Video Session: Problem Solving in Practice

James Vaughan James Vaughan is a Co-founder of Player Development Project and currently based in
Stockholm where he is coaching at AIK.

In this video and article, PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan shares a 3 v 3 + 1 practice from a
session with AIK players in Sweden. The video and session plan outlines how manipulating simple task
constraints can allow players to solve problems, collaborate, make decisions and work on a variety of
moments in the game.

Have a look at the video above, it aims to demonstrate how session design, rules and constraints can
educate attention and intention, towards skilled intentionality.

‘Skilled intentionality is defined as coordinating with multiple affordances simultaneously in a concrete

situation’ (van Dijk & Rietveld, 2017, p. 8).

The session (our concrete situation) is a continuous directional game with multiple affordances
(opportunities for football interactions) that players are constantly engaged with, in other words, there
is constant, continuous decision-making in the form of perception-action.

Personally, I hated standing in lines as a player or constantly coming in and out of the action in training
sessions. So as often as I can I try to make sure that all players are active all the time. This means the
session has no ‘downtime’ if players aren’t ‘coordinating with affordances’ at all times it’s easy for the
opposition to exploit the situation (once they are attuned to the relevant affordances – gaps to score).

A key consideration for session design came from the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF).

‘In the SIF, acting individuals can be thought of as continuously forming aspects of the sociomaterial
environment and thus part of the landscape of affordances’ (van Dijk & Rietveld, 2017, p. 8)

In other words, the movement of teammates and opposition shapes (spatiotemporal dynamics) and a
relevant field of affordances; opportunities to pass, dribble, shoot.

Bruineberg and Rietveld (2014) define a field of affordances as: ‘The affordances that stand out as
relevant for a particular individual (football player) in a particular situation (the session a coach
designs).

The key points being:

1. The movement of teammates and opposition shapes a relevant field of

affordances (spatiotemporal dynamics).

2. The session should be designed so that relevant (and representative) affordances stand out.

3. Therefore the movement of all players should be as skilled and realistic as possible at all times.
The aim of the session was to evolve the play towards a game that is more and more representative of
football by progressively educating attention and layering/balancing intentions.

Consider the defenders perspective stepping into the session:

‘Ok, how are we going to stop them scoring in that massive goal when we can’t go over the halfway
line?’

The session ensures that the defenders become acutely aware of (attuned to) the ‘need’ to close spaces
and gaps by defending together. In other words, they are required to coordinate their behaviour and
become aware of each other’s movements and the gaps that open up. In this way, they are constantly,
and skillfully shaping and re-shaping the attacking team’s field of affordances.

As the session evolves consider the attackers perspective:

‘Ok, so it was really easy to score at first but how do we score when they sit there in that block and
move from side to side closing the gaps to the goal?’

The defender’s coordinated movements have raised the bar for the attackers, challenging them to come
up with more solutions. Solutions in the video include better ubication (positioning coupled with body
profile), purposeful passing, rotation of positions, patient build-up and forward runs.

A key point here is that the session wasn’t designed to determine what players should do or what they
will learn – there was no ‘topic’ or ‘learning outcomes’. The session continuously asks the players what
can you do and how much could you learn. How far can you raise the bar?

We see players becoming attuned to the relevant field of affordances when they coordinate in both
defence and attack. Defenders closing gaps and spaces and attackers coordinating to create gaps and
spaces. As the session evolves the opportunity to press is added; educating attention toward other
information, offering more affordances and layering the intention of the defending team.

So, alongside the ‘need’ to close gaps (to stop the opposition scoring or moving forward into spaces to
score) defenders must balance this intention with opportunities to press and win the ball. In the video,
we see the risk-reward balance of these intentions.

Throughout the session, we see that the quality of attacking play is interdependent with the quality of
defending, leading to a natural evolution towards a field of affordances that are representative of
football at the highest level. Consequently, the skills developed in this environment can transfer to a
higher level of the game.

It’s important to stress the solutions that emerged in this session came from the players, not the coach.
By designing the session as described in the video we can shine a light on the relevant affordances that
we believe are appropriate for the group without determining how they will meet the challenge. When
done well this provides space for players to experience autonomy and explore novel potentially creative
solutions.
Below is some feedback from PDP’s Dave Wright and AIK’s Head of Education Dennis Hörtin.

Dennis suggested that if we wanted to increase the challenge for the defenders we should increase the
space and where possible make the goals bigger, so they have to really ‘work and struggle’ to cover the
spaces and close the gaps.

Dave said: “This session is a fantastic example of how coaches can utilise the principles of play, simple
task constraints and small sided games to work on multiple outcomes. Not only is it a first-class example
of allowing players to self-organise through the use of task constraints, but it demonstrates that in
directional practices (which are representative of the game), a multitude of topics can be coached and
repetition of actions and decisions can emerge. Regardless of whether pressing, screening, forward runs,
combination play, positional play, passing and receiving or finishing were the ‘topics’ of the session, all
of these could be coached within the practice. It’s important to note the ball-rolling time, deliberate lack
of direct instruction and freedom of the players to solve problems and collaborate in order to deal with
the challenge in front of them.”