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.
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.
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).