The Playmaker, the Press, and Saving Some Cash

A lot of cool things have happened at Anfield in the last few years. The one I’ve been thinking about lately: the changing nature of the “playmaker.” Liverpool have modernized a dead concept.

Full disclosure: I have some confirmation bias here. I’ve disliked the notion of the “playmaker” for most of my life — probably since I stopped being good enough to be one as a teenager. I’m fairly sure I’ll lie on my deathbed one day and shout at someone, “stop applauding that stupid throughball!” 

This comes in two parts:

1. Actual human-being playmakers usually create a “Racket of the 10” problem. In order for them to do their creative genius thing, they need certain parameters. Those parameters - less defensive presence, slower rotation of the ball, higher turnover rate - usually hurt the overall flow and performance of the team. Then, after the team slugs along, the group needs someone to bail them out. “Heeey, I’mmm heeeeree!” The playmaker has the most talent and is the one most likely to pull something out of nothing. Never mind the fact that the team probably wouldn’t have needed bailing out if they playmaker didn’t slow them down in the first place. It creates a self-assuring prophecy that the team needs the playmaker.

2. In every attack, you’re trying to maximize the probability of scoring (by playing the pass that sets up the best shot possible). At some point, you need to start a goal-dangerous action. You have to make the decision, What is the probability that Player X (with his/her abilities) can complete Pass Y to set up a shot, relative to other decisions?

   1. We usually mis-assess those probabilities and try to make plays harder than they need to be, given that the majority of goals are scored by plays that do not require breathtaking talent. Whenever a player goes to do a hard thing on the soccer field - think, a killer pass - there’s usually an easier, higher-percentage - though less sexy - option.

   2. We don’t put enough thought into the “relative to other decisions” part. The value of the pass isn’t just the pass itself, but what comes after it.

The main issue in today’s game with an attacking playmaker - the idea of a #10 sitting behind the strikers and dropping dimes - is that when those dimes don’t come off, and they don’t come off much more frequently than they do, then the play is dead — it’s a turnover that doesn’t lead to anything. It’s criminal at this point to force a turnover that doesn’t lead to anything.

We’re in the Golden Age of Turnovers. Turnovers have never been more useful. They might be, dare I say, even coveted to some. It’s possible to use turnovers well. Counterpressing, the act of pressing to win the ball back as soon as you lose it, has changed the game. Unfortunately, though, when the killer pass is made from an attacking position, the player at the endpoint is usually outnumbered and can’t counterpress. 

Liverpool have changed that. Their two most “playmaker” players are their outside backs. Here’s a great rundown of numbers on right back Trent Alexander-Arnold that I copied from a ThisIsAnfield post from October, 2019:

By the numbers, his 128 progressive passes (best in the league), 3.36 expected assists per game (second best in the league), 7.02 crosses pg (most in the EPL), 11 total through balls (equal second in the EPL), 89 total long passes (equal second in the EPL), 92 passes into the final third (fourth in the EPL) and 16 deep completions (equal 12th in the EPL) demonstrate how well he’s performing.

Liverpool ask their outside backs to take on the percentages that other teams expect from more attacking players. The key advantage of that: The number of players around the endpoint of the pass. When a defender makes the low-percentage huge-reward pass, he has six players in front of him. When an attacker makes a killer pass, it’s usually to a single onrushing player. More players around the ball = more players to counterpress. Every time Alexander-Arnold makes a killer pass, he’s also setting up a counterpressing moment. Every pass has a higher value because it includes itself and the subsequent counterpress. If the pass comes off, that’s great; if it doesn’t, that’s an advantageous scenario, too. It’s a win-win for Liverpool.

The idea of a deeper playmaker isn’t exactly new. Andrea Pirlo, of course, is the first to come to mind as a deep-lying midfielder. It seems to me, though, that the fundamental difference between “the Pirlo format” and “the Liverpool format” is that the Pirlo format is about the passer and the pass, while the Liverpool format is about playing with the larger ideology of being a “pressing team.” We’ve never thought of the playmaker as a cog within the larger scheme.

This gets highlighted by Liverpool’s structure in midfield. Since Liverpool use more creative, talented players at outside back, they get their sturdiness in the midfield. The outside backs play the killer passes, and the midfielders are there to win the ball back. The outside backs act as traditional playmakers, the artists with the ball, while the midfielders act as modern playmakers, the artists of the counterpress. It all fits together.

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Beyond the tactical possibilities this opens, and perhaps the more important piece of all this, is the financial impact. Liverpool probably don’t care about this - I’m actually not sure that Klopp had a clear plan for any of this, rather than leaning into a budding revelation - but their outside back/center midfield structure is easier on the salary budget. Attacking midfielders are often the most expensive player on the team. If you can move their productivity to outside back, a much cheaper position, and insert a more industrious midfielder, a cheaper find in the market, then you’re shaving a decent change off your budget. In MLS, this switch would save a team, based on 2019 averages, roughly $1.5 million. 

Liverpool have done a lot right in the last few years, and much is probably impossible to replicate for most teams. The idea of using deeper playmakers to add numbers to the counterpress, though, should be doable, especially for teams who need creative budget solutions.

That’s all today. Carry on (inside, please).

The Next Evolution in Soccer (thought 3): Disguised Defensive Schemes

Day number three of our “What’s the next cool thing that could pop up in soccer?” series. Thank you to Jonathan Wilson and his column, “Football’s rare pause for thought gives coaches time for inspiration,” for the inspiration. 

Day 1: Inverted Defenders!

Day 2: Unconventional Buildouts!

Day 3: Multiple (Disguised) Defensive Schemes.

Right now, most teams (everyone?) defend the same way over the entire 90 minutes of a game. They set up their 4-4-2 block or their 4-5-1 set or their pressing shape or whatever they choose, and that’s their scheme for the day. Sometimes we see teams bounce back and forth between pressing mode and block mode, but they always stick to the same pressing plan and block shape for the entire game. The only time we see teams switch to a different setup is when they are clearly getting outplayed — it’s a reactive measure.

What if teams started to change schemes through the game in a proactive way?

The first time the team presses, for example, they do so in a 4-3-3 with the center striker dropping to mark the opposing defensive mid and the wingers forcing the ball inside. The second time, they have the striker go straight at the player on the ball and everyone steps forward into man-to-man. The next time… TBD.

Before we keep going, let’s back up this conversation up to cover two basic premises:

• Premise 1: In order to beat a well organized, focused defense, you need think ahead or think quickly on the ball.

• Premise 2: In order to think ahead or think quickly, you need to access the pictures in your brain and compare what you’re seeing in the moment to the thousands of pictures you’ve taken in previous games. You can’t process a single moment in the full speed of a game, so you need to make educated guesses based on what you’ve seen before. “I’ve been in this situation before; I know what it looks like, and I know what it will look like two seconds in the future; since I’ve seen this before, I know how to solve it.”

If I’m at center back, and you press me, my brain takes a picture of that press. The first time you press me, the picture is grainy and incomplete. Every time you do that same press, my picture gets clearer and I can compare the picture to more previous pictures — I get a little closer to finding the solution that works for me (whether I can execute that solution is another question). As the same picture reoccurs, I’ll start to figure out where to look to find the likely opening, and I’ll have a solution before you can get pressure on me.

Those solutions, too, will only come quicker to players as the game gets more sophisticated and the technology gets better. Yesterday, I outlined that I expect teams to come out of the break with new, creative ideas for buildouts. You’d be crazy if you were a Premier League coach if you haven’t been watching Liverpool film and figuring out how to play against their pressing and counter-pressing schemes, even if that means trying things we’ve never seen before -- God knows what they’ve been using before hasn’t been working. Every time a coach pushes the boundaries (Klopp and his pressing or Simeone and his blocks), others step up and push the next boundary.

On top of that, at some point in-game video analysis is going to come, just like it has in the NFL. Soccer already has it at halftime. How long until a center back goes to watch film on an iPad while his team sets up to take a corner kick? Then how long will a single defensive plan work?

The processing power on a soccer field is only getting better and faster. I would argue, in general, that we don’t think enough about how that processing power works, and how important those pictures in a player’s brain are. A player’s ability on the ball, including the framework within a full team’s attack, depends on his ability to process pictures. If you can consistently push unfamiliar pictures on a player in a game…advantage defense.

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Defensive plans should intentionally create new pictures throughout the game. If you give three looks to the opposing team, then that’s three pictures that they need to analyze in the run of the game. They can’t get fully comfortable with any of them. On top of that, even if they do find a solution, they might not use the right solution in the right moment, especially if you disguise it.

Take a look at these three pictures. In the first picture, we see a team getting organized in a standard 4-3-3 defensive shape. In the next two pictures, we see the two different ways they could press out of the same shape.

In the second picture, the solution for the right center back is the clipped ball into the left back. In the third picture, however, that same pass would get picked off by the opposing right winger. Players always want to think and plan ahead on the ball, so how can you limit that, and potentially use it against them?

It doesn’t need to be limited to pressing, either. It’s probably even easier to use in deeper blocks. You can defend in a 4-4-2 for the first sequence, then drop the second striker into the midfield for a 4-5-1. The next time, you could drop the center mid to create a 5-4-1. Now the attacking team needs to find multiple solutions and react in the moment to know what solution to implement in a given sequence. They’ve lost their ability to plan.

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Now, if I were reading this, I know what I would be skeptical about — It’s better to be very good at one thing than to be average at multiple things. It’s hard enough to get excellent at one defensive scheme, more less three. If you aren’t excellent at any single thing, you probably aren’t good enough overall.

It’s definitely an important concern, and I don’t have a great response to it. My best response: It’s easier to get “excellent” at a given type of defensive scheme if the attacking players can’t build pictures in their brains. If the defensive team is constantly changing the scheme, and thus the pictures, then the attacking players will always be a step behind, and the execution of the defensive plan isn’t as difficult. Whatever you lose in defensive execution is less than what the attacking team loses in attacking execution from getting fed new pictures constantly.

On top of that, as players get smarter and on-field processing power gets quicker, players will figure out defensive plans quicker, and it will be exceedingly difficult to get “excellent” at any single defensive scheme. Players will figure out solutions regardless of how efficient your defending is. As a result, the only way to defend well in the future will be to constantly change the picture.

There are definitely drawbacks and challenges, but there are certainly advantages, too, if someone could work through the growing pains.

(I suppose I should have given the caveat the beginning of this series that I’m not sure about any of these ideas. If they were obvious, they would have been done already.)

That’s all today. Carry on (inside, please).

The Next Evolution in Soccer (thought 2): Unconventional Buildouts

Last Friday, we started considering, “What will be the next innovation in soccer?” It was inspired by a column in The Guardian by Jonathan Wilson: Football’s rare pause for thought gives coaches time for inspiration. We’ll keep that theme going for a couple days.

As a refresher, Idea #1: Get ready for inverted defenders. As teams press opposing defenders outside-in more often, and as teams attack with their outside defenders playing through central channels, it could become beneficial to play a right-footed player on the left and vice versa.

Today’s idea: New and improved buildouts.

When teams build from the back, starting with a goal kick or a goalkeeper possession, we will start to see off-the-ball movements and player interactions that we’ve never seen before.

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A few years ago, I read a book by Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grandmaster (I don’t remember the book’s name… it was mostly a slog of a read). The most interesting part of the book is how chess is played in three phases: The Opening, the Middlegame, the Endgame. Within those phases, he explained, there are consistent processes. Specifically, the Opening is very scripted; the Middlegame is fluid; and the Endgame is coordinated but not scripted, meaning you don’t have specific plays but you know what type of move sequences will do the job. (You know where this is going…)

The way he set up the situations felt similar to soccer, especially the Opening. You know where you want to be in the end - knocking down the opposing King, scoring a goal - and you have a chance to start from a set situation and pick your preferred path to get there. 

The Opening = The Buildout. 

You start with the ball at the goalkeeper or center back; you have time to look up and see how the defense has set up; and you get to decide the best way to attack it. It’s one of the few scenarios on the field in which you have real control. The set nature of the moment allows for:

• More scheming, as you can think a few moves in advance and reasonably predict how each decision would play out.

• A more controlled training environment. You can set up the same situation over and over and get reliable repetitions.

The best coaches have already started to utilize it. With more time to sit, think, and plan right now, it’s reasonable to expect that we will see new types of buildouts when the game returns to the field.

This could come in two pieces, I think.

Buildout Set Plays

To date, teams use loose patterns and movements. Players know where to start, they know their checklist of options, and they know how to move based on where their teammates move. I would expect that to get taken a step further: rehearsed plays, like set pieces.

Specifically, this builds off the tendency for opponents to press in predictable patterns. Most teams press the same way for an entire game, or at least in 45-minute chunks (more on this tomorrow). Whether it’s man-to-man or zonal-into-pockets, it becomes readable and predictable. If it’s man-to-man, then you know how to create new openings; if it’s zonal, then you know what openings will arrive at certain points. Whereas buildout patterns currently wait for those openings to come, and then ask players to read the situation and move into the openings, set plays could actively open areas up. 

Let’s picture a normal building setting -- the goalkeeper has the ball and the opponent starts man-to-man in midfield. Most teams build out in a traditional 4-3-3, with the center backs spread wide inside the 18, the outside backs high and wide at the sideline, and defensive mid at the top of the box. Players generally hold those spots, the goalkeeper picks his pass, and the game resumes.

Now imagine the ‘keeper signals for a play. Everyone on the attacking team knows what’s going to happen before the play starts. The ‘keeper plays the center back; as the ball is traveling, the outside back drops down because he knows a one-touch pass is coming from the center back; in the same moment, the attacking mid drops down closer to his defenders, as well, to create space for the striker; the outside back hits a one-time pass into the striker; as the outside back shapes to make the pass, the attacking mid turns and starts sprinting toward the striker; the striker lays off the ball to the onrushing attacking mid, and the pressure is broken. Even though the confines were tight and the situation was precarious, it’s now an opportunity going the other way five seconds later.

I think we could see every team keep a few plays in their pocket at all times, with another couple specific to the opponent each week. Hopefully those plays include some…

Creative, Funky Patterns

As of now, even the most creative, efficient teams in the buildout follow normal patterns. The center backs stay the farthest back; the outside backs stay wide; the center mids stay central. You rarely see pictures on the screen that defy what you’ve seen before. That has to change at some point, right?

Let’s return to our buildout situation on the field. We would need two types of solutions: versus man-to-man and versus zonal starting positions. 

For playing against a man-to-man setup... The goalkeeper puts his arm up again to initiate the buildout movements. This time, the outside back takes off toward the depth, clearing out the space. The winger darts to the middle. The striker then sprints to the sideline. Your outside back is now your highest player; your winger is central; and your striker is where the outside back would usually be. Would the opposing center backs follow him out there? Maybe, but probably not. If the center back does go, then you have potential 1v1s against a scrambling defense into the depth. You’d take those odds from a goal kick, wouldn’t you?

For playing against zonal starting positions… Let’s think about the positional play as we would in the attacking third. Can we create dangerous overloads? Right now, most buildout overloads occur in the middle, with an extra center midfielder. Teams don’t want to play through the middle, though, because it’s the most dangerous option. Could you shift that open player out wide somehow? If the outside back drops deeper to pull the opposing winger down, and our winger pushes higher to pin back the opposing outside back -- can we shift our free center mid in that space? Liverpool and the USWNT are the only teams I’ve seen do this so far.

You could create a whole slate of plays like that. The ‘keeper does a signal to call a play, and the 10 outfield players all start moving. The ‘keeper waits for it to develop - how often do we see a ref call a delay of game? - and then picks his pass. At the very least, it throws off the pictures in the defenders’ brains - the pictures that guide every defender’s decisions - and you get the advantage of execution.

There’s an opportunity for smart, brave coaches to find new advantages in the buildout phase. I’m excited to see who goes for it.

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Tomorrow… How could teams combat this, and perhaps create the first-mover advantage with their defensive plans?

That’s all today. Carry on (inside, please).

The Next Evolution in Soccer (thought 1): Inverted Defenders

My good friend Matt Pavlich has been doing a nightly email with a soccer thing to watch, to read, and to listen to. It’s been a wonderful comfort lately. Last night, his article to read was this column by Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian: Football’s rare pause for thought gives coaches time for inspiration.

I think (hope) Wilson is right, that we will see some wild, fun stuff when soccer resumes. Thinking about what’s next in the soccer world is one of my favorite things to do, and I generally think that teams are too conservative (though for obvious, understandable reasons).

So, here on this blog that has no rules or purpose, we are going to spend a few days pondering the future. What new innovations could we see when the game returns to the field? First up…

Inverted outside backs and center backs. 

For as long as I can remember, right-footed players have played on the right side of the defense and left-footed players have played on the left side of defense. The only time it didn’t stand true is if a team didn’t have a player of a certain foot, usually with a team failing to field a left-footed player. Jamie Carragher remains one of my favorite left backs of all time. 

Why is that? Why do teams prefer to play a right-footed player on the right and a left-footed player on the left? 

The conversation about center backs is different from the one about outside backs, so let’s split it up.

Center backs: 

Louis van Gaal and Pep Guardiola have each gone out of their way to get center backs onto their “natural” side. Pep said in 2018, "It’s so important to have a left-[footed] central defender.” I’ve never seen either coach really elaborate on it, but here are three quotes that shine some light: 

Guardiola: “[Laporte] is a left-footed player. He helped us to make our build-up and when the ball comes from the right, he immediately controls to the left and plays it to Leroy - that is quicker than we would play with a right-footer in that position.”

Also… “His left foot and many actions to build up to make it quicker and better – we don’t have it, not because the other ones are not good but he has the only left foot as a central defender and for the way we want to play that is so important.”

Louis van Gaal, spoken by Phil Neville: “I remember Louis van Gaal talking about playing a left-footed center back. If you have a left-footed center back it helps with coming out on the left-hand side. If you have a right-footed one on the left of the pair, the movement isn’t as quick or as smooth.”

To take those ideas another layer down (to a place that it makes sense to my brain), putting defenders on their “natural sides” helps to:

1. Make the field as big as possible. When the ball swings from side to side, you always want a player to take the ball with his front foot to keep the options open and the field big, so you want the front foot to be the strong foot. If you have the strong foot on the outside, it opens up the full width of the field.

2. Move the ball from side to side as quickly as possible.

I find Guardiola’s thoughts to be both insightful and contradictory. A core fundamental of Guardiola is keeping the field as big as possible in possession. At the same time, nobody plays through his center midfielders as much as Guardiola. While the passing angles and efficiency to the wide areas would be better with the “natural sides” option, the angles toward the middle would get cut off. If you think about it, a left-footed player on the left only ‘opens’ his body to about 30% of the field (since he or she is usually in between the sideline and the middle of the field in possession), whereas a right-footed player on the left opens his body on his strong foot to about 70% of the field.

Why A more than B, then? I’d guess it’s because the ability to play to the wide channel opens up the middle, and you can’t play through the middle unless you have the threat to play wide; B doesn’t matter unless you have A. That makes sense to me

Here’s what I think has changed recently, though, and why an evolution might be coming. More teams are pressing and/or defending outside-in. The traditional pressing sequence was either straight on or inside-out, as the diagram shows:

You can see the value of having a left-footed player on the left side.

Now, however, we see outside-in movements more and more (thanks to Liverpool’s success with it under Jurgen Klopp):

In this scenario, you can see that it would be better to be right-footed on the left side. Having your stronger foot on the inside allows you to play away from pressure or dribble into the open space out of pressure. I would also add that the value of having more angles toward the center midfielders is an undervalued advantage of playing players on their ‘opposite’ sides.

As teams continue to press outside-in more often - and I don’t see any reason or likelihood that they wouldn’t - we should also see teams use inverted center backs more often.

Outside Backs:

This one is more simple, I think. You want outside backs on their natural side because it allows them to carry the ball forward and puts them on the stronger foot for a cross. Three years ago I would have called that stupid and outdated (and lots of other mean things). Crossing has always been a crutch and overused. Crossing has changed in recent years, though. 

Instead of whipping the ball as hard as you can into the box, there are more coherent ideas. Specifically, the early bended ball behind a defense has been particularly useful. If your outside back receives the ball in space out wide and the opponent has a high line, the outside back should absolutely hit the bending ball into the depth. Those balls are deadly and awesome and I don’t see how you can replace them. 

At the same time, outside backs are spending less time than ever in the wide channels. Wingers have moved back out wide and outside backs have been asked to occupy more central channels. Outside backs now need to connect with center midfielders and the striker through the middle. Again, we return to the passing angles from each foot; the inside foot should have more options through more dangerous areas.

Sweden v. United States pic.twitter.com/C4J5BsDNCL

— Eliot McKinley (@etmckinley) June 21, 2019

To take it another step further, outside backs are usually the spare man, the wildcard that opposition defenses struggle to account for as they arrive late. Teams have found ways to make outside backs their most dangerous players. Thus far, though, it has always been in the wide areas. What’s stopping teams from using that advantage down the middle? Just as wingers became inverted a decade ago so they could be on their strong foot as they go inside, why wouldn’t we do the same thing with outside backs?

TL/DR summary: I’d be surprised if teams didn’t start using more inverted center backs and outside backs… partially because it’s weird that it hasn’t been done more to this point, and partially because it seems to suit the way the game is evolving. 

That’s all today. Carry on (inside please).

Team-Specific Terminology

What does the word “step” mean to you on the soccer field?

One inconvenient part of soccer is that the same word can mean different things to different people. “Step”, for example, can get used for:

1. Go press! (by yourself)

2. Let’s go press! (as a team)

3. Get pressure on the ball! (within the regular run of play)

4. Let’s step forward (to make the field compact)

It’s just a single word, but it can go in so many directions. With that, it can also cause problems. If two (or more) people on the field think different things when they hear the word, it can cause confusion.  

If our center back tells our striker to go Step, intending for option #3, but our midfielder thinks the center back means option #2 and steps forward as he would in the full-team press, it could leave a gap in front of the center back.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to use the word “Step”, it’s a personal preference for coaches. The trouble is that players often play on multiple teams at once, or have certainly played on multiple teams in their lives, and have thus heard different uses of the same terms. The wires will inevitably get crossed. 

(There’s also, I think, a larger issue in soccer of vague terms. It’s not just that different coaches have different meanings for the same terms, it’s that the words we use most often are incredibly broad. It’s the word’s fault more than the speaker’s. What exactly is an “8”?)

What’s the harm, then, in creating your own terminology as a team? 

I’m pretty sure the answer for many would be: using funky words on the field sounds stupid and it leaves you open to ridicule. Fortunately, that’s mostly because soccer people are horrified by anything new and unique, more than the actual merits of the idea.

If it makes you feel any better… Jesse Marsch, one of the brightest upcoming coaches in the world, created a whole bunch of weird words for his Red Bulls team. Ever heard of a “ball thief”?

Instead of using the words we hear every day on the soccer field - Step, Press, Switch, Cross, Shape, Second Ball, Organize, etc - try creating entirely new words. The more popular the generic term, the more urgent it is to get rid of it. Anything players have heard on the field - anything they might have heard from other coaches - throw it out.

The advantages to creating your own team-specific terminology:

It stops confusion on the field. 

First, it ensures everyone on the team stays on the same page tactically. Second, the player doesn’t have to cipher through the different meanings in her own mind. “Which ‘press’ am I supposed to do right now?” The difference might be incredibly tiny, but in the midst of a full-speed soccer game, every margin and millisecond matters.

With that said, there is certainly a transition phase as the players learn the new words, so there is some increased confusion early in the process.

It creates urgency. 

Players have heard the same words over and over, and as all know from our mom’s telling us to call those people right away, there’s a tendency to ignore overused concepts. Players have heard the word “Press” 10,000 times in their life. A new, unique word will trigger an urgency in their brains.

It creates specificity.

What does a coach mean when he says “second ball”? He obviously means, “win the second ball.” But, how does a player win a second ball? It doesn’t happen just by thinking about it or wanting it to happen. There are tactical and physical reasons that teams win second balls. Why use the line “second ball” rather than the specific tactical idea or physical requirement? The quicker you can trigger a specific idea in a player’s brain, the better.

It forces players to learn the how & why behind the term.

When you go over the new terms, you have to really think about what they mean. For example, when you create a new word for “Shape,” you have to go over exactly what you want to accomplish with your team defensive ideas and why you want to accomplish it. The deeper understanding creates more buy-in from the players and allows for quicker flexibility of ideas in the future.

It makes technical exercises and passing patterns easier to consume and more realistic.

Sometimes a basic goal of technical drills - getting the players a lot of touches and reps - can go against a key component of coaching - every drill should have a tactical purpose. The Dutch Square, for example, is a drill that gets players a ton of touches but doesn’t really have a tactical component, as you just go around and around in a square. If you can codify every touch, however, then you can bring tactical ideas into any drill. Instead of simply going around in a square, you can work on “Swing” or “Break the Line”.

Needless to say, I would argue that creating team-specific terminology is one of the easiest, most obvious ways to create a marginal advantage. 

Here is the list of terms we like to use:

Line - Get into our pressing defensive set. When the opponent’s GK or center backs have the ball (usually during a dead moment), we get back into our pre-pressing shape at the Line of Confrontation.

Zoom- After we have been in our pre-pressing shape, we go to press on the word “Zoom.”

Hunt - After we’ve moved forward to press, we defend man-to-man and everyone understands they must win the ball as quickly as possible.

Block - Get into our non-pressing defensive set.

Squeeze - The team, specifically the defenders, moving forward to keep the team compact.

Break the Line - A pass that bypasses an opponent’s defensive line.

Bounce - A pass that goes back the way our player is facing.

Give and Go - Okay, this one is the same as the generic term.

Half-Turn - This one, too. 

Side-On - Samesies. (I’m not sure why I haven’t adjusted these three.)

Shoulders - Looking over the shoulder to see what’s behind you (both on offense and defense)

Second Layer - A pass played beyond the opposition’s first defensive layer, into the space in front of the opposition’s defenders.

Depth - A pass played behind the opposition's defenders.

Net - Our shape while the ball is traveling in the air to get into position to win a second ball.

Angle - Reminding the player, usually defenders, to get into position early to provide a passing option for a teammate.

Swing - Passing the ball across the defenders to get to the other side of the field.

Mental Transition - When the ball goes out of player or turnsover, we immediately get into the next action. 

Thread - A pass between the opposing center back and outside back.

Danger Zones - The optimal assist areas on the field. 

(I’ve heard one MLS coach use the word “rondo” during the run of play to signal to his players to keep possession in a certain area to draw the opponent over so they can create space to exploit elsewhere.)

Maybe that’s too few for what I’m hoping to accomplish, maybe it’s too many. I’m still developing the idea. I’d love to hear that other people do or think.

That’s all today. Carry on (inside, please).

The Value of Periodization

On Sunday, I wrote about the evolving nature of formations. 

TL/DR: Soccer is a compilation of individual phases, and teams are putting an increased awareness on the distinct nature of each individual phase. As a result, every team uses multiple formations each game to meet the demands of, and seamlessly integrate between, the different phases of the game.

The follow up question: Okay, so how do you train for that? If there are multiple distinct phases, and each one can determine a game, how do you make sure you excel at every phase?

At the same time, we have to remember a basic truth of soccer: if you try to be decent at everything before you’re good at anything, you’ll end up bad at everything.

Rock: You need to be good at every phase.

Hard Place: If you try to be good at everything too fast, you’ll fail at everything. 

So how do you navigate that conundrum?

Periodization. Periodization is your planned timeline for training. If you have, say, 10 weeks to train for an event (the start of the season, the Olympics, a marathon), the periodization sets out the stages and steps of your training plan over the 10 weeks. The periodization is effectively your allocation of finite time.

In soccer, every team starts preseason with a tactical periodization plan. They know how much time they want to spend on each facet of the game and the order they want to go in. The plan might extend through preseason, or the first quarter of the season, or the entire season. Each manager goes about it differently. (As a quick history: the idea of tactical periodization was, as far as I know, created by Vitor Frade and popularized by Jose Mourinho.)

You need to make hard decisions on how much time you allocate to different ideas. There are at least four phases to cover, with multiple details within each phase. The list looks something like this (FWIW, I consider these each their own phase, but every person contextualizes the ideas differently):

• Midblock Defensive Shape

• Pressing Movements

• Attacking Transition Patterns

• Buildout Movements

• Middle-third Possession Rotations

• Finishing Patterns

• Defensive Transitions

• Offensive Marking Positioning

• Attacking Set Pieces

• Defensive Set Pieces

• Deep-block Defensive Shape

• Second Balls

• Defending in Own Box

Those are, I think, the basics. If you haven’t gone over those ideas as a group, to get everyone on the same page so they can act quickly and as one unit, you’re leaving yourself exposed. This doesn’t account for more specific parts of the game (like, how do your attacking transition patterns differ when you win the ball next your own box compared to when you win the ball at midfield?) or being able to do the full list in a secondary formation or down a player. Put simply, there’s a lot to cover.

It’s a business problem as old as time: Too much to do in too little time. You have to find hacks and make hard decisions. That’s what makes the periodization plan extremely important -- potentially the most important macro decision a manager makes.

I’ve spent weird amounts of time trying to make the ideal plan (for what, I’m not exactly sure). Needless to say, there is no right plan, and the rightness of the plan depends on a variety of factors. The best I’ve been able to do is distill the process down into these six questions: 

1. What matters most to us as a team?

   1. Based on historical soccer data

      1. The history of soccer shows trends 

         1. Example: teams have started to use “optimal assist zones,” where the plurality of assists have come from in the past. 

         2. Example: Set pieces account for roughly 30% of goals, yet how many teams spend 30% of their time working on them?

   2. Based on squad composition

      1. What do our players do well and what do they do poorly?

         1. Example: The Portland Timbers don’t need to spend as much time on attacking transitions because Diego Valeri and Sebastian Blanco are naturally excellent at them.

   3. Based on coach’s temperament

      1. You aren’t trying to pick the perfect plan, you’re trying to get everyone moving in the same direction, and it’s easier to get everyone moving together if you’re selling an idea you deeply believe.

         1. Example: Jurgen Klopp has said that he prefers “heavy metal” football over slower, more methodical football. Klopp, then, probably focuses on Pressing Movements and Attacking Transitions before Middle-third Possession Rotations.

2. What topics relate and connect to each other?

   1. How can you kill two birds with one stone? If you work on some topics, it will naturally impact other topics. 

      1. Example: Buildouts and Defensive Pressing might be topics that you can do together, with one group+coach focusing on one element while another group+coach focuses on the other element. 

3. What topics precedes other topics?

   1. What can’t we start without first knowing something else?

      1. Example: You probably need to work on Midblock Shape or Pressing Movements before you train Attacking Transitions. 

      2. Example: Do you need to be good at Attacking Transitions or Middle-third Possession Rotations before you work on Finishing Patterns? (I’m pretty sure the answer is no, but I’m not positive.)

4. What comfort level do we need with this topic before we move on? 

   1. If we move on before we’re ready, it will be as if we never worked on it at all. But if we spend too much time on it, we won’t get to the other phases.

      1. I think FC Dallas were a prime example of this in 2019. FC Dallas were fantastic at Buildouts and Middle-third Possession, but not as effective at Attacking Transitions and Finishing Patterns. They probably should have transitioned forward in their progression sooner.

   2. How much does a phase rely on muscle memory repetitions rather than general understanding?

5. How do we iterate old topics back into the sessions as we progress?

   1. Example: If you focus on Block Defending first, and you get good at Block Defending, how do you make sure you don’t regress in future weeks as you move onto other things?

And then there’s a separate question of the intangibles. Most notably:

6. What impacts our culture and the way we want our players to feel? 

1. Example: It seems that (based on public comments) Gregg Berhalter values possession so highly because of the mentality it sets within his team. If you can use the ball well, it makes you feel confident and believe you can beat anyone; therefore, he wants his teams to feel like they can use the ball well because it makes them feel a certain way. The feeling then bleeds into everything else. At that point, you don’t actually need to possess the ball that much, but the fact that the players feel like they can possess makes them feel better about Pressing and Attacking Transitions and Second Balls, etc. 

   1. (I take a similar route with Pressing. I have my youth teams work on Pressing early in the periodization because the requirements of Pressing - intensity, staying mentally engaged, personal accountability - set the culture we want.)

Once you address those questions, you can start to set out the timeline that works for you and your team.

Okay, I’m so deep into this that I started to forget while we’re here. Recap:

Rock: A team needs to be good at lots of things.

Hard Place: If you try to be good at a lot of things immediately, you might end up good at nothing.

Solution: Periodization. 

The best managers navigate a complicated dilemma by diligent, thoughtful, detail-oriented planning before they even step on the field for preseason. 

The last note: When you start to think about the value of periodization, you start to realize the value in consistency, for both managers and players. If we acknowledge that it’s hard, if not impossible, to create a comprehensive tactical periodization that works within a season - and there’s value in having 11 players function as 1 - then we start to see the importance of keeping those players and coaches together so they can build on what they’ve established.

That’s all today. Carry on.

The Evolution of Formations

What’s a formation these days?

For years - forever, really - we’ve described the formation in a singular way. A team played in one singular formation -- the 4-3-3, the 4-4-2, the 3-5-2, etc. It’s how it’s always been done and it felt like enough. Not anymore. 

The game, and the use of formations, has evolved. Teams enter every game with multiple formations, and they rarely use one shape more than the others over the 90 minutes (unless they are getting creamed or doing the creaming, that is). The single descriptor now feels disingenuous. 

How did this come about?

Piece 1: A small part of this is that soccer didn’t change that much; we, as viewers, did. Teams have always morphed between different formations - the 5-3-2 always became a 3-5-2; the 4-3-3 often became a 3-4-3; the 4-4-2 usually morphed into a 4-4-1-1. We just accepted the titles for what they were. There was an implicit understanding about the imperfect nature of the formation descriptor, a general acceptance that systems functioned within a range.

As the world has become more detail-oriented, however, so have our observational abilities. Everything has become more detailed and segmented, and soccer is no exception. Simply, we haven’t integrated what we know we see on the field into our general discourse about the game. We observationally acknowledge that Manchester City spend most of the game in a 2-3-4-1, for example, yet we still say that Manchester City line up in a 4-3-3 just because that’s what we’ve always done.

Piece 2: The larger, more important, more interesting part is that soccer did change on the field; specifically, it became more differentiated between the phases of play. The main reason that we notice that formations change through the game is because they do change more through the game - and in more explicit, obvious ways - because teams take more time to differentiate the specific needs in the different phases of play. 

The ‘phase of play’ is the thing you need to do in that moment -- Defend… Attack… Transition... Set Piece... etc. The phase changes every few minutes or seconds in a soccer game. Every coach or organization has different terms and definitions, but the basic four phases include (and I think Louis van Gaal gets credit for coining this):

• Attacking

• Defensive Transitions

• Defending

• Attacking Transitions

You have the ball (Attacking), then you lose the ball (Defensive Transition), then you defend (Defending), then you win the ball back (Attacking Transition), and then you attack again (Attacking). 

My personal template looks like this:

Soccer, broken down to its core pieces, is merely a collection of the phases. The phases are unique and they are not always complementary to each other. For example, being good at attacking doesn’t make you automatically good at defending (that one is obvious enough). More deeply, you can’t expect that being good at possession attacking means you will be good at transition attacking, or that stingy block defending automatically translates to efficient transition defending. You can’t just be a “good soccer team;” you have to be a good attacking-transition team and a good defensive-transition team and a good defensive-block team, etc. Any single phase can determine a game. To ignore the different phases would be like running an NFL team and training your Offense while forgetting your Defense and Special Teams. 

To bring this back to the idea of formations… As the recognition of the importance of the distinct phases has grown, so has the specific focus on each phase. Each phase has its own distinct demands. Consequently, each phase has, or should have, its own formation. You’ll almost never see a team use the same shape for every phase of the game. 

As an example, let’s think back to Bob Bradley’s US Men’s National Team days. The lineup at the start of games often showed a 4-4-2 formation. The notion of the “empty bucket,” in which Bradley used two defensive midfielders and two true forwards and left a perceived emptiness in the central attacking zones, became famous. 

In truth, Bradley only used the 4-4-2 in the defensive phase. In the attacking phase, the team morphed to a (rather attacking) 4-2-2-2, with Dempsey and Donovan getting the chance to tuck inside to create problems. Bradley clearly deployed two formations for the different moments of the game.

Some teams take it a step further and have different formations for each area of the field. The Seattle Sounders, for example:

• Usually build out from the back in a 4-2-1-3, with two defensive midfielders. 

• When they get to the middle third, they switch to a 4-3-3, as the second defensive midfielder pushes higher. 

• When they get to the final third, they morph into a 2-1-5-2, with the outside backs flying forward and a winger dashing forward to join the striker. 

• Out of possession, they usually press in a 4-4-2.

• When they drop into a block, they switch to a 4-4-1-1. 

Throughout the course of a game, the Sounders often spend very little time in the 4-2-3-1 set that’s shown on the lineup graphic.

Now for the most important point, and the main reason teams need to put so much thought into each distinctive phase/formation. In the past, you could think about each phase in its own bucket. It was enough to be good at each phase. Now, however, the game moves too fast between the transitions. You can’t just be good at each phase, you need to be good at the moments between the phases. You can’t just be good at defensive transitions, you need to be good at the moment the attack turns to a defensive transition. In other words, you have to be prepared for the next phase before it happens; every phase needs to account for all the other phases. 

I suppose it’s possible that an all-encompassing, seamless plan can happen naturally. It’s pretty unlikely, though. There’s too much going on. You need to actively plan for it. 

Pep Guardiola has suggested that it’s this idea of seamless switching between phases that makes him so adamant about short passes -- it’s the best strategy to stay prepared for defensive transitions. When your players present short options for possession passes, they are already around the ball for a defensive transition in the case of a turnover. The two phases fit together. There is no such thing as a singular tactic; every tactical piece needs to fit into a full plan.

Adin Osmanbasic put together a great thread about it recently. 

Some will read all of this and have a simple rebuttal: Formations are overplayed anyway! I don’t know, maybe. Personally, I put that sentiment in the same bucket as the old cliche, “tackling is a useless skill” -- it might be true, but there are roughly three geniuses in the world who can use it and you’re probably not one of them. Rather, formations are hugely important. Any contest, sports or otherwise, comes down to logistics and numbers. If you have resources in the right spots, you put yourself at an advantage. The inherent point of a formation is the starting positions. If you start players in the right areas of the field, you put yourself in a position to succeed. Formations matter.

Why does this article matter? It doesn’t, really. We won’t stop talking about teams in relation to their formations, and we won’t stop talking about formations in a singular way. Sports talk is fun and catchy, and it’s cumbersome to describe all of the details of a game. Brevity often trumps intellectual honesty when we talk about sports, a depressing fact everyone who follows sports accepts. Nobody ever went viral talking with “Holy crap how smart were Philly to build out in a 4-4-2 and then switch to a 3-5-2 in possession and then press in a 4-2-4. Hot damn that was sexy!” 

It’s just an observation that I wanted to write about. What’s a formation these days? It’s just different.

The singular formation is a relic of the past. Every team has a different shape for the various phases of the game. The ability to switch between those formations, and thus the different phases of the game, often decides the game.

From playing to coaching

No bounce.

Proper spin. 

Proper pace. 

Front foot.

Check your shoulders.

Check your shoulders!

What’s next? 

What’s next?

What’s next?

You gotta know what’s next!

Because every detail to a pass matters.

Eighteen months ago, I started coaching an under-15 boys team with South Bronx United, a non-profit club in New York City. We have three coaches in our group; we all have full-time jobs, so we share the duties. After 10 years of collegiate and professional soccer, it was my first step into the coaching world. 

I didn’t really know what to expect when I started with the team. I felt good about the Xs and Os, but I quickly learned that’s only a small fraction of the job. I’d like to do a better job this year of sharing my experiences as a young coach -- writing them down forces me to reflect on them, and there might be a person or two out there who can learn from another youth coach’s missteps. (I haven’t found many places on the internet to read first-hand stories from youth coaches.) Here’s where we will start... 

The toughest part of coaching this year was never backing down from the belief that every detail to a pass matters.

If you aren’t working to do every detail right, you’re limiting your chance to win. There’s right and wrong. There’s good and bad. Can wrong succeed? Can bad win? Yes. We see it all the time. Soccer is both horrible and amazing like that. But right technique and good habits win more often than sloppy and bad ones. 

Hold your spot. Be brave. Check your shoulder. What’s next? Front foot. Play!

I’m relentless with our players about it. It’s my biggest source of angst as a coach. It’s the same angst I felt, and struggled with, as a player. Holding others accountable, if you’re a semi-normal person, sucks. There’s no power trip to be enjoyed; it should register that you’re making the person uneasy. The difficult part of life is that with discomfort comes growth. But it shouldn’t necessarily feel good to push people toward that suffering. There should be a natural resistance to causing someone that pain. It’s even more difficult when they are children. It doesn’t feel great to look at a 15-year-old and tell him that he needs to do more. 

Faster. Faster. It’s too slow. You need to be better!

I’m still learning about this sport, but there’s one thing I’m pretty positive about: You have to hold the bar high. Players meet the bar they are given. If you give players the leniency to wander an inch, they will take a mile. But if you hold the bar high, they will get there. 

It just takes a leap of faith as a coach to continue to hold that bar above them. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gotten on the subway after practice and felt crappy. Did I need to push them like that? Did I need to hold the bar so high for a teenager? 

I’m pretty sure that the answer is Yes. We all want people to get pushed — as long as it's done in a respectful way. The feeling of growth is empowering and addictive. We can’t fulfill our potential without that support. The only thing worse than getting pushed is not getting better. 

Ultimately, too, our kids did meet the bar. Their growth was remarkable; the soccer they played at the end was fantastic. 

As a coach, I love the word “brave.” You can’t play soccer unless you’re brave. I’m learning it’s the same as a coach. When you hold the bar high, you also have to accept the responsibility that comes with it. You can’t be weak because you’re scared of the conflict. The angst is the coach’s cross to carry; my pain to assume. I can’t limit their growth because I struggle with it.  

With that said, I have clear points of growth for myself. I need to do a better job of:

• delivering the messages, both in tone and timing, and mixing in positive reinforcement.

• connecting with the kids on a human level before and after practice, so they know that the feedback comes from a place of love and not disapproval.

• knowing which players like what type of feedback

If you’ve been through this mental process in your own coaching experiences, I’ll take any advice you have.

The pass that makes my heart sing

Watch this clip that Adam Belz cut from the USA-Trinidad game. Notice the pass from Weston McKennie at the 12 second mark. The teams I’ve been on and the coaches I’ve been around have called it an “Around the Corner” pass.

Weston McKennie has his flaws but I can't think of anyone else for the USMNT capable of this (maaaaaybe Tyler Adams) pic.twitter.com/quBAG5tD59

— scuffed (@zlebmada) June 24, 2019

(As a quick disclaimer, I disagree with the statement in the Tweet, but that’s another conversation for another day. Let’s just focus on the action of the pass.)

I love that Adam highlighted this pass. It is, by my estimation, the most underused pass in soccer. It’s nearly impossible to stop; it’s extremely effective; and it’s not that difficult to execute relative to the other actions that garner the same returns.

The pass has the obvious advantages of playing forward and breaking lines. We take those as givens as positive on the soccer field. This pass, though, has a couple other advantages that make it so valuable:

1. The pass is made while the passer is moving forward. The attacker has the natural advantage of already being in stride as the ball moves forward -- plus the defender is moving the other direction to close the ball. It’s impossible for the defender to keep up with the run. The passer can move the ball forward and join the attack unmarked in one action. You can break lines and create overloads at the same time. In the clip, notice how quickly McKennie goes from playing with his back to goal to running at the Trinidad back four; how quickly the US goes from regular possession to putting Trinidad under real pressure. Whenever we see teams struggle to break down deep blocks or breakthrough pressure pockets, this pass is the answer. (There’s also a point to be made here about the ability to counter-press more effectively in the case of a turnover because you’re already sprinting to close down the area.)

2. Looking for this specific pass forces the attacker to think ahead. You can’t decide to make this pass after you receive the ball. You have to plan it a step ahead. I don’t need to explain why thinking ahead is important. But I think coaches could do a better job of forcing players to do it. Coaches tend to ask players to think ahead to perform actions; sometimes that needs to be flipped. The coach can ask for actions that help players think ahead. (I’d argue that pressing is effective and useful, beyond the Xs and Os, because it’s always forcing players to constantly be on the move.) If the coach tells the players to always be on the lookout for the Around the Corner pass, the player is forced to always check his shoulders and look for the next pass. As a result, it’s not just an effective pass in itself, it’s a means to getting players to do the single most important thing in the game, which has its knock-on effects.

Given how effective the pass can be, it is a weird historical happenstance that teams do not use it more. I write this post, mostly, to get the word out.

Adam’s right, it’s a gorgeous pass. But it shouldn’t be something that we need to single out. It’s an action that’s within almost any professional player’s ability. It just isn’t coached or thought about enough; it hasn’t been soaked into the bloodstream. Ideally, it would be considered the standard or norm rather than a unique or special moment.

Talking about the Under-20 World Cup

The USA Under-20 victory over France gave me some mixed, weird emotions. I was excited - anytime an American team wins, I'm happy about it - but also...something I can't put my finger on. There's something about the general discourse around the team that has created a weird churn in my stomach. 

A couple acknowledgements before we dig into it:

1. I don't mind when people hype young players. Sports are about fun and entertainment, and getting excited about young talent is both fun and entertaining. 

2. The teenage male players coming through the US might be better than than they were 15 years ago. This U20 group might be the best one ever. I am writing this because I think that decision needs to be made with more context than people are giving it.

Let's look at the time horizon of three straight Under 20 World Cups, since it’s relevant right now. The United States has qualified for three straight quarter finals, in 2015, 2017, and 2019. What does that mean in the arc of American soccer? Let's look back at 2003, 2005, and 2007 to compare.

The 2003, 2005, and 2007 Under-20 men's national teams all won their groups at the World Cup. In those tournaments they:

Beat: Paraguay, South Korea, Ivory Coast, Argentina,  Egypt, Poland, Brazil, Uruguay

Lost to: Germany, Argentina, Italy, Austria

Tied: Germany, South Korea

That's a collective 8-4-2 with wins over traditional powers Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay

The 2015 and 2019 teams got 2nd in their groups, while the 2017 team won the group. In those tournaments, they:

Beat: Myanmar, New Zealand x2, Colombia, Senegal, Nigeria, Qatar, France

Lost to: Ukraine x2, Venezuela

Tied: Serbia, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia.

That's a collective 8 - 3 - 3 with wins over traditional powers France and Colombia. 

It seems to me that when you look at the full body of work over the three cycles, and take away the idea that the team "made three straight quarter finals," which is inherent to the luck of tournament play, the bodies of work are pretty similar (if not more flattering to 2003-2007).*

The idea that recent Under-20 World Cup results make some sweeping statement about the state of soccer in the country is precarious. (Not to mention the question about whether Under-20 World Cup results matter at all.)

Where does the current gap in perception happen then? It seems to me that there are two things that play a huge role:

1) "Look at how many teenagers we have in Europe right now." Maybe the fact that more players on the current U20 team play in Europe than every before correlates to player quality. Maybe Alex Mendez, Richie Ledezma, and Sebastian Soto, who play for Freiburg, PSV, and Hannover respectively, are better than Benny Feilhaber, Sacha Klejstan, and Nathan Sturgis, who played at UCLA, Seton Hall, and Clemson heading into the World Cup. Or maybe the world is more globalized now. Maybe European teams spend more on scouting and people travel more. Does the number of players in Europe indicate a change in player quality or a change in the way the world works?

2) Social media. It's easier to both clip the best plays of a player and show the world, and collectively get excited about those plays. We see the tweet of Konrad de la Fuente beating someone on the dribble and everyone gets excited. In reality, Twitter also would have broken over Sal Zizzo, Kamani Hill, and Justin Mapp. It's easier now to see a player's brilliance and get swept away by that brilliance.

With all that said, do I think this current U20 is very good? Yes, I do. They've been a joy to watch. But I also remember watching the 2003, 2005, and 2007 teams and thinking the same thing.

Do I believe that this U20 group has an overall higher mean and median of quality; more so, do I think US men's soccer is moving in the right direction? I think the answer to both of those is yes (though I’m not 100% positive). 

But I also think people are a little ahead of themselves at the moment. It’s important that we have some perspective to what’s taking place and what it means.

What our U20 team is doing right now isn't new. Almost every tweet and comment I've seen about this group of players I could have cut and paste into guys from the 2003, 2005, and 2007 teams. Perhaps I’m protectionist over my generation of players; perhaps I’ve seen players hyped too often — but it also just feels wrong to act like we haven’t seen this before. I don’t mind when people note that the players are talented - American players have always been undervalued - but it’s the idea that the players now are undoubtedly more talented than the players before them that creates some weird feelings for me.

What are the parts that I’m excited excited about?

The *average* quality of 19 year old players across the country is higher. The pool is *deeper* than ever before. I’m not sure the 2019 starters beat the 2007 starters, but it seems clear that the 2019 B/C teams would beat the 2007 B/C teams. A single youth team’s results come down to the best 14 players, but the strength of a soccer nation comes down to the quantity of players over a certain quality threshold. We have more rolls of the dice in a very uncertain game than ever before.

On top of that, the pipeline for American teenagers is better than ever. While I could make the argument that the 2005 Under-20 men’s national team could beat the 2015 team, it’s nearly impossible to say the players who played in the 2005 tournament departed to better development situations than the players now. Being good at 18 isn’t nearly as important as getting high-level minutes at 18. 

Those are the talking points right now. They are positive things taking place. Saying that this team is better than teams before it and therefore making a declaration of American soccer is, to me, inaccurate and takes away from the ability to have the real conversations. It might not matter at all, or it might be the difference between making the World Cup and not. 

Be excited. Build hype. But keep context in it as well. 

*There’s something to be said about the trend of top players skipping the U20 World Cup recently - Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, and Josh Sargent, specifically - and I’m not exactly sure how to factor that into the equation yet. I’m not sure if it’s evident of their quality of players or the lack of quality of the full team at the moment. Would any of them, at their current ability, be key figures in Bob Bradley’s 2007 full national team? I’m not sure it’s valid to say we’ve taken a step forward because we have players skipping the U20 World Cup; it might be an indignation more than anything else. But it could be fair to say that the U20s would have won these two World Cups, in which case the conversation could be different.

Dissecting the potential "DNA" of Gregg Berhalter's USMNT

“We want to see ball circulation, breaking lines, creating goal scoring opportunities. That should be the DNA of our team.”

It was the last line of Gregg Berhalter’s introductory press conference as head coach of the US Men’s National Team, and the most important one. We’ve all used plenty of words and ink on the past process, but it’s time for Berhalter to take the team forward. And when Alexi Lalas asked Berhalter how he would do it, what style he would use with the team, Berhalter knew exactly what to say.

“The idea is that we are an attacking based team that wants to create goal scoring opportunities by unbalancing the opponent,” Berhalter started. “We will do that in a number of different ways.”

Eight months ago, my editors at MLSsoccer.com asked for a piece about how Berhalter’s former team, Columbus Crew SC, function. They wanted a descriptive breakdown of Berhalter’s detail-oriented system — the “number of different ways” to create goal-scoring opportunities that Berhalter refers to in the quote. The story never got published, but I’ve continued to tweak and add to it. Over time, it became more of a general think-piece. But now seems like an appropriate time to put it out...

There are five ways to score a goal in soccer:

1. Set pieces

2. Individual moments of brilliance

3. Counter attacks

4. Incidental chances

5. Systematic possession

In his quotes above, Berhalter is referring to Systematic Possession (he also mentioned pressure, but only elaborated on the parts with the ball).

We generally accept that possession is good and often leads to goals, but we don’t spend a ton of time talking about the specific link between the two. How does possession lead to goals? If you want to “use the ball” or prioritize “ball circulation,” how does that lead to the thing that actually matters: goals? What’s the direct, tangible connection between the two?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question, from watching the sport growing up, to playing professionally, to now coaching an Under-16 team. The question has become front and center as it will at the core of how our national team will function for the foreseeable future under Gregg Berhalter.

How does “using the ball,” “ball circulation,” and “breaking lines” lead to “goal scoring opportunities” and, in the end, goals?

Possession creates a controlled method for putting the team into high-probability goal-scoring situations. The team uses short, high-percentage passes to move the ball toward certain zones. The high percentage actions give the team on the ball more control over the outcome of a game’s events.

Opportunities still happen in a game even if a team doesn’t value possession, or use the possession with a purpose, and I call those “Random Successes.” It’s possible to make five really nice passes in a row that lead to a goal. But could they be intentionally replicated? Is there a credible suggestion that it could lead to future success?

Possession - “using the ball” - increases either the quantity of opportunities or the quality of the opportunities, depending on a team’s approach, in a systematic way. In following a systematic approach, it allows a team to improve and refine the system, as well as trust the success can be repeated on a consistent, replicable basis.

Controlled possession allows a team to move the ball toward an area of the field that they want to be in, or to get the ball in a situation that you want, and then use that space or moment to make an action toward scoring. It generally involves a pass that “breaks the lines” to bypass defenders and find an opening. (This doesn’t account for the mental wear it does to the opposing team - from constant shuttles back and forth, up and back - and the increased likelihood of a mental or physical mistake from the opponent.)

When they get to these zones, the players change their mindset from possession-oriented to goal-dangerous focused. It’s no longer about possession, but coordinated patterns to get to goal: overlaps, underlaps, 1v1s. (We can discuss the coordinate patterns in more detail another time.) It’s the go-for-it zones. From possession to goals.

There are two key conversations that stem from that:

1. What’s the best way to build/control possession toward those areas?

2. What are those goal-scoring areas or situations and what you do when you get there?

I love talking about the first, but the second one is more relevant for today.

What are Berhalter’s “different ways”? What are those moments? At what points do they turn possession into goal-scoring opportunities?

I would break it into four categories.

The first zone is the area of the field around the sides of the 18-yard-box.

I call these the Man City zones. They are where Pep’s Manchester City team annihilates opponents. The player on the ball can either play the pass straight across the goal, back to the penalty spot, over top to the back post, or go for goal himself.

The second zone is at the top of the sides of the 18. In reference to Gregg Berhalter, they are the Pocket Winger Zones.

You would generally see an inverted, or “pocket,” winger tuck into these zones. The winger wants to find a space to the side of the defensive midfielders, and in the half-spaces between the defenders; in other words, they are in a grey area for defenders and create uncertainty on who takes responsibility for the free attacker.

The ball can get here from either controlled possession - often a center midfielder making a pass that breaks the lines - or from a winger dribbling into the zone. Dribbling from wide areas toward central zones is particularly dangerous because it crosses defensive lateral zones. If you think of a zonal defensive scheme, each defender has his sliver of the field. If a player crosses multiple slivers on a dribble run, who tracks the run? If the dribbler gets passed on to the next defender, then there’s often a moment of freedom when one defender drops and the next defender steps to the ball. Or should the defender leave his zone, in which case he leaves a gap for the dribbler to release a pass toward?

And then once the player gets into the zone, he or she has multiple options. He could slip a through pass toward goal, play a ball wide toward the Man City Zone, or attack the goal himself.

The third scenario involves both an area and a moment. The area occurs in the wide channel farther back from the Man City Zones, in what I call the Harry Zones (after Columbus Crew SC right back Harrison Afful, and also how it makes defenders feel).

I (and statistics) really dislike crosses, and most of the time when the ball reaches the blue areas above the team should continue the possession phase in an attempt to hit the Man City Zones or Pocker Winger Zones. But when there’s space behind the defenders and the defenders are running back toward their own goal, there’s a chance to go for it.

A whipped ball behind the defense as the defenders run toward their own goal is one of the toughest balls to deal with. And it isn’t just a dangerous ball on the first pass as the forward attacks the ball, but also creates a possibility for dangerous second balls. Where can a defender running back toward his own goal adequately clear a ball? As the attacker and defender challenge for the ball, a mess often ensues. If the attacking team can adequately squeeze forward to win second balls, it can create opportunities around the box.

The fourth opportunistic zone comes right in the middle of the field (open to names on this…).

Notice that it’s not the typical zone at the top of the box, often known as Zone 14. It’s a little deeper. It’s where a deep-lying playmaker - Wil Trapp for Columbus - or dropping #10 - Carlos Vela for LAFC - would wreak his havoc.

Over the years, teams have prioritized crowding Zone 14 defensively - it’s one of the main reasons (or consequences?) for the adoption of the 4-2-3-1. It’s often tough to find space directly in front of the center backs now. In response, there’s space deeper on the field.

You move the ball as a team and wait for the right player to get a pocket of space. If the player can pick up his head in the middle of the field, he has the green light to look for a through ball to a runner.

The key here is getting the right player on the ball in the right situation. For the first two options, any player on the ball who sees the cues should go for it. Here, it needs to be a player with the right vision and passing ability.

As soon as the teammates recognize the specific player is in a pocket, they need to switch from possession-mode to goal-dangerous mode. The team should have patterns, most likely angled runs from areas toward goal, prepared for when this happens.

If you watch Berhalter’s teams often enough - or most top teams in the world - you will see them move the ball to these spots and create goal-scoring opportunities from these areas over and over. It’s the core of what they do.

Is there anything you disagree with in this article? Did I get something wrong? I’m open to suggestions. I wrote this more to spark conversation than to provide a definitive set of answers (though that’s what I hope to get to). Feel free to leave any input in the comments section, and I’ll consider it for future iterations.

Analyzing Red Bulls' decision to hold off on the press against Atlanta in Leg 1 of the Conference Championship

I just spent 30 minutes in a group chat with Matt Doyle, Ben Baer, Andrew Wiebe, and David Gass this morning fighting over the Red Bulls’ tactical approach on Sunday. It was a fun conversation, so I want to expand on my thoughts in a column.

The exchange went a lot like this…

Everyone but me: WHY DIDN’T RED BULLS PRESS? HOW COULD THEY ABANDON THEIR ETHOS IN THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME OF THE YEAR?

Me: Logic!

Let’s look at how a manager would have played the game out in his head beforehand.

Envision Atlanta center back Michael Parkhurst with the ball at his feet 25 yards from his own goal.

Move 1: Red Bulls step to pressure the ball. Bradley Wright-Phillips splits the center backs, Kaku steps to the ball, Daniel Royer/Alex Muyl/Tyler Adams step forward to the closest opponent. Aaron Long and Tim Parker remain at midfield 1v1 with the opposing strikers.  It’s the trademark defensive action in MLS.

Move 2: In response, Michael Parkhurst kicks the ball 70 yards in behind Red Bulls center back Aaron Long.

Atlanta was never going to try to build from the back on Sunday. Between the beating they took doing so on September 30th at Red Bull Arena (2-0 Red Bulls) and the get-this-out-of-our-half approach they used against NYCFC in the Conference Semis, it was clear that Atlanta wasn’t going to pass their way forward.

The odds of Red Bulls using the press to force turnovers in the final third were near zero entering the game.

But don’t other teams try to bypass Red Bulls’ press as well? Yes, but Sunday’s game created particular problems.

First, Atlanta didn’t just want to bypass the initial wave of the press, they wanted to bypass Red Bulls altogether. Most teams try to play a controlled long ball into a forward or into a forward’s path, with the ball landing somewhere in the middle third. Atlanta wanted to launch the ball deep into Red Bulls half. This would have made the game a contest of individual duels, 1st and 2nd balls, 30 yards from Red Bulls goal. More so, it would have made it a contest of individual duels against Miguel Almiron, Josef Martinez, Julian Gressel, Eric Remedi, and Darlington Nagbe.

I suspect Red Bulls would take those duels in midfield, as they usually get, but aren’t as easy to stomach in your defensive third.

Instead of pressing, extending themselves, and making the game about those types of interactions, Red Bulls decided to drop off. They drew their line of confrontation near midfield and waited for Atlanta to come to them.

In doing so, Red Bulls accomplished two goals.

One, they avoided the previously mentioned 50/50 balls near their own goal. Instead of individual duels in open field, the area would now be more crowded, giving less advantage to Atlanta’s star attackers.

Two, they coaxed Atlanta out of their own end.

Let’s finish playing out the “pressing” game scenario. Red Bulls press, Atlanta plays long, but what happens even if Red Bulls win the 2nd ball. How do they score? They would have to travel 70 yards and break down 10 Atlanta players. Can Red Bulls do that? NYCFC certainly couldn’t. Entering the game, the big question for Red Bulls was whether they could improve what they failed to do against Chivas, Montreal, and Columbus (in two of the three matchups this year…) break down a deep defense.

In sitting and waiting for Atlanta, they were inviting Atlanta to spread themselves out, so that when Red Bulls won the ball, they wouldn’t have to break down a set defense. Boom, second problem solved. The idea of sitting rather than pressing conceptually solved both the defensive and attacking worries for Red Bulls. (Some have suggested that Red Bulls manager Chris Armas played more conservatively due to the absence of star outside back Kemar Lawrence, but I would guess that Red Bulls were going to defend deeper regardless. Missing Lawrence made the decision easier, but it was still the logical choice with Lawrence in the lineup.)

When you break down the logic, Armas’ decision not to press made sense.

But it didn’t work out, so what went wrong?

1. To sit deep and counter takes certain skills from players. The most basic would be pace, but also just a general feel for counter attacking. Red Bulls had neither speed in attack nor counter-attacking specialists. So when they won the ball, and they did win the ball in decent spots for counters a few times, they failed to capitalized. They either didn’t attack the open channels or didn’t have numbers in the box.

2. They didn’t get set pieces in the attacking end. Red Bulls goals usually come from one of three avenues: high pressing, quick transitions, or set pieces. ATL certainly weren’t going to give them chances to win the ball high enough to create easy chances; ATL weren’t going to give them opportunities to win loose balls near midfield to trigger quick transitions; so it pretty much came down to set pieces. And this might have been the biggest miscue of Armas’s calculation. If everything else failed, at least the ball would have pinged around Atlanta’s half more. With the ball bouncing around, there would have been opportunities for fouls and set pieces. Red Bulls, as we saw on the disallowed goal, have the advantage on their attacking set pieces.

3. The players didn’t play with the same intensity out of the middle and deep blocks as they do while pressing. This is one of the things I think coaches remember the least from their playing days: It’s boring and energy sapping to stand and wait. In a middle block with the line of confrontation near midfield, you’re supposed to chill until the opposition crosses your designated invisible line, and then you lay the wrath of 1,000 men on them. But it’s tough to go from “wait” to “kill” in a matter of seconds. Two of Atlanta’s three goals came from beating Red Bulls on loose balls. The whole point of what Red Bulls do is that they win those loose balls. But Red Bulls got bullied by Atlanta all over the field on Sunday and it’s related to the choice to sit in a middle block.

4. It’s difficult to change muscle memory, even if the change is logical. This is the biggest point about going away from your identity for a big game. It’s tough to learn something new in a short amount of time. The Red Bulls didn’t look as decisive in their play. The Red Bulls have been working on this setup since Armas took over, so it’s not as if the manager tossed it on them at the last second -- this isn’t a Jurgen Klinsmann vs. Mexico scenario. But it’s still not something they’ve perfected, and it’s always a risk to use something you haven’t clearly tested in big moments. I broke down in the postgame show at the 24:00 mark why that mattered in Atlanta’s first goal:

Remember, Armas was playing a phenomenal team on the road. There wasn’t a perfect answer. What puts his players in the better position? The system that doesn’t suit them as well, or the system that’s clearly at a disadvantage given the likely flow of the game?

I’m 90% sure if he had lost this series using the high press, everyone would have called him naive (you’ve already lost in the playoffs four times using that, how could you not have learned!).

This wasn’t about going against their identity or playing defensive. Armas set his team up the way the situation dictated. It didn’t work out for Red Bulls, but Armas’ didn’t make a bad decision. He used sound logic. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s the misery - and the beauty - of this game.

MLS Week 11

Before the weekend...

During the weekend...

After the weekend...

MLS Week 10

Before the weekend...

During the weekend...

After the weekend...

The evolution of Peter Vermes evident in SKC's attacking movement in win over Colorado

A few slight tactical details helped Red Bulls throttle NYCFC, and what Patrick Vieira can do to respond

How the Fire shut down Nacho Piatti

MLS Week 9

Before the weekend...

Potential Trades to Happen Before the Trade Deadline (written with Paul Tenorio)

Post Concacaf Champions League final: Toronto did everything right, except win

During the weekend...

After the weekend...

A breakdown of the tactical chess match between Atlanta and Montreal

Where does Toronto FC go from here?

MLS Week 8

Before the weekend...

Has Diego Fagundez proven that he's actually the best No. 10 in New England?

During the weekend...

After the weekend...

Earth Day!

It's Earth Day, so I want to share a thought. The environment is fucked and the future will look different than the present because of it. Weather patterns will be different, coastlines will be gone, and food supplies will be skewed. We all contributed, knowingly or not, and I decided a few years ago that I wanted to do something to make up for it. In lieu of forfeiting everything, I decided four years ago to stop eating land animals. There are other reasons to stop eating meat, but I made mine to decrease my negative impact on the environment. 

The food production process of making food from cows, pigs, and chickens has negative consequences on the Earth. The methane from the poop, the fertilizers used to produce the feed, and the tree clearing to create grazing space all take a toll. I'm not here to convince you of those things; at this point you either know it and believe it or you don't. Rather, I want to mention how easy it's been to stop eating meat. 

When I mention it, everyone says "I really like that I idea but I could never do it." I don't correct them - to each his own. But for what it's worth, in case you are reading this, giving up meat was the easier major life decision I've ever made. 

It goes like this: you just stop doing it. You'll never be at a loss for what to eat or cook. Every restaurant has an option that doesn't include land animals. There are gazillions of incredibly good recipes that don't involve meat. You eat just as many things and just as many delicious meals as before you made the change. Yes, you miss out on some things you used to love. I loved cheeseburgers and miss them. But I've learned dozens of incredible new meals that I never would have. And it turns out that there are some pretty good non-meat burger options. 

Quite simply, you go from being a person who eats meat to a person who doesn't, and you feel a little better about who you are as a person and your contribution to society. Just as long as you aren't a tool about it and bring it up in every conversation (only the occasional blog post).

Anyway, if you've been wanting to do something for the environment, or wanting to do something with your diet, it's not that hard. I promise. I'm weak at almost everything in life but this has been simple. Just make the decision and do it. 

MLS Week 7

Before the weekend...

How will Tata Martino fit Barco back into the Atlanta lineup now that the big money signing has returned from injury?

During the weekend...

After the weekend...

MLS Week 6

Before the weekend...

How does LAFC rebound mentally after epic loss to Galaxy, and what they can do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

During the Weekend...

 

After the weekend...

The Chicago Fire played Bastian Schweinsteiger at center defender. Why? How? And did it work?

Reframing the Pay-to-Play conversation

American soccer has a lot of decisions to make in the coming years. Perhaps it will decide to stay the course, an act that has become a decision in itself amidst mounting pressure to change. I’m not sure what the right answers will be, but I worry we aren’t approaching them properly. Before we can make intelligent decisions, we need to frame the questions the right way. When we truly grasp the depth of the questions, then we can start to find good answers. One topic that’s on everyone’s mind and that just doesn't feel right to me right is “pay-to-play.”

The present system has clearly failed a large chunk of potential players. The current model that often requires thousands of dollars to play competitive soccer obviously omits a big swath of the American population. We skip over kids who cannot afford the costs. American soccer fans can only wonder how good all of those players could have become.

But we need to remember: those players we missed aren’t commodities, they are kids. We haven’t failed the American soccer system, we have failed the children. We keep talking about how much these kids could help our national team. What about how much we could help these kids? It’s not a missed opportunity to improve American soccer, it’s a missed opportunity to provide a human being with an opportunity to chase a dream.

It's a problem pervasive throughout American society. We don't have an issue unique to soccer. We have an American issue that finally hits many of us in our home because it relates to soccer.

I realize some people only think of change in terms of revenue. Perhaps it's productive to discuss human equality and the American dream in terms of the bottom line and the potential returns on investment. I'd like to think our American soccer society is bigger than those people.

Return of investment is the wrong way to discuss soccer or kids. We shouldn't find a way to change the pay-for-play system in American soccer because it helps US Soccer qualify for a World Cup. We should find a way to change the pay-for-play system because it's at the core of the ethos our country.

When we talk about pay-for-play, let's frame the question to make sure it's about the kids, creating opportunity, and living in a society we believe in, not what the kids can do for us.

I don't have an answer on how to fix the current system. But the way we are approaching it right now feels wrong. We shouldn't talk about the system in relation to our path toward a World Cup victory; we have more at stake than that. 

I'm a sucker for the idea of creating a larger purpose to ideas, but it seems that when we start to think about the questions with a deeper set of intentions we will start to find the true soul of American soccer that we have been searching for. Maybe then the answers will start to become more clear.