Getting players to attack the ball and not stand back waiting

[Micahel GonzalezParticipant]

Hi everyone, I have been a coach for a couple of years, nothing too serious, but this year the manager and I decided to ask the boys, Under 12 Division 3, what they wanted to achieve by the end of the season; Division 2! Was the overwhelming response.

We explained to them that that would require a lot more dedication and work, they all agreed it was the way to go. We got into the 3Four3 Framework and began work. There have been great improvements in position and passing and we have moved to 2nd place in our league with the biggest Goal for and less Goals against, stats. But as the games get tougher and harder to control, we are dogged by one particular problem; watching the ball.

We literally are getting run over as the team has gotten into this watching the ball mode. Nothing I do seems to make a difference, the other teams will attack and rush the ball, my boys will sit back and rarely attack the ball and so now are losing it much more and are beginning to struggle again.

How do I turn this around? What can I do to make them rush and attack the player with the ball?

When we do the 3 v 1 ronda, at training, sometimes it its all out and they really go for it, other times there like, meh. Then game time its like, they don’t know what to do, their waiting for other  player to  make a move first and its killing us.

I upload all our games to our website and have just recently gone with a 4k camera, so you can see the what I’m talking about quite clearly, the last game we had, a night game, was against the second last team on the table and they almost beat us. (We are in the Blue stripe)

http://lions.soccerlife.com.au/

Help, have any of you had this problem? I’ve recently incorporated some of this into training ( http://www.soccerdrills.net/soccer-drills-aggressive-shoulder-tackle/ ) and have found it has helped, they know how to do it and keep it fair, but I’m starting to realize that, it’s not the mechanics in question, its more the why do they hesitate?

Any suggestions, in fact if any of you watch a bit of that game, am I getting the problem right or am I missing something?

(I also think fitness and attitude have a lot to do with it and honestly, my team could really improve both)

Thanks, looking forward to some suggestions…

 

 

 

[Walter LeBlancParticipant]

Michael –

Thanks for sharing your team and videos.  I have a few immediate thoughts to your posting:

A castle is not built in one day.  If you want to critique, stay with the main goal….possession!

Are you possessing, based on the data provided you are – there is always room for improvement and keep working on building from the back.  The more you possess, the less you have to worry about your opponent’s attack.

I am just not seeing enough two touch passing and receiving across the body – this has improved with my program but I have had to stay with the 4v0, 4v1, and 3v1 religiously.  By also focusing on movement off the ball to the cones in this drill, it has helped my players with getting engaged as opposed to ball watching.

If anything – you may want to layer in the offensive pressure choreography and encourage them to attack as a unit.  3four3 curriculum in not just about possession – you are also encouraging pressure.

In the end, I would suggest that you stay the course.  Growth occurs over time and 2 years from now will be when you truly see the benefits of what you are doing.

I do not see fitness as the problem although every team can grow in this area – but you know the fitness level of your team the best.

Thanks again and best of luck.  (P.S. I really did not like the video on how to train soccer players to be aggressive – 7 players standing while a coach pushes on their shoulder does not seem very efficient at all to me…)

Best of luck!

 

[Aman GrewalParticipant]

Hello Michael

I wanted to reinforce some of the points that Walter made.

You looked like the stronger team in the video, and, from the stats, had more of the possession. Yet I noticed that you didn’t put together a 6+ pass sequence. That’s crucial to developing a possession team, and also affects how your team pressures the ball. If you play with average pass strings of 3 to 4, then you end up with a huge number of transitions in a game. Your players are going to struggle to maintain the level of intensity and concentration required to press each transition.

A few suggestions for you based on my experience of arriving at a similar place:

• You need a goalie who can distribute from feet. There were a number of goal kicks where your goalie was struggling to play a simple pass to the centre backs. Do you include your goalie in the rondos? It’s also important that your defence know that they can go back to the goalie if they need to.
• There seems to be a preference to kick the ball forwards randomly rather than playing a controlled pass backwards. Changing this is tricky as it will go wrong sometimes and give away a goal. But your players need confidence that it is better to retain possession by moving the ball backwards than kicking forward aimlessly.
• This is all built around confidence in the passing ability of the back 5 and goalie. We moved many of our best players into our defensive line to give a foundation to our possession. E.g. I noticed your left wing seems a strong player – would he consider playing left back for a bit? He’d get more of the ball that way and would be encouraged to overlap

Overall this all comes down to philosophy. Players feel the pressure to win every game and not make any mistakes. It takes a lot of playing out of the back practice and rondos to encourage them to not play the 50/50 ball. And, even then, players are going to make mistakes initially

I think if you can increase the number of 6+ pass plays, then your defensive pressure will function much better. The intensity will increase and opponents will panic more when they win the ball.

Hope that helps – thanks for sharing your progress!

Aman

 

 

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