Soccer Edition 70

Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. Today's subject will deal with mixing up your teams attack.

Tomorrow, the first edition of the FineSoccer Kids Newsletter will be sent out. It will deal with helping kids (and parents and coaches etc) have a better understanding of what is meant by various terms. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can by sending a blank email to kids@finesoccer.com

Also, there is a new survey online. This survey was suggested by a subscriber and it is about teams playing year round soccer. Please go to http://finesoccer.com/survey.htm to both take the survey and see the results from the previous survey.

Too often, I hear players and coaches talking about how their teams play either direct or indirect soccer. To simplify the meanings of these terms, indirect is a very patient style of play that utilizes a lot of short passes and if there is not a good opportunity to go forward, then the team will play the ball either to the side or backwards. It involves a great deal of possession and the team is constantly probing, looking for the opportunity to go forward but will not go forward unless the opportunity is there. This style of play uses a great number of safe passes as opposed to creative passes (see http://finesoccer.com/soccer7.htm for more on safe vs. creative passes). Direct soccer has more long balls played and the ball is usually played forward. The idea is basically to look far first which means that the first option is always the long ball down the field and the shorter pass is always a second option. I should point out that there is a difference between direct soccer and "kick ball". Good teams that play direct soccer do so with a long pass to a player who is either making a run or has already established her position and then other runs are made off of this long ball. Bad teams playing kick ball simply kick the ball down the field and run after it. Direct soccer uses a great deal more creative and dangerous passes and these teams are usually willing to lose the ball knowing that for every 10 times they might lose the ball, they will be creating a couple of good scoring opportunities so therefore the reward is worth the risk.

The problem, in my opinion, with classifying a team as a direct or an indirect team is that it makes it more difficult for them to utilize both styles. I love hearing people talk about the way the Brazilian National Team has played traditionally because all I ever hear about is the skill to take players on and the number of short passes they string together. The reason this is funny to me is that I see something very different when I watch them. Yes they have some players with incredible abilities to take players on, and yes, they do play some incredible short passes but if you really watch them play, they do an incredible job playing a few short passes in a row to suck the opponent in and then they play wonderful 40,50,60 yard passes to players who are making a run into space created with these short passes. Their ability to switch between indirect and direct soccer without a second thought is really what has made them so successful over the years. The same thing can be said for the great Dutch teams and most of the other top teams in the world. It's their ability to take what the opponent gives them and then attack that makes these top teams so successful.

There is such an emphasis on everyone trying to play a short passing game that it seems that many youth players are completely incapable of playing an accurate long ball because they have been told that they must keep the ball on the ground and keep possession. What about the idea of getting to goal? Isn't the shortest distance between two points still a straight line? I am NOT advocating just kicking the ball down field and hoping that something good happens. However, think in terms of looking far first, then for a middle range pass and then the short pass. Believe me, I love possession but there comes a time when a team has to realize that if they don't start looking to go to goal quicker then they do now, they will never be successful.

Too often a team walks off the field saying they should have won because they had more possession of the ball and played better soccer. Realize that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH GOING TO GOAL!

In short, try to combine direct soccer with indirect soccer and I believe you can get the best of both worlds.

I would love to hear how you have been able to combine the two styles. Simply send me an email at comments@finesoccer.com or better yet, post it at http://finesoccer.com/forum.htm.

Remember that all newsletters are archived at http://finesoccer.com

Have a great day!

Lawrence