Soccer Edition 61

Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter.  Today’s topic will deal with a simple style of play that essentially takes what an opponent gives you and beats them with it.

The simple thought behind style of play is to take what is available and use it to your advantage.  For example, one of the first things that marking backs are told is to not let their player turn when they receive the ball.  They are taught that it’s ok for the forward to receive a ball and then play a negative ball (a ball away from the goal).  The idea is to get your forwards pushed up as far as the opponent will allow you and then check back to the ball.  When the ball is played into this forward, the midfielders and backs steal ground by coming forward.  Keep in mind that when a ball is played into the forwards, the tendency is for the opposing forwards and midfielders to relax which makes this back pass to be relatively easy.  Once the ball is played back, this starts up again with the other forward checking back to the ball.  By doing this a couple of times, you are simply taking what the opponent gives you and safely moving the ball down the field.

Eventually, the opponents will start to overplay this simple forward, back, forward, back combination which allows for the forwards to turn at will and also allows for sending midfielders through with killer passes.  At this point, offensively there are many options and defensively, it becomes very difficult to defend against this style of play.

The key to this method of attack is that all checks and passes forward must be done diagonally.  When the ball is played forward, the supporting runs from behind must come on angles to make the pass as easy as possible to play and receive.  As long as everything is done with diagonal passes, diagonal checks, and angles of support, you will find this to be an extremely effective method of attack.  The reason I like this so much is that it’s a simple concept that is easy to execute and difficult to defend (the one thing that makes this very difficult is that it requires a lot of passes to feet which requires more skill then simply kicking the ball downfield).

You can see an example of this at http://finesoccer.com/finesoccer_drill_46.htm.

My advice is to give this some thought, then give it a try and let me know what you think.

Remember that all previous newsletters can be found online at http://finesoccer.com.

Feel free to participate in the FineSoccer Forum at http://finesoccer.com/forum.htm

Have a great day.

Lawrence