  15 MINUTES SPORTS COACHING DIPLOMA

Module 09: Coaching Football – Tactics

Combination Play for Attackers

A combination play may be de ned as a distinct grouping of movements and passes, typically involving two or
three teammates, which creates and/or exploits space. Probably the best known and most widely practised
combination play is the wall-pass. But there are a number of others that can be used to take advantage of a
particular alignment of defenders and attackers and can be accomplished through a variety of angles, with
lateral, vertical or diagonal runs.

Based on the above de nition, combination plays may be categorised into the following distinct groups:

Penetrating wall-pass, set-up wall-pass, wall-pass fake and spin, pass and spin
Takeovers
Reverse-pass combinations
Over-fake and over-fake spin
Overlaps
Third man runs

The following, therefore, outlines a logically sequential coaching session that includes:

Theme-related warm-up
Basic grid practice
Small-sided game
Squad game
 Regional practice/11v11 game.

The practices that follow will need to be divided into a number of separate sessions. The number of sessions will
depend on the developmental level of your team.

The following combinations are conducted for a period of one to two minutes with a period of stretching
between changes. Players inside the grid start with a ball each and compete for the following:

Wall-pass combination: Move toward a player on the outside of the grid and complete a wall-pass. After
receiving the return pass, the ball is played back to the wall player, who moves into the grid area changing
places with the teammate. The new inside player now nds a di erent outside player with whom to conduct a
wall-pass combination.
Pass and spin combination: Move toward a player on the outside of the grid. As the ball is played to the
outside player, spin to receive the return pass into place. After spinning and receiving the ball, play the ball
back to the outside player and change places.
Over-fake combination: The same as above, but the ball is returned softly back to the feet of the inside player
who allows the ball to run across the body or through the legs while turning. The receiving player should dip
the shoulder toward the wall before turning. After the turn, play the ball back to the outside player and
change places.
Takeover combination: In this combination, an inside player communicates and completes a takeover with an
outside player. The player previously in possession moves to the place outside the grid vacated by the
teammate. Progress to practising the faked takeover where the player in possession “dribbles” post the
teammate rather than allowing the teammate to take over possession.
Reverse-pass combination: The inside player communicates with an outside player and completes a reverse
pass combination using the roll-back, heel, ick-pass, or instep technique. The player previously in possession
moves to the place outside the grid vacated by the teammate.
Two-Person overlap combination: In this combination, an inside player plays a pass to an outside player (who
moves slightly into the grid area to receive the pass). The passer then overlaps around the teammate and
receives the return pass. The overlapping player returns the ball to the teammates and moves to the place
outside the grid vacated by the teammate.

Maintaining Possession
The fastest and most direct way of moving the ball from one end of the eld to the other is to have the
goalkeeper (GK) punt it, and many teams and coaches choose this method of transition. A number of teams have
been very successful utilising this method. However, to develop skilled players in defence, mid eld and up-front,
coaches need to play out of defence and through the mid eld rather than bypassing it.

The key aspects for the coaches to teach in this target are:

Players, even defenders, must be comfortable with the ball and ability to:
Control the ball under pressure
Pass ball under pressure
See players in support
Run with the ball into space, drawing players to them
Supporting players make intelligent runs with an emphasis on:
Timing of the run
Angle of support
Making the eld big (opposition will try to make eld small)
Create space by:
Interchanging positions
Moving the ball quickly
Switching play
Making overlapping runs

Tactics for the Attack

Coaches must teach the players the following tactics for the attack:

Play the ball immediately; don’t let your team-mates lose their markers for nothing. Lose your marker
immediately after passing the ball.
Always try to be in an unmarked position.
Pass and get into position to:
Help a team-mate,
Call for the ball,
Support a team-mate.
Avoid unnecessary confrontations. It is better to eliminate an opponent quickly than take the longer option of
dribbling around them.

When faced by an opponent

Take the ball to the opposite side of your opponent;

Get away from your opponent by using quick bursts, feints and sudden changes of direction;
Take the ball to the left and then pass to the right and vice versa;
Do not carry the ball too far; progress should be made by short touches with the ball close to the body;
Use cross-pitch balls to a team-mate in a good position;
Avoid playing down the centre in your own half, if the ball is lost it could be dangerous;
Don’t pass the ball into crowded areas, play it to a teammate who is in free space;
Play the ball between two opponents to a team-mate who calls for it;
Always support a team-mate who has the ball;
Run to meet the ball, don’t wait for it to come to you;
Don’t let the ball go past without controlling it; otherwise, an opponent may get there rst;
Be encouraged to dribble against an opponent (depending on the situation);
Play in a sensible, simple, useful manner. This is the most di cult thing to achieve. This is how a good player
can be recognised.

Attacking Zonal Defences

There are major coaching points that need to be made to help players deal e ectively with zonal defences, to
break through the defences. Here are some of the points:

Seek to place players and play balls into “the seams” in the zone.
Teams must seek to play quickly, using for the rst time touches on the ball to move it and the attacking
 players faster than the zone can shift, creating opportunities for penetration.
The third point builds somewhat on the second. Long, accurate passes are required to bypass zonal defences,
helping change the point of attack.
Teams should try to play into the centre of the zone, then back out to the anks.
The best means of breaking a zone is to be ready to counterattack when winning the ball. This disrupts the
organisation of a zonal defence.

Beating a Packed Defence

Whenever a football team has a fair amount of success, it will soon confront a unique problem. The opponents
will play a more defensive game in order to give themselves a better chance of defeating you. This occurs at the
youth, college, senior, professional, and international levels of play. The question becomes how to still defeat this
opponent who is playing with a “packed defence.”

Patience is a vital element in defeating a defensive-oriented team. However, patience is usually a partner of
maturity. At the youth and college levels, maturity and patience are hard to nd due to the inexperience and age
of players. As a result, more upsets occur at these levels. The key element in defeating any team, and certainly a
defensive team, is to exploit the space behind the defence.

Exploiting this space versus a defensive team can be accomplished by:

Counterattacking before the defence gets organised.

Drawing the opponents defence away from their goal by shooting from a distance and maintaining possession
(passing), causing the opponent’s defence to become impatient and come out.
Attacking wide spaces and getting behind the opponent to make crosses.

Shooting from Distance

Accurate, dangerous shots will force an opponent’s defence to put pressure on the ball and therefore move
forward. As they do this, openings are often created for central combinations (one-two’s, takeovers, double
passes, etc.). Shooting from a distance can be part of the training.

Attacking wide Spaces

To have a successful wide play, your team must work on the tactics of combination play in two’s and three’s. The
overlap, double-pass, takeover, and one-two must all be part of their understanding. Additionally, changing the
point of attack (switching the ball) from one side to the other and dribbling needs to be understood.

Counter Attacks
One can debate many strategies in football. But there is one thing no football coach will ever doubt: the
importance of counter-attacking. In football, goals can either be scored from a positional attack, from set-piece
situations or from counter-attacks. Football is always about space. The more space one gets in possession, the
higher the chances of scoring. This is what counter-attacks bene t from. If a team that is providing full width and
depth loses the ball, it misses compactness. Players will have more time on the ball, which increases the
probability of correct decision-making.

The press already prepares for the following attack. The area where the ball is won determines the distance to
the opposition goal as well as how much space is o ered. Depending on the strengths of your team and the
weaknesses of the opponent, di erent pressing systems can be more or less useful to prepare the counter-
attack. The counter-attacks can be of three kinds depending on the press:

High Press: It is possible to press the opponent high up the pitch. On the one hand, this shortens the distance
to the opposition goal. On the other hand, this strategy o ers less space behind the last line of defence.
Therefore, highly dominant teams that can dominate in possession use the high press. The players are capable
of combining in tight spaces and do not need much space behind the backline. For instance, the Premier
league’s two dominant sides, Manchester City and Liverpool, press high up the pitch and quickly counter-
attack if possible.
Low press: In contrast to the high press, teams can sit back in a low block. This strategy obviously increases
the distance to the opposition goal. Nevertheless, it also o ers much more space behind the opposition’s last
line. Therefore, this concept is predestined for sides with fast attackers. Low defending is mostly rather
passive and thereby less guided into certain areas of the pitch. There are exceptions like Athletico Madrid that
defend low but actively press the opponent in certain areas.
Mid-press: The mid-press creates space behind the last line while the distance to the goal is not as great as in
a low press. The mid-press can be used to create more space behind the opposition backline compared to the
high press. Another possible reason why a mid-press might be useful is the decreased space behind a team’s
own defensive line. If your own defenders are not fast enough to keep pace with the opposition strikers, it
would be very risky to use fore-checking.

High Pressure vs Low Pressure

Regardless of which style the team plays, it is the responsibility of the coach to prepare his squad. In training
sessions, the coach must create situations that could appear in competitive matches and rehearse these until the
players become accustomed to the system. By intelligent use of personnel in the right positions and by preparing
each player thoroughly, the coach can enhance the possibilities for success.

If there’s one thing that we know about modern football above just about anything else, it’s that modern football
matters. It’s a message that is relentlessly pushed at us, and the reasons for it are many and varied. The amount
of money involved is most commonly cited as the root cause of this. Back in the days when many – if not most –
nancial transactions within the game came in the order of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of
thousands of pounds, there was less at stake. The supporters of the 1960s and 1970s simply didn’t discuss the
game in the same way that players do today.

It might also be argued that the media is central to the perception of football’s increased importance. It is most
certainly in the best interests of all media outlets to persuade us that the football matters, and that we need to be
subscribing to their service to either see it live or to get the best inside track on what’s actually happening at the
heart of a game that seems riven through with obfuscation and half-truth. 

It’s an important question. Scientists have already proven the links between depression, stress, and both heart
attacks and heart disease. We’re still in the early years of this world of high-pressure football. We can’t say with
much certainty what the long term e ects of a lifetime of living at the heart of this crucible of pressure and
overblown expectations. What we do know for certain is that stressful situations have a direct correlation with ill
health. And if there is any one group of individuals who must feel this more than any other, it’s the football
managers themselves.