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0:00 Well, hello coaches. Welcome back. Coach KW here after a little bit of break here through the winter, and I'm happy to be back. So, uh, the channel is, uh,
0:08 pushing two years old, believe it or not. And I was looking back at some old content and thought, you know what, we've got a few years more experience.
0:16 We've got more information and data from the program that I help run in my town.
0:22 And, you know, my first love, of course, is 77 Soccer. I think it's incredibly important. It's one of my favorite uh ages to coach to ref. It's really the
0:32 first version of the game that starts to kind of really look like the game that we know as adults but in child-siz for format. As we go through the series,
0:41 we're going to be making those connections to 9v9 and 11v1 so that we have a through line all the way through these kids developments. It really is my
0:49 uh where I feel like the most can be done through some of my 7v7 stuff and refreshing that content and giving you some more life lessons if you will of
0:58 the two years more additional info that we have for it. So today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about 7v7 and the one and only formation that
1:07 I feel frankly that you should be using at 7v7 for development purposes. I know there are lots out there. We're going to do a quick highle view of a bunch of
1:16 them and then we're going to go look at uh the one that I feel like no matter whether you're a travel coach like I am that gets two 90minute practices a week
1:25 or you're a quote unquote wreck coach that only gets an hour a week with your kids, I think it's valuable giving them a structure to play in because it gives
1:34 them a framework. And I'm a strong believer that the technical and the tactical go together. You need to teach them technical skills. how to pass, how to receive, how to dribble, but also you
1:44 have to marry it to the game that it's meant to be played in. And that means giving them a structure to know where and when to do all these things to help
1:53 them be able to be better decision makers on the field because ultimately that's what soccer players are. It's a million little decisions that happen over and over and over and over again
2:01 until the game is finished. So, let's jump into the formation overview. I hope to have a bunch of these 7v7 videos in the next couple of weeks prior to the
2:11 season kicking off. So, if you would hit the subscribe button, click the bell for notifications since you never know how the algorithm is going to surface my
2:19 video or not for you. And let's get going. Okay. Okay. So, up on the screen I have the most common 77 formations that I tend to see. I have a video back
2:29 in the history. I'll put a link in the description of where I really kind of do a deep dive on all these different formations uh and why I don't love them
2:37 all. But we're going to do a quick overview on one page of all these ones here. So on the top left we have the famous 33. Uh it's one that I see in
2:45 wreck programs all the time. I also see it a lot of times in travel. Why?
2:49 Because it's really easy for new coaches to really describe. It seems like it makes sense. We have three in the front and three in the back. It's a nice
2:56 compact symmetrical shape. Why wouldn't it work? Uh, I have lots of problems with the 3-3.
3:03 Many of them revolve in the fact that really soccer is a game that should have multiple lines. And here we don't. We have a keeper, we have a defensive line,
3:11 an attacking line, and any sort of work to try and make this more than what that is. Makes it very convoluted very quickly. There are other formation
3:19 shapes that you can start with that will get you going. One of the biggest problems with this formation when it's done this way is a lot of times coaches
3:27 are adamant. you're the left forward, you're the center forward, you're the right forward, and the players get locked in their positions, and then everything becomes a 1v one. There's no
3:35 relationship between the players. They just assume, I'm on the right side, I'm on the left side. That's my job. Uh, also, what happens with this, it tends
3:42 to either become very compact or very stretched out, and there's nothing in between. If you're going forward, a lot of times the front line goes way forward
3:49 and either the back line stays far back and you get this giant separation between the lines, which is not great for any power of soccer. So again, the
3:57 33, not a huge fan. If we go down one uh to the bottom left, we have the 3-3 turned on its side, which turns into the 222. And this is another one I see a ton
4:08 out there because again, hey, yes, we now do have three lines. We have a defense, a midfield, and a forward line.
4:14 However, we don't have any width of support. The 22 can get torn apart from left to right way too easily. And while there are pairs of player, which is
4:23 something that's important as we go forward in part of the learning process, these pairs of players can't possibly do the things that you want to do. And so
4:32 what happens a lot in the 22 is the team gets either pulled apart from one side of the field to the other or there's just so much space on one side or
4:39 another that it's easy to play through them. Uh most teams are able to cut through a 222 relatively easy if they can just pass the ball from one side to
4:49 the other in a couple of passes. The top right is one that I see a lot of times, too. It's uh the famous Christmas tree, the the 1321. Again, yes, we have three
4:58 lines. We have an attacking line, we have two midfielders, and we have three Part of what I feel like this formation doesn't necessarily work well for folks
5:07 is adults assign adult type roles to children. And so, they think, oh, those two outside backs are going to be my fullbacks or my wing backs and they're
5:16 going to get up and down the field and create the width. And eight, nine year olds are not going to do that consistently for you. I can promise you
5:23 that that is not going to happen. And so it is a mistake it seems that adults make a lot of times of I'm going to assume that the concept that will work
5:31 with an adult is going to work with children and it doesn't. Uh so a lot of times this is a defense first mechanism and part of that then screams to me that
5:40 you're more worried about the result than the development. And again, for other reasons that we'll explain when I look at my favorite uh formation, I'll try to explain that a little bit more
5:49 clearly. And then finally, the bottom one, I also see this one a lot of times, the 312. Again, three lines. But when I see this online, when I see other
5:58 coaches talk about it, what I always almost hear is, "I put my best player in that central midfield and they run the game and they do all this stuff."
6:06 Okay, so you're now relying on one or two players to run your team and nobody else gets a chance to experience what it's like to play in the middle of the
6:15 field as a midfielder. And again, you're dependent on one or two players to try and win you the game. As a lot of times I hear that quoted. That's not
6:24 development either. Again, you also have the same issue where you want those wide players to be your quotequote wing backs to go up and down the field and it
6:32 doesn't work either. And so again, not a huge fan because again, it's 7v7. This should be development all the way to 111. And that's not what we have here.
6:41 So let's take a look at my favorite and then explain why I'm so adamant about why I insist that we use this in our programs here and why again you cannot
6:51 convince me that this is not the best formation for development going forward.
6:56 All right. So before we get to that formation, let's go all the way to the end result. And this is the 11v11 game.
7:02 So what I have here is a typical 433 formation. Now if you're an inexperienced coach or new to the game, you may look at this and say, "I don't
7:11 see a four and a three and a three." And that's part of the learning process for coaches is that the numbers aren't really what it looks like. It's a
7:21 shorthand to kind of get some sort of description, but the formation is not like a American football formation where you have these strict lines and positions and everybody does these
7:31 things. It's more of a general shape, but what really makes sense for soccer is that it's roles and responsibilities of the player. So, if we look at this
7:40 formation, you can see there is a back four. It's a little bit curved, but that's a back four. two center backs and two fullbacks which are the two wide
7:48 outside defenders right in the middle.
7:50 The middle three is usually actually expressed as a triangle in the 4-33 and many other types of position uh formations. In the 4-33 the midfield is usually a triangle, not a line across
8:03 the field. So what you see here is a holding or a defensive midfielder or six at the bottom of the triangle and two midfielders in the middle. One may have
8:12 a little bit more license to move up and down. That would be the 10, attacking midfielder. And another one would might be an eight, who is one that kind of
8:20 goes box to box. Some teams play with two eights where they just kind of pivot off of each other, a double pivot, a term you might hear. But the idea is
8:27 that middle three isn't actually a line of three. It's a formation of three players that work together in a set of roles in the midfield. And then the
8:36 front three, as you can see, you can see the striker in the middle. It's up forward, but now we have these two wide midfielders, uh, seven and 11, if you
8:44 will, that extend the width, but those players aren't in a line in the front.
8:48 Their role might go deeper when we don't have the ball and might go further up the field when we do have the ball. But in this formation, we have the
8:57 beginnings of all the different kinds of roles and responsibilities that you might have when you get to 11v1. And my preferred formation in 77 ties back to what these roles and
9:09 responsibilities are in a very basic and simple building block way that you can start at 8 and 9 years old so that when they get to 11v1 they've experienced all
9:19 the different types of roles, responsibilities and areas of the field that they may play in. So that's what we're going to look at here. So the first role or responsibility or learning
9:28 matrix if you will is pairs of players.
9:31 So, in modern soccer, a lot of times the pair of center backs, that pair or team of centerbacks is an incredibly important pair to a team. They work as a
9:40 pair. They work as a couple. They work off of each other uh to defend, to cover for each other. But it's learning how to work as a tandem. That's the skill that
9:49 we're looking to build. Now, you can also have those sort of tandems in the midfield. I mentioned that term double pivot. A lot of times with two players
9:56 in the midfield, one player is going to pivot forward and the other one's almost gonna seessaw back. So if I could show it on video, it's like this, right? Two
10:05 players like this and they go up and down. I have to look at the screen to figure I'm doing. They almost work like a seessaw. So when the ball is on one
10:11 side, one player might go forward and the other one might drop in and vice versa. So being able to learn how to work with a partner is one of those
10:20 roles and responsibilities that carry over to the 11v1 game. The next sort of role and responsibility that's out there is wide [clears throat] players. Being able to work with the width of the field
10:30 and with the sideline on one side of you, a as a constraint, but also as a partner. So, as a defensive player, as fullbacks on the wide areas, the
10:40 sideline becomes an extra player because now you can force attackers towards the sideline and acts like an extra defender. as a winger up higher, as a midfielder or a winger on the outside.
10:50 Now, you have to work with that wide area as being a constraint to keep yourself from a getting pushed out there, but also being comfortable using that width to stretch the field when you
11:01 your team has the ball. So, it's a skill to learn how to work in those wide areas, and that takes time. Now, we talked about our midfield triangle
11:11 earlier, but for midfielders, it is one of those positions that requires a 360 degree awareness of the game at all times. They are in the middle of
11:20 everything, but they're also connected to everybody else around them. So, I like to call those roles helper roles sometimes in 77 to make it easier. But again, this is a skill set that players
11:31 need to develop over time because it's one of the more difficult and more challenging positions to play. To be constantly aware of what is around you at all times, both offensively and
11:41 defensively. So, working in the middle, those central players is a skill set in and of itself. Then we have the two solo sort of jobs right now. We have the
11:51 keeper which of course their default job is keeping the ball out of the net but also in the Martin game they are in so important to be able to use their feet
11:59 to be one more member of the team when you have the ball. Now they become an extra player if you will when your team has the ball because the ball at their
12:10 feet it can make or break right their goalie is never going to come up. So no matter how many players they push up, your keeper usually adds an extra player
12:19 to outnumber whoever is in that area, always being a free option for a pass to be made if they can't go forward.
12:27 Conversely, the striker is all by themselves up front. They also need to have to learn how to work as a striker, being lonely sometimes, being up on the
12:37 other end of the field, being a relief valve for the other team. But also from a defensive standpoint, strikers are usually the player that starts the press. They're the player that is first
12:47 after the ball when it's down the other end and we've lost contact, we've lost possession of the ball. So learning how to press, how to cut a field in half
12:56 with curved runs, knowing when to press, when know when when to drop, all those things is another skill that players need to start learning. So if we take
13:06 our 433 and we highlight these positions, what you'll notice in the next slide is this is the basis of a 7v7 formation. And by pulling away the extra
13:17 players, the two fullbacks, the two extra midfielders, we now have what I believe is the best formation for developing players at 77, and that's the 231. It's got all the different roles
13:28 and responsibilities in a simplified package that you can get your players through to start to learn what each of those jobs is all about. You can see
13:38 here I've simplified the field a little bit more and I've put the numbers in.
13:41 And I I'm a strong believer in getting your players to start to learn the numbering system. So coaches, that means you have to learn the numbering systems.
13:48 It's not that hard. I promise you when I took on my first third grade team just out of second grade, within two or three weeks, the kids could recite back and
13:58 start to remember what these numbers meant without very much effort at all. a couple of times on the whiteboard and we talk about every once in a while. Again,
14:06 some of these aren't as important as others when it comes to remembering, but what happens over time is this numbering system becomes a shortcut. It allows you
14:14 to relay to your players ideas about their roles and responsibilities. Not that Johnny is the left midfielder, but they're a seven or 11, which means something versus playing as a two or a
14:26 three, which is also a wide position, but they have different responsibilities and roles. And that's what we're looking to teach our players. So, we have the one, we have the keeper, we have a four
14:37 and a five. Those are the two center backs. We have the two wide midfielders.
14:41 So, we call those a seven and 11. And then we have a striker is the nine. Now, the midfield possession is that sort of specialist, that special number, because
14:51 they could be one of three things. We talked about it briefly when I had the 11 v1 uh 4-33 up.
14:58 If you have a player who's playing midfield that's more defensive, they tend to be a six. If they're a boxto-box midfielder, meaning they're having to get up and down the field, they're there
15:07 to do a little bit of everything, they're an eight. And now, if they're more offensive, they're an attacking mid, they're a 10. So in 77, we normally
15:16 usually start with that player being an eight. Their job is to support everybody around them. So they're getting back in defense, but they're getting up on offense and getting up and down the
15:25 field. But it's a real real superpower to be able to say to one of your players, whether on the field or on the bench in a real quick shorthand, hey, I
15:32 need you to be more like a six. And for that player to now know, hey, we're up a couple of goals. coach wants me to sit back, not go as forward as much and be
15:42 closer to my defenders because we're just sitting on this lead for the last two minutes. Conversely, we're down by a goal and I say to my player, "Hey, I
15:49 need you to play more like a 10." I can get that information across the field in no time at all and my players know, "Oh, I need to start pushing forward. I need
15:58 to be almost like a second striker. We need a goal. I'm going to leave the defenders on their own and take a few more chances." And so learning these
16:05 numbers and teaching these roles and responsibilities mimic all the parts of the game that come in 11v1. We have our pair of defenders. So working as a
16:13 partnership, we have wide players who are learning to deal with the width of the game, work with the sidelines up and down the field. We have that striker and
16:21 that keeper that have their singular roles that have to deal with things that are special to them. And then we have a central midfielder who is learning to
16:29 learn the game with a 360 view of everything going around them. So in the 231, you have all those pieces and parts in a balanced formation that's flexible
16:39 and easy for kids to understand. Whether you have an hour practice a week or you get three hours a week or you're doing even more. I've seen it over and over
16:47 and over again. So this is kind of the hill I want I die on is that if you're playing 77, you should be playing this.
16:54 So I know there are arguments out there about like kids at this age, they should do no tactics. You just do ball work all the time. Ball work all the time.
17:01 individual skills and individual skills are important, but not teaching the kids where and when to apply those skills is an empty promise because you know that you've worked on things in practice
17:15 isolated with players where they can do it and demonstrate for you. But as soon as a game happens, you felt that frustration that you don't see any of
17:25 that happen in the game. And that's because your practice environment did not mimic the game environment enough to make that transfer of knowledge, to make that ability of them to perform that
17:35 action with the chaos of a real game around them. It never makes the connection. And so that's why it's super important to me to do this. And that's
17:44 why I feel the 231 is a great way as that introduction to develop those players overtime so they're ready for the 11 v11 game while you're doing all
17:53 that technical work getting them to be able to pass the ball, receive the ball, scan, dribble, play one v one, etc., etc. I have videos that will be coming
18:03 up. I have a third grade team's first ever game with only four practices under their belt. And I promise you in that video, you will see the underpinnings of
18:12 these things happening already with four practices total. So again, stick with me as our videos go forward. We're going to have more live game video examples.
18:23 We're going to talk about playing out of the back, the different roles and responsibilities, all the things that I feel that 7v7 soccer just is such a
18:31 fantastic learning vehicle for our kids.
18:34 And there's a lot to learn. There's a lot to develop. Soccer is a long-term investment game and you have to think of it that way or you're just doing a
18:42 disservice for the kids. There is no quick fix. So, I hope you'll stick with me. I hope you sub and ring the bell to get those notifications. I really
18:51 appreciate all that you do out there for the kids. Till the next time, we'll see you out in the fields. Bye-bye.
