When coaches are designing game models today, the vast majority are looking to establish a system of play that is underpinned by a possession style. With the possession-based game growing and extending to youth levels over the past ten years, there still seems to be somewhat of a challenge when it comes to balancing possession with progression. In this week’s MSC Breakdown, we take a look at how to play a possession-based game but move forward with it, create chances and have an attacking, entertaining style.
Below is a YouTube breakdown highlighting three ideas. If you enjoy this content, please subscribe to our MSC YouTube page.
Below are the steps and exercise details shared in the breakdown:
1 - Manipulate Your Build-Up Shape
The biggest threat for a vertical system is probably a predictable build. If your opponents are prepared with a particular press or if your players are static, it’s going to be extremely difficult to get time and space to play forward. In this example, we know the opposition are going to initiate their press off the first pass (in a 4-2-3-1) so we look to re-position our team prior to that first pass. Our objective with this is to unbalance the opposition press in order to create a situation where a player has time and space higher up the pitch.With the full-back going high and the center back moving wide, the wide attacker in red still steps out to the ball, as they would for a full-back receiving it. Then, with a wide overload now created, the center back can pass directly into the 2v1 or, in the example shown, using a bounce pass into the central midfielder. With the overload now higher up the pitch, verticality is much more achievable with forward running from the attackers and a goalscoring opportunity created.
2 - Using Key Relationships to Create Space
In this example, we look to utilized the key relationships in wide areas in order to create space to play forward in. The full-back will have a lower starting point here because we want to maximize that space which we will look to create. With the full-back lower and the wide attacker higher, the central midfielder can receive at a forward angle as soon as the ball is pressed in the wide area. Even if the opponent’s recover, the movement from the attacking players can create additional space for the central midfielders to combine and play forward into the final third. Again, once in the final third a favorable situation is potentially created with forward’s positioning and movement.
3 - Open Passing Lanes & Support Underneath
Vertical play can be a real challenge when space between the lines is compressed, so in this example we look at ways that we can create more vertical space and then utilize the movement underneath. Again, the back four drop deep prior to the first pass, but this time we put four players (7,9,11, and 10) against the opponent’s back four. This structure typically generates a man-to-man pressing system, which means that the first pass will create a brief passing window for a longer ball into the forwards. After the ball is played into the forwards, it’s then up to the central midfielders to support underneath and win that race against their direct marker. Once the attacking midfielder receives the pass from the forward’s they are then facing forward with space and numbers ahead, which again has to potential to create a goal scoring opportunity.
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