Welcome to the Soccer Newsletter. The subject of today's
newsletter is, in my opinion, the most important tactical advice I can ever give.
Without any doubt, if I were restricted to teaching a team one thing and one thing only
regarding tactics, it would be the importance of making a sprint after every pass.
Not only is this the most important thing you can learn as a soccer player but it is also
one of the easiest to teach. However, to stress the importance of the run is much
more difficult. The way I go about doing this is to ask players why they ever pass
the ball. Surprisingly, not many have a good answer to this. I then explain that the
ONLY reason to ever pass the ball in the game of soccer is if one of their teammates is in
a better position then they are. This could mean being in a more offensive position,
or in a safer position or simply one that is under less pressure. Regardless of what
their reason for determining that the player is in a better position then them, they
should never pass the ball to a person who is not in a better position. Once the
ball has been passed, the passer only really knows one thing. She only knows that
the person who now has the ball is in a better person then herself. Since she knows
this, the logical thing to do is to find a better position to go to in order to put
herself into an even better position so that she can receive the ball back. Pretty
logical don't you think? Since every person should be working to get into a better
position after every pass, it would be beneficial to get to that space as quickly as
possible. The way to do this would be by sprinting into the space you want to get to
next. Once I explain it this way, players seem to understand just why it is
important to
sprint after every pass.
The way to practice getting a sprint in after every pass is actually quite simple.
You can start with a game of keepaway in a grid that is broken into 10x10 squares.
If the whole grid
is 40x30 this is any ideal size for a team of 18 players or so. The rules are you must
pass the ball to a player in a different box then you and then you must sprint into a
different box as
well. This will force the players to get their heads up to find someone further then
a couple of feet, and then also get them into the habit of sprinting after every pass.
In the very beginning
it will seem a bit hectic but once they get used to it, things will go smoothly.
Once the team gets comfortable with this then the restriction can be to sprint into two
different squares after
each pass. This can be turned into a competition where the teams get a point for
each pass a ball travels through (so if you pass the ball through two squares into a
third, your team would get three points). Points are only awarded if the pass was
completed and the sprint was done properly. First team to 50 points wins (this game
actually goes quite quickly if done properly).
The next step toward creating the habit of sprinting after every pass game is to play a
small sided game (with goals) where the only restriction is that there must be a 10 yard
sprint after
every pass. This 10 yard requirement is a minimum not a maximum.Any pass that is
made that is not followed by a 10 yard sprint results in a loss of possession. If
players are consistently
not sprinting after a pass, you can build in more types of punishment to encourage them to
get the run in every time. Typically, players find this "restriction"
makes their play much better so although they don't enjoy the added running, they will
continue it simple because it allows them to play at a higher level.
The great thing about the two games I have written about is that done properly, these are
very intense games that typically result in both good soccer but also excellent fitness as
well. Plus,
they will help to develop the habit of sprinting after every pass which will allow
everyone to become a better soccer player.
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