So who doesn't care about tactics should skip it.
Good post and yes, 75% of the fans will not understand what you are trying to convey. Let me be even worse this time...
But (and there is always one) you actually talk less about the real tactics than it would be fruitful, specially that it seems only a few actually know anything about tactics in football.
Folks will not be really able to adapt your words to Valverde, simply because they have no idea about tactics in football.
Please don't get mad at me but let me sum up TACTICS in football, maybe, just maybe there will be some folks here, who might understand at least the essence of it.
I've spent my entire life with these things surrounding me, both a player and later as a coach, and because I'm not a talented young lad anymore on the pitch, and out of it, folks at least should believe my 50 years of experience. Not my fecking diploma on it, but practical, day to day experience.
If not, let it be, who cares. But I make a brief try nevertheless.
FORMATION:
- FORMATION in itself is NOT tactics. Formation is a raw skeleton only.
- RIGID formation is always a bad thing on the pitch, formations (in plural) should be exchanged according to the live game situations.
- Tactics are DEPENDENT on which player is playing, thus tactics necessarily change if player-A or player-B plays.
- No formation is THE optimal one in all situations. What is best, depends on different circumstances. Rigid formations are predictable and easy to tactically circumvent.
- It’s difficult to place a formation on a system of play, as FLUIDITY is key to the way it works or works not.
- Formation is always dependent on the physical characteristics and how chargeable the given players are.
- Tactics are NOT formation and mere formations are not tactics. See below.
TACTICAL PRINCIPLES:
- Tactics are NOT a formation related phenomenon, it has to do with what happens in the different PHASES of an ACTION. Be it a defensive or offensive action.
- Accomplishing a phase related action is only tactical if it is also related to BOTH the former and the forthcoming phase.
DEFENSE:
1. Territorial, channel-based and man-marking variables.
2. Creating numerical superiority in the centre.
3. Giving up a territory or channel or closing it the soonest.
4. Use of cutbacks close to the box.
5. In-line defense, W-line defense or their combinations.
6. Avoiding to be overpowered in the air and forcing the ball on the ground.
7. Marking SAFE-ZONES in defense.
PRESSING:
1. Creating numerical superiority in the given paths.
2. Creating numerical superiority in the given channel.
3. Forcing the opponent to miss-pass by closing on.
4. Forcing the opponent to miss-pass by closing his pass directions.
5. Forcing the opponent to miss-pass by passing backwards.
6. Counter-pressing formulas.
7. When pressing is advised and when it becomes counterproductive.
BUILD-UP:
1. Build-up through short passes. When to do that and what follows it.
2. Build-up through long passes. When to do that and what follows it.
3. Build-up through V formation passes and trying to deplete the opponent.
4. Build-up avoiding physical contact.
5. Build-up not avoiding physical contact, that includes dribbling.
6. Build-up through volleys.
7. Build-up through possession and provoked fouls.
8. Dispersion to circulate the ball.
ATTACKING PREPARATION:
1. Fast preparation, careful preparation and slow preparation.
2. Use of cutbacks close to the opponent box.
3. Finding unpredictable moves and balls.
4. Movements without the ball.
5. Fast runs with the ball and without it.
6. Through balls and short balls.
7. Wing volleys and straight to box volleys.
8. Midfield and box dribbles.
9. Directional dribbles.
10. Contingent shots from outside the box.
ATTACK:
1. Shots and arching balls.
2. Bowing balls and springing balls.
3. Flat shots and posting-shots.
4. Dribbles (clean dribbles, forced dribbles, static dribbles, dynamic dribbles).
5. Flat finishes and high finishes.
6. High balls for header on target and strong balls for header on target.
7. Shots on the goalkeeper, corner shots.
8. Passing inside the box.
9. Finding the best and clearest finishing player.
10. Cheating the goalkeeper and measuring his distance.
These are the most BASIC tactical elements.
Each and every coach should
go through each and every phase of the game-play and RECOMMEND the variations that he expects.
Later on: he should discuss these one by one with the players and in training he should practice as many elements and variations as possible.
Before a game: he should analyze the opponent along with the players and outline the tactical elements that the team should PREFER and those that the team should AVOID.
After a game: he should analyze the game with the players, pointing out outstanding mistakes and good achievement alike.
GENERAL TACTICAL ELEMENTS:
- General individual rules for every player & which solutions to use when player-A plays and not player-B.
- General individual rules for every player & which solutions to use when player-A is on the pitch, and which ones when player-B comes in as a sub.
- Individual rules for every player, depending on the opponent and their tactical repertoire.
- The key element is the
know-how of the coach to communicate and train them in order to get the behaviors desired from the players.
- Automation of the most important tactical elements by practice.
Tactical Principles that are useful for different tasks during the coaching practice:
- Describing the general collective traits: How do I want my team to play?
- Specifying the team strategy from outside, in each phase in a more precise way, like in build-up finding a free man between the lines to progress.
- Planning and sequencing the training contents: What do I need to train at each time and what to practice for the particular game ahead?
- Organizing the training and coaching intervention: Designing drills, what to focus in each drill to give feedback.
- Doing video-analysis with the players.
- Creating, organizing, and structuring the
individual principles.
The set of
collective principles structured and detailed to each phase is usually called
Game Model.
- Setting the variations which are expected in the current Model.
Spreading Action-Rules and Heuristics:
- At the individual level, tactical principles are rules and ideas, that give a general answer to the question what to do in a given situation.
“If you receive the ball facing backwards, lay-off."
"When you are on the ball, look for the furthest player."
"When you are on the ball, look for the closest player."
"If you are behind the fullback, give him a deep and hard support."
"When you get the ball from the goalkeeper try to dribble diagonally inwards and then passing to the winger."
"In build-up play do not more than two touches."
The action rules main characteristic is to always give a general answer. This means that the answer is usually adequate and useful in similar situations. But it doesn’t mean it will always be adequate, neither that it will be always optimal.
Subjectivity and Objectivity in Principles:
Principles carry inherently a subjective idea of what is appropriate in a given situation. What to do, and consequently what is appropriate, is mostly decided by the coach on the choice of the style he wants to play. As such, there is a connection between those and the collective principles by definition.
While the principles chosen are mainly subjective in their nature, as the coach himself creates them, they need to be - to some degree - coherent with the most basic principles of the game.
If not, it wouldn’t be possible to achieve the objectives of the game through these specific principles, as their purpose is to nuance how to achieve them.
In an extreme way there aren’t principles that pursue losing the ball, playing backwards when is possible to play forwards or not shooting if possible to score.
Optimizing vs Satisfying in the Decision Making:
If the answer provided by the rules we use, is optimal or it is not a different issue on its nature. The coach gives for granted that his ideas are at least coherent and somehow satisfy a minimal objectivity level.
And while it could be true, that some of them are suboptimal (for example, in a given situation the marginal value of switching instead of trying to penetrate could be higher), in the coaching practice we do not care about that directly. But we take the assumption that they are. Furthermore, one critical factor in the real-world are the abilities of the individuals.
While principles are mainly useful for the coach to communicate, they can be also valid for the player, in terms of heuristics and action-rules. However, they use them in a different way than how they are worded, by associating some answer, as a first option, to the visual cue that has been demonstrated.
The rules can be used to know how to position, where to look first, where to pass, and so on.
Where to look or do as first option, what to do instead if the first option is not possible, anticipating by looking first to know if it’s possible and to react if it is not available or to open an option by making feint.
Even if knowing them can be useful for the players, we shouldn’t forget that the objective is to execute them through behaviors. This is usually achieved by getting experience to achieve an unconscious execution of them. On this impacts from one side the level of skill of the player and from other the rate of learning. Both individually dependent.
Variability in the Execution of Principles
We should not expect from the players to carry the principles in a consistent but perfect way. For example, a player that receives facing backwards is not going to lay-off every time he gets the ball in such situation.
There is an inherent variability in the answer. It comes from the fact that principles are models and as such, a simplification of the reality.
The answer given by a principle is not closed. It just gives a broad response and the player needs to manage the details of the situation. The principles do not try to answer everything, but just giving a quick and easy answer that helps guiding the first intention of the players.
Intentions and NOT executions.
There are two main sources of variability: Situations and players.
- Variability relative to random factors in the actual situation that the model doesn’t account for. This is within the realm of individual decision and the possibilities accounted.
- This is why the rule is not directly used by the player, but somehow gets into the decision process. The individual does not always follow that, but has some guidelines that allow a general answer to be adapted to the situation and to his own abilities.
- Variability related to the individuals involved in the situation. This is not only related to the capability to read the situation, principles do help here, but also to the individual abilities (skills) and past experience that will invoke different actions. For example, because a player has been taught to turn, sometimes will turn even if it’s not good (this is negative), or because he is usually good in turning so tends to "read the situation from his perspective" and turns (this is positive).
Conclusion and Final Remarks
- Principles can be relative to the collective (after recovery, play out of the recovery-zone) or individual (if/then rules).
- Both provide an answer for what to do in a given situation (more or less specific to the situation and more or less closed what to do) in a general way.
- Principles can be more specific (when the 9 gets the ball, give a passing line behind him if the 10 is wide) or more general (creating diagonal passing lines).
- Principles can be more or less sophisticated if they account different possibilities (if-then-else).
- One of the most important in this regard is to develop a shared vocabulary, that the players can understand and relate to, it can be different than the one employed on the pitch but it should be based in the same principles.
Finally, the most important thing to have in mind about principles is that they are just words and what matters is the ability to make them executed through proper deeds in the game. That’s the coaching expertise.
I don't want to even write down the name Valverde here. It's not about him, these are the generally accepted tactical principles, that of course in their detail might easily take 500 pages.
Nevertheless, the fan, the spectator, the enthusiast, the audience need to know that tactics are rather complicated in football, and when praising or cursing any tactics by any coach on the planet, one should at least have to have the bare-minimal vocabulary and knowledge regarding tactical scenarios and formulas.
It's only enough in a forum to spit out things like: "he is shit", "sell", "sack" or the like, in reality the bare minimum of tactical variations is what I summed up above, that even the worst coach has to know, well before he starts coaching any team.
