Plan, Do, Review - DO Stand So Close to Me; Moving to Support

A concept that I’ve been mulling over for a while surrounds the idea of “On, Around, Away” - who is directly on the ball, who is around it, who is far away from it. Paco Seriul-lo (arguably a bigger architect of the “Pep Guardiola way” than Pep himself) described this idea as “Phase Spaces”;

The Active Space - the ball carrier

The Zone of Mutual Support - support players who can interact but not affect the ball directly

The Co-operation Space - players too far to have a direct influence on the ball, looking to interact later in the phase

If you’re in the Foundation Phase, a nice way of looking at this is the “Now, Next (In a Second), Later (At the End)” phases. Whatever language is used, this idea has become a staple of (mostly European) football build up as structure and shape/formation become the foundation of how a team plays.

From "The three zones of football" - Barca Innovation Hub - https://barcainnovationhub.fcbarcelona.com/blog/the-three-zones-of-football/

We see this everywhere, occupying space across the pitch (key point) as a means to stretch and isolate defenders, but there are pockets of European football that are bucking this trend where the ball and the relationships between players dictate the structure rather than vice-versa. Where most teams say “don’t stand so close to me” they say “DO”.

This idea of sacrificing some of the “away” from the ball to strengthen “on” it has been something that I’ve explored more and more this season. Where courses and qualifications have emphasised structure and space, my experience has demanded support and combination.

How Malmo place extreme focus on "On" and " Around" but still offer an "Away" outlet. Courtesy of Jamie Hamilton (@stirling_j) on X - https://x.com/stirling_j/status/1725133326808166734

So this was the basis for a recent training session - Support through Movement; get close to the ball to affect it more and combine, but more importantly knowing who and when. The write-up below shows my plan in all its chaotic mess.

1. Ball and Player Movement

First off, before outlining the session itself, time for a bit of reflection. Whilst planning I thought about how I could use the simplest possible technical detail to demonstrate the theme of the session in a way that wasn’t just me saying “I want you to get close to the ball in order to support your teammate”. Show, don’t tell. All that. But also a little bit of “I’m going to force you to do it for a little bit so get the picture in your head”.

However with this came a bit of blowback, or at the very least resistance in a familiar form: half-heartedness. The entry task I set was simple; half of you have a ball at feet, the other half don’t - if you don’t have one, go find someone who does and play a bounce pass; if you do have one, go find someone without. Simple yes, but whilst I didn’t need or want full sprints in this part of the session, I also didn’t want walking or standing still in half of the space I had set out. When it’s the first task and it’s met with a lack of engagement I can’t lie, I was frustrated and let them know.

I simply wanted a minute of them moving and bouncing, moving and bouncing. But after letting them know that I wasn’t happy with their engagement, there was some instant reflection and questioning. Basically “shit I need to do something here, I can’t chew them out”. So introducing the next technical detail - receiving and turning to keep the ball rather than a bounce - gave them something else to think about whilst I could gently encourage; the technical work I’ve seen is good, but the intensity has to come from you. Use all the space to allow more speed in your movement. Make it like the game on Saturday. It’s also only 5 minutes of work, so make the most of it.

Luckily it had an effect, quality went up, and we could introduce the final technical detail - you can bounce, you can receive and turn, or you can now bounce to a third player if there is one close to you. Most importantly though, think about when you do each of these.

2. Possession Game

Having introduced the technical detail, a quick debrief Q&A began to plant the When and Why around it.

“When might you receive and turn? Why would you combine with a third teammate?”

There was some understanding in there around turning into space vs combining if under pressure, but also some deception knowledge that they could turn left if pressure was from the right, etc. By introducing an opposition in a possession game we can now test this knowledge in practice but also cement the idea that if your teammate has the ball and is under pressure, perhaps more of you getting closer to them is better than trying to maintain your space. But crucially WHO does this apply to?

The setup for the game was simple; two teams looking to keep the ball and deliver it over the halfway line to score a point. This could be passing to a teammate or carrying it over - just get it from one half to the other. After allowing them to play and get used to the space we had our first debrief to get their thoughts. Was there lots of pressure on the ball? Was it easier when their teammates were closer or further away? Why was this?

We went through some scenarios where the technical practice was relevant to this possession game, where could we use a three or four player combination to get the ball forward and where could we move through space, but we also suggested that one player stays a bit further away from the rest to be an outlet if the opportunity arises (similar to the picture of Malmö above).

At this point I really didn’t mind if they transferred the ball over halfway, the combinations and proximity for combinations were what we wanted. It was really pleasing to see some of the football that came out, lots of combinations with multiple players and even teams being a little cheeky to exploit the rules when the opposition wasn’t switched on. For me it showed that there was some real decision making happening based on the state of the game they were in rather than an ultra-rehearsed pattern (such as an "up, back, through").

I wonder if I could have got more out of this part of the practice since there was good success, but it was only really intended to introduce opposition to the previously unopposed technical session. And perhaps since there was good success, moving on to a new challenge was the right thing to do rather than try to introduce new information here and stop that progress/learning.

3. Support Rondos Over Distance

In our debrief after the possession game we spoke about what made it easier for ourselves, namely having support options around us so we weren’t isolated on the ball. To do this, we need to get closer to the ball carrier so I forced them to move and support.

Setting up two separate rondos 10-20 metres apart gives a space between the area of possession that teammates have to cross in order to provide support. Rondo 1 begins with a 5v3 whilst an outlet player waits in Rondo 2 (for numbers we had two outlet players waiting). Once the ball is played from Rondo 1 to the outlet player in Rondo 2, three new out of possession "pressers" enter, and players from Rondo 1 need to shift across to support and create and new 5v3.

It’s a little tricky to describe in words so we ran through it in a demonstration, but in hindsight this is also a perfect one to show on a tactics board - which I should have done, but a few minutes and some talk and they understood it. However a more visual demo and I could have used those extra minutes in a more productive way.

I had to introduce a pass number target before the ball could switch (make 3 passes before it can go over) because it was just bouncing between the boxes and wasn’t fulfilling the brief, but again in hindsight working with the out of possession pressers to stop the switch happening immediately, or having various starting points so that they can press from different angles could have stopped this and forced the in possession team to build, switch and support more naturally.

But it did make for a good debrief point on the correct timing of the pass across; if we do it immediately, what does it do to the receiver? Chances are they’re under pressure immediately so do we then wait until we’re ready to get across and support?

I looked for each team to play in possession for 5 minutes, hoping that I would get a solid 4 minutes from them, but if necessary could call it at 3 minutes for a quick drinks break (I actually set up a drinks square nearby for the first time in ages so everything was close by and contained). The physical output from the in possession team was much higher than for the out of possession team who were afforded rest breaks, so it was important the support runs were shared and rotated, and that our outlet players didn’t stay the same every time. It also provided a natural challenge rather than imposing a condition on the practice.

The big debrief was again around what made it difficult and what made it easier. The main difficulty highlighted was the repeated shuttles from box to box so I asked what the reason was for doing it. There was good discussion on the idea of support numbers, reiterating our theme of “moving to support” so I said it plain and simple: you know the theme of the session, I just forced you to do it. I forced you to move to make supporting easier. In other words, you had to get close to the ball to help your teammates and be able to break out.

For the initial lack of engagement in the opening technical session, highlighting that again here showed how very simple techniques were useful to beat the pressures from an opposition who had an advantage (rest) in their favour, but also helped to show how it could also be flipped on its head to emphasise the theme - these techniques help us beat pressure, but these techniques are also reliant on good support (three, four, more player combinations).

4. Overall reflection

I can always be a bit harsh on myself after sessions, but it’s also important (and valuable) to reflect on things that go well. I thought this session showcased a lot of “success” as the girls demonstrated nice rotations and support lines. After the initial teething problem of engaging them in the technical practice it built into effective ball progression in the later tasks. I think in the past I would have been reluctant to try this again, but I now see the importance of it so perhaps just need to think of ways to make it more engaging without changing the technical detail.

I'm part of a coaches book club and we’re currently reading “The Coach’s Guide to Teaching” by Doug Lemov and the thing that stuck with me and informed this session is around the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic load on working memory - the task you want your players to achieve (move to support) lies in intrinsic load; the game they have to learn (STEP approach, constraints, point scoring, etc) makes up the extrinsic load. The more you place in the extrinsic, the less space working memory has to accommodate the intrinsic, and thus limits opportunity for what you actually want to teach. In other words they learn how to play the game rather than the skills to learn the theme.

By focusing early - and unopposed - on the technical details of pass/receive/turn/bounce/move etc, and dripping each one in throughout the technical practice, I hoped to front-load that intrinsic space and give them repetition of the tools they would need later on. Similarly the final rondo game was mainly elements they were familiar with; a rondo. There were only really two elements that were new, extrinsic load - switch the ball across, 3 of you join that rondo to support.

I feel like structuring it this way meant there were some things I hadn’t seen from them before, including two occasions (with different players) where a little bounce around the corner introduced a third player quickly and took an opposition defender out of the game (one of these then linked with a fourth outlet player who was positioned wide so built into a nice switch of play).

There is also enough there to introduce other concepts to make us more unpredictable. I heard a very good phrase when watching Tom Charles (QPR U18s) coaching; “Tell a story with your pass”. Very often in professional football, passes to feet are pinpoint and the receiving is rarely suspect but not necessarily because their technique is better. More often it is because they know the pass is meant for them. Direction, weight/speed often contribute to better receptions than technique and this is obvious when you see a player try to control a pass that is not meant for them (boiiiiiing and off it bounces in whatever direction). If I know that a pass is hit hard, is just outside of my receiving range and I’m less than 10 metres away, chances are that pass isn’t for me so I’ll leave it. Too many players at our level (both youth and seniors) don’t. They stretch for it, miscontrol it or don’t control it at all, and the play gets broken up or our build is disrupted.

So how can we then take advantage of this? We work on getting support players close to the ball. Hopefully we’ll drag defenders with us so now we need to bypass those defenders, and even some of our support players, with deceptions and clever passes. The “corta luz”, the dummy, the leave, the skip pass… whatever you want to call it, it’s such a fantastic way to take a defender out of the game and allow the ball to travel forwards whilst also maintaining close support if you do need to bounce, combine, or receive and turn.

To do this consistently we’ll need to now work on “telling a story” with every pass.

From "THE MUTANTS: Tropicalia, Malmo FF and the hybrid identities of Relationism in Europe" by Jamie Hamilton - https://medium.com/@stirlingj1982/the-mutants-1fc8cad1efe4