that there are a lot of variables and situations that I
will not be able to deal with in this newsletter but the main one I do want to touch on is
when you are marking a player who does NOT have the ball and there is no support behind
you (let's assume you are the last defender).
There is a tendency when you find yourself in this situation to fall back far so that the
defender can't get behind you since there is no way you will be able to catch her.
However,the logic in doing this is quite faulty. The further back you as a defender
go, the more space you have to deal with. If you elect to drop off of her by 15
yards, this gives her all of those 15 yards to receive the ball. Once she has
received the ball (most likely without any pressure on her), she then will have the
opportunity to turn and take you on at speed. This is the exact situation you want
to avoid when dealing with a player who is faster then you. The less space she has
to work with and the more pressure (pressure again being defined by the absence of time
and space)you can apply, the more you will be negating her speed advantage. By
stepping up on this defender you will be taking away her greatest asset and taking
advantage of yours.
The obvious question would then be "what about the ball played into the space behind
the defender, wont the faster attacker be able to beat her to this ball?". The
answer to this is yes if the defender doesn't understand positioning and also if the
defenders keeper is playing back on her line (and if she does this tell her to subscribe
to my Goalkeeping Newsletter!). By staying pushed up on the opponent, the defender will be
able to watch both her mark as well as the player with the ball. A player with the
ball will always put her head down before playing a long ball for this attacker to run
onto. At this point, you as the defender can simply step up in front of the attacker
(remember I have stated you are the last defender back) and catch the attacker in an
offsides position. Am I recommending that teams use an offsides trap? No, not
at all. I consider an offsides trap to be a predetermined team decision to catch a
team offsides. This is not what I am speaking about at all. I am simply talking
about an individual reading a situation and negating another teams advantage. The
first couple of times the opponent sees you doing this, you will find that they will get
frustrated and then a good teams response will be to play to your marks feet. Well
you are right there so she will have no room to take advantage of her speed. Quite
simply, by stepping up as the last defender, you will have taken away her advantage.
What are the risks involved in playing this way? One risk is that in the beginning,
it is hard to convince a player to step up on a faster player. The way to do this is
to sell them on the advantages vs the disadvantages. Another risk is that the keeper
is back on her line so a well timed through ball might catch your team completely out of
position. The way to solve this problem is to make sure you have a trained and
educated keeper. The third risk is a linesperson who is out of position or not
overly competent with the offsides rules. This is why you need confidence in your
team and they need confidence in you. If you go early enough, it should be so
obvious that a player is offsides that almost any ref. will notice it. Also, just
like you need to be evaluating the opponents in the beginning of a match, you need to be
evaluating the refs. Determine there competence early and play accordingly.
Lastly, as a coach I know that one of the easiest ways to lose the support of my players
is to criticize them for trying something like this. If a player has the confidence
to take a chance then I have to have the confidence in my players to support these
chances. A coach screaming from the sidelines about a bad decision by either a
player or a ref. is the best way to get a defender to get scared.
This just dealt with one situation but should open your mind to other possibilities.
Feel free to write in different situations you would like discussed or different
opinions on how to deal with this situation. Send them to comments@finesoccer.com.
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Have a great day.
Lawrence