Passing Options
A player is in the cruelest of spaces when he doesn’t have anyone around him to pass the ball to. His defenders know it. His teammates know it. And he knows it. He can try to be creative, try to run at 1, 2, maybe 3 players and do something extraordinary, but this is relying too heavily on one player. These are the Messi’s and Ronaldo’s of the world. Pure greatness.
We must then work on training to get open, to free up enough space to receive the ball (with our back foot!) and already know what we’re going to do with the ball and where we’re going with it once we receive it. Without knowing these, it’s hard to shift the opponent’s around through passing and dribbling in order to make them disorganize, which is the purpose of positional play. Pep Guardiola says, “The intention is not to move the ball, rather to move the opposition.”
This concept of freeing ourselves in order to be a passing option for our teammate is known to all who play, coach, and watch soccer. It's fundamental to any team sport. But, it’s not widely taught in soccer. It’s certainly expected. How do we train it then? What’s actually needed?
Let’s address the first question. I’m a huge believer in positional play, total football, attacking soccer, and the other names associated with teams like Barcelona, Man City, and Ajax. On these teams, it’s a player’s intelligence that matters, not necessarily their athletic prowess. It’s having vision on the field for where the ball will be in the future, where the space is on the field at present and where it will be when the ball moves, and how to be in that space at the right time. The latter is perhaps the most important. Timing is everything in soccer. It’s not about getting to the space first. It’s about “feeling” the game’s rhythm, tempo, pace, and anticipating where to be when. These are the great players.
Thomas Mueller, striker for Bayern Munich and winner of the World Cup in 2014 with Germany, is a great example of this. He has a “nose for the goal”. He shows up at the right time to get a rebound off the keeper or to tap in a teammate’s cross. On paper, he isn’t the most talented player, or the best physically, or the tallest or strongest, he just knows his position, knows how to score goals. He finished as the second leading goal scorer in the aforementioned tournament with five goals.
Intelligence in finding space, being open and an option for a teammate to pass to, is not the same move in every situation. I’ll say that again. Being open is not about doing the same move in every situation. It’s not always fading away from a defender, “going dark” as Patrick King would say. It’s not always checking away from the ball and back to. It’s not always holding still as the play moves around you and your lane opens. It’s about all of these, and more, and using game IQ to choose the best option in that moment. It all comes from experience, from practice and playing.
“Going Dark”
Checking away and back, “losing your man"
Holding still (watch #9)
We train getting open by introducing the different ways to get open in a game one by one. We practice them and may stick to one for a while so our players absorb it and it becomes unconsciously competent or “automatic” in the games. Then we move on and revisit. This cycle is constant. And this builds the intelligence needed to play at a high level.
I was just at a Division I College Women’s Soccer game this weekend. Both teams didn’t understand this concept, instead trying to float the ball over the top of the midfield line to find a striker running on to the ball. This strategy didn’t work for either team, the game ending a one all draw from two set pieces.
This is classic American style soccer. When teams start to get tired during a game, the kick and run game gets stronger. In Pep Confidential, a book about Pep Guardiola’s first year with the German powerhouse Bayern Munich, there is the thought amongst the team that they need to “run up the nearby mountain”, meaning they need to build their stamina to extreme measures in order to play the Bayern way. But Pep isn’t interested in this amount of running, stating the 90 minutes of practice they have with him requires both the mind and the body and will wear out a player more because of the intensity required. This proves to be true. Bayern develops an identity of not only playing hard but playing with intelligence.
A player trained under pressure needs a half second of space in order to create on the field. A player trained with less pressure needs more time to create. It’s an awakening to play a team that pressures constantly. Everything is sped up. If we don’t train under pressure, then we won’t play well under pressure. The amount of pressure given in practice is correlated to the amount our team grasps a certain training session. We can’t expect to start with the pressure turned up all the way on a part of a session we’ve only practiced a few times. Not even the pros can.
As we move up in age and talent, the amount of time and space available in a game decreases. We learn how to have control in tight spaces and anticipate what our teammates will do in certain situations. Where will they be when I get the ball? What passing channel is open at the moment? What space should I occupy based on the movement of the ball? When should I be there?
All of this is taken into account and it becomes automatic because we’ve trained it. This is also years of consistent practice and a team that continues to grow together.
To practice at home - 10 minutes a day:
Wall Ball - 3-5 minutes
Trapping, Outside of the Foot - 3-5 minutes
Juggling a Smaller Ball - 3-5 minutes
See you tonight.
Michael Dardanes
Fortress Football Club