Soccer Edition 43

Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. Today's subject will deal with the play of two center midfielders working together.

Also, I do want to remind everyone that on Monday May 1 at 9 PM est. there will be an online recruiting discussion. To get more information, go to http://finesoccer.com/recruiting_discussion.htm to get all of the information. I received a couple of questions about this and the main answer is yes, this is free.

Anytime there are two or more midfielders in the center of the field, there seems to be confusing regarding spacing. Either both midfielders are on the right side or they are on the left. Sometimes they are both forward and other times they are both back. The way 
some coaches seem to combat this is by assigning an attacking central midfielder and a defending midfielder. Others assign a left center midfielder and a right center midfielder. However, by doing this, you lose one of the biggest advantages of playing with two central midfielders which is the ability to be creative and deceptive.

Rather then have a designated attacking midfielder or a designated defending midfielder, why not have two central midfielders who know that at any given time, one of them must take on the role of the attacking midfielder and the other one must take on the role of  the defending one? What I mean by this is that at any given time, one should be in a more attacking position and the other doing more in terms of covering defensively but that on the next possession, this can very easily be switched. By doing it this way, the 
opponent never knows which one will be coming through next. This is where the creativity and deception comes into play. Let the opponent have to guess which one they need to be concerned with rather then being very obvious. The same thing applies with the right and left sides of the center of the field. Rather then assigning one to the left side and one to the right side, why not let them roam and simply make them be aware of having balance in the center of the field?

By talking about balance rather then positions, you can do a fairly good job of explaining the spacing in the center of the field. Explain that if one center midfielder has taken a position of forward and to the right of the field, the other center midfielder would most likely take the position back behind and the left of her. By doing this, there is an easy outlet away from pressure if the first center midfielder has the ball and is put under pressure. Realize that if they are both back forward and to the right of the field, then if one is under pressure, then most likely they both are. Make sure both central players are aware that if one is forward then the other should be back and if one is on the right, then the other should be on the left. This is not a rule that must be followed at all times (or else things like takeovers and internal overlaps would be impossible) but it's a good rule to follow.

Please understand that when I talk about positions, I am talking about players at a given period of time and not designating someone a certain position for the entire game (or in some peoples cases, what seems like an entire lifetime). At any point, any of the 10 field
players might be a center midfielder and then later on that same player might be a forward or a marking back. Being able to move about the field will make players much better at what they do and also will make them more difficult to play against.

Having players in the middle of the field who understand balance and shape will make so many things easier for a team. It will allow them to switch balls through the midfield, relieve pressure, get back defensively and also get more players into the attack. There are so many advantages to this and no disadvantages. 

When switching the balls around the back, there is a need to constantly have central players giving support (preferably in a triangle). Having the central players balanced out makes this job much easier. This includes having a central defender (maybe a stopper) also balancing out the two central midfielders.

Over the course of the next week, the FineSoccerDills Newsletter will deal with drills that work on proper balance and spacing in the middle of the field (wow, what a promotional opportunity!). It just so happens that these are some of my favorite drills in all of coaching.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send them to comments@finesoccer.com or post them to the FineSoccer Forum at http://finesoccer.com/forum.

Have a great day.

Lawrence