2022-06-11, 10:31 AM - Word count:
Welcome to the "jobs you need done" arc. I'm going to cover jobs I feel a team needs done to succeed. Dutch and Catalonian aspirants need not read.
The 5 major principles of attacking in football are penetration, support/depth, mobility, width and creativity/improvisation. That is mostly an explanation on how to do the abstract concept of breaking down a defense.
Now a concept that I keep saying like everyone knows what I mean is that a player needs to be able to do something, A bad player can do something. These 5 principles are those things that some player on your team needs to be able to do. A player who is really slow and old can still be the creativity behind a team offense. A player that isn't able to do much to create chances or score goals is still able to be the depth and support to a team in possession by recycling possession and giving the team the confidence to not worry about counters. What I want to talk today about more is the other three, specifically penetration width and mobility.
Now first glance it seems like they blend together and with a superman type they would. However, we can't all just go out and buy halland and mbappe to solve our problems.
Take a wingback for example. They're fast and can dribble the ball up the field with a good first touch and enough physical to not worry about losing the ball. That is a good player and would accomplish the principles of movement and width. But a good player is worthless if they can't do anything. If that wingback can't also pass or cross effectively they don't contribute to your penetration and it just ends with them shuttling the ball to a non-dangerous place that results in a wasted possession. That player can't do something to help you if they can't do anything with the ball when they get in a spot to do something with the ball. They aren't providing width if they can't provide anything with their width. This is the principle of why the winger has never died out. What a lot of people mistake for wingers are guys that are just really fast and can move with the ball. "pacy wingers solve problems" makes it seem that a player with pace and ball skills is all you need. The winger needs physicality (also anticipation) to move past their mark with the ball but they need to be able to do something when they get into a dangerous position. You can be weak and lazy as a player (balance is offensive strength however that helps) but as long as you have pace and the ability to cross however you can have an outsize effect on any team.
I don't have to get complex to explain why either. The basic part of defending is to not let balls into the goal. The goal isn't the size of the whole field so you don't need to defend the whole field. You defend the box in front of the goal, the areas around it, and its really hard to get scored on. If you've got to cover the areas around the goal, to prevent people dribbling into the box with the ball) then having a player who can take the ball out to wide position forces a player to go out to mark them. That then pulls apart the shape of the defense, opening up a space for another attacker to dribble into the box with the ball. This isn't acceptable so the shape naturally must stretch itself further apart to cover this new space. The less compact a shape, the less balanced a shape (the winger pulling the shape to a side) the less effective and capable it is at reacting to attackers.
Thats why stretching a team horizontally is important. Next week we'll do why stretching a team vertically is important. After that I'll finish up with how to exploit these conditions.
The 5 major principles of attacking in football are penetration, support/depth, mobility, width and creativity/improvisation. That is mostly an explanation on how to do the abstract concept of breaking down a defense.
Now a concept that I keep saying like everyone knows what I mean is that a player needs to be able to do something, A bad player can do something. These 5 principles are those things that some player on your team needs to be able to do. A player who is really slow and old can still be the creativity behind a team offense. A player that isn't able to do much to create chances or score goals is still able to be the depth and support to a team in possession by recycling possession and giving the team the confidence to not worry about counters. What I want to talk today about more is the other three, specifically penetration width and mobility.
Now first glance it seems like they blend together and with a superman type they would. However, we can't all just go out and buy halland and mbappe to solve our problems.
Take a wingback for example. They're fast and can dribble the ball up the field with a good first touch and enough physical to not worry about losing the ball. That is a good player and would accomplish the principles of movement and width. But a good player is worthless if they can't do anything. If that wingback can't also pass or cross effectively they don't contribute to your penetration and it just ends with them shuttling the ball to a non-dangerous place that results in a wasted possession. That player can't do something to help you if they can't do anything with the ball when they get in a spot to do something with the ball. They aren't providing width if they can't provide anything with their width. This is the principle of why the winger has never died out. What a lot of people mistake for wingers are guys that are just really fast and can move with the ball. "pacy wingers solve problems" makes it seem that a player with pace and ball skills is all you need. The winger needs physicality (also anticipation) to move past their mark with the ball but they need to be able to do something when they get into a dangerous position. You can be weak and lazy as a player (balance is offensive strength however that helps) but as long as you have pace and the ability to cross however you can have an outsize effect on any team.
I don't have to get complex to explain why either. The basic part of defending is to not let balls into the goal. The goal isn't the size of the whole field so you don't need to defend the whole field. You defend the box in front of the goal, the areas around it, and its really hard to get scored on. If you've got to cover the areas around the goal, to prevent people dribbling into the box with the ball) then having a player who can take the ball out to wide position forces a player to go out to mark them. That then pulls apart the shape of the defense, opening up a space for another attacker to dribble into the box with the ball. This isn't acceptable so the shape naturally must stretch itself further apart to cover this new space. The less compact a shape, the less balanced a shape (the winger pulling the shape to a side) the less effective and capable it is at reacting to attackers.
Thats why stretching a team horizontally is important. Next week we'll do why stretching a team vertically is important. After that I'll finish up with how to exploit these conditions.
