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0:00 Well, hello coaches. Welcome back. Coach KW here back for another video. Sorry it's been a couple of weeks. We are in the pointy part of the season right now.
0:08 Lots going on. Uh I'm running our first townwide tryyouts tonight. So, lots of prep to deal with that. My last video, bit of a rant and definitely got people
0:19 stirred up. Uh got a few uh comments that weren't too happy with me, but I'm going to say that 95% were, "You know what, coach? We see the same thing." And
0:28 it's not a great thing. And it's not this uh epidemic of let's kick the ball long because it's successful is not setting our kids up for future success.
0:37 Uh I have multiple videos with that in in in the channel showing uh when teams a little bit more balanced what happens.
0:44 You know it is tough playing in a two age bracket when your team is purposely built by grade. So one of the years you're going to be the smaller one. Um
0:53 so it's something for us to deal with but it's so blatant. Uh, so what these teams are doing, it's the typical youth soccer trope. Take the big, strong,
1:03 maybe fast kid, put him up front, fire the ball up in that direction, and hope that he can get on it and force his way to goal. And it is successful to a
1:11 certain degree. Today, we're going to look at ways that we can counteract that, ways that my team has changed what we do, even in game. We're going to show
1:20 you actually in game as we make adjustments with my players. I'm so lucky. My kids are so smart and so good.
1:26 We've been with them now for three years, so they really understand us.
1:29 They've really picked up a lot from us.
1:31 It's really uh really satisfying and in game are able to make some adjustments.
1:36 And so we're going to look at some of those things. In addition, we're going to take a look at some things we've done at practice and we're going to use the
1:42 whiteboard to also describe some of the things so we can look at it on with the magnets and then look at it with the video and kind of put the two together.
1:50 Okay, so let's go. Um I hate doing those rants. It is my channel. I can do whatever I want. And uh usually I save those rants for my wife, for my
1:59 assistant coaches. But this time, you got it. But while the video did a great job, I don't want to rely on that. I'd rather rely on you folks hitting the
2:06 subscribe button, the thumbs up button, sharing and liking, uh and giving me some comments. Uh that's always the best way to grow this channel, and I appreciate all of you. So, let's take a
2:16 look at the whiteboard and some video, and then we'll get back together at the end. Okay, back to the whiteboard. uh we haven't used it in a while and uh well
2:24 you know I've missed it. So here we are.
2:26 So let's take a look tactically about some of the things that we've seen and what we're trying to deal with here. So you can see here my preferred sort of
2:34 341 setup that I have going on. Um and this is kind of the default when in I'm when in possession you know kind of our structure. So we have a good structure
2:45 across the field. We've got our width.
2:46 We've got some depth and support and all that sort of thing. The struggle has been, as we've talked about, is these transitions. These teams with these big
2:54 big players are planting one, maybe two of them up on the center line, not involving them with play at all in terms of defensive responsibilities. And then
3:05 as soon as the ball is turned over, there's no thought process or anything else. They're just trying to throw this ball as deep as they can, as quickly as
3:13 they can. And now these big kids are now having to run at the ball and turn center backs to have them now run at their own goal and try and beat them and
3:22 muscle them to the goal. Or conversely, keeper picks up the ball and quickly as soon as they can are launching punts over to do the same thing. Now let's
3:34 talk about that punt or that long ball over and what challenges it provides for teams where you cannot head the ball. So let's take a look at these two poor
3:42 players here in isolation. This player is defending. The purple player is attacking. The ball is coming in this direction. So, let's now consider what this player has to deal with since they
3:52 can't head the ball. They have to judge the flight of the ball in the air, 30, 40 yards plus height, whatever else is going on. So, these kids are still
4:02 working on depth perception and being able to track those trajectories, the parabola because as it comes over, there's a lot of math going on in the brain. It's amazing what's happening.
4:11 They're having to deal with that. At the same time, they're having to deal with this player who tends to be a big player, maybe much bigger, as you'll see
4:18 in this video, crowding into this space, trying to get in their way and interfere with this player, trying to see this ball, judge where it's going between the
4:26 wind and everything else, and now trying to get a body part on it that's not their head. So, they're having to let the ball get down closer to the ground.
4:35 this player, all they really need to worry about is can I interfere with this player enough to not get a foul and hope that the ball bounces and continues in
4:44 the direction that they want to go in.
4:47 Their job is so much easier than this player who now has to, if they miss it, has to turn while this player has all the momentum. And so that's why this
4:56 long ball strategy is so effective. The advantage is all to the player going into the direction of the ball because they don't have to do anything with the
5:04 ball. until it hits the ground and bounces. This player has all the responsibility. If it hits the ball and bounces, you playing on grass, you don't know where it's going based on the fact
5:14 that none of us are playing on a turf that looks like Wembley, has all these clumps everywhere. It could bounce in any direction. On turf, it's a little
5:21 bit more consistent. But if there's any spin on the ball, it grabs like a golf ball. This player has one job. Just get in their way and hope the ball bounces
5:29 near them, in front of them so they can keep running. So that's the main situation we have and why it's so difficult for players to deal with that.
5:37 What are some of the things that we can do? So first and foremost, one of the first things that we've talked to our team to do is while we've been
5:46 successful when we play teams that are similar to us in terms of size and capabilities and even the long ball doesn't travel as far because they're more close to our age. Maybe they're all
5:56 fifth graders as well. uh unlike fifth and sixth as I talked about before is that while we like to be this aggressive team with the ball, we support the ball,
6:05 we counterp press quickly, we're all around the ball, even when that happens and my center backs and my six are active. What we've had to say to them is
6:13 when we're in a situation where we have teams where when the ball comes either by deflection or a lost dribble or whatever else, this player is not
6:21 looking to make a pass, there's no almost zero time to counter press because their first action is to take a kick at it and send it long for somebody
6:30 who's just hanging out here, which puts these folks at a disadvantage. So, what we've had to say to these players is you need to be more aware and perhaps take
6:39 slightly deeper positions and not get as pressed up into the play as we've done before. That has a knock-on effect with my double eights not getting pushed into
6:51 this part of the field. And you'll see in a couple of the video examples basically this sort of setup. My team all pushed up, my center backs here, and
7:00 a big gap in between, which is something you don't usually want. Usually my six would be the one that'd be in here making that connection. But again, this
7:07 six here is having to deal with balls getting booted over their head. They can't be that aggressive all the time.
7:15 So, we're working on now pulling this back and pulling these players back to now deal with that. The other situation you're going to see in the videos is a
7:25 situation that a lot of teams in 111 do with their center backs and fullbacks.
7:29 So, let's make a back four real quick.
7:30 So, we got two center backs and two fullbacks. And a lot of times, a lot of these teams, they play with one striker and they'll have I don't have another
7:39 purple one handy, but we'll just go with this. And the in the wingers. And so, what happens in the middle and a lot of these teams, I see MLS next a lot, but
7:47 even in the pros, they'll do it. One of these center backs will be assigned to manmark and one of these center backs is assigned to now to cover the space. So,
7:54 if this striker is wandering around here, this one follows him until he gets to the midfield and stays with them. And if he switches, they just switch over.
8:03 Sometimes they don't switch over. Perhaps it's a physical mismatch.
8:06 Perhaps the striker is really tall and one of your two center backs is much taller than the other, then they may actually just follow them around. But
8:14 that is the situation you see a lot of times. So, we go back to our 99 situation. What we've also done in game, we've talked to our six. Your six is
8:25 usually one of your smartest players because they're having to deal with the center of the field. They help organize the defense. They know when to go forward when they go back. So, usually
8:32 it's more of your your talented, smarter, more game aware players. We've talked to this player to say, "Hey, you've got a threat that's happening here. Your job now is to manmark. You
8:43 don't have to be inside this guy's shirt all the time, but always have an eye on them and let them know you're in their presence. Make it harder for them to get
8:52 on the ball because there's two ways to keep the ball away from this player.
8:56 Stop it from the source, which is harder to punt or just a random kick or discourage them, make it difficult for them to have any time when the ball
9:05 comes to them by being really close to them and pressing up and manmarking and disrupting there. So one of the situations again we talk about is if
9:13 this person is manmarking it just means these players have to be more aware and also your other players in their defensive responsibilities need to be more aware. So if this player's
9:24 manmarking now we're telling one of my eights, hey keep an eye behind you to make sure nobody needs help. And we tell our wingers whose job is to always mark
9:32 their other winger. You can't fall asleep if this guy starts wandering in field. you come in here even if they're into this space here because they're looking to get in when this player has
9:42 been pulled out of position. So it is a team effort as imagine that soccer a team effort but that's sort of the concepts that go on there. So deeper
9:51 positions on goal kicks on punts on turnovers being more reactive to get back sooner. The danger is your players running back too much and now creating onside opportunities for these players
10:06 to get back here. So, it is a delicate balance. We don't want a sweeper of old standing way down here because basically now they're isolated 1 v one and you you
10:14 just never want that. Um, so it's just being smart to give themselves a little cushion. So if that ball is coming long, we've got players in position to deal
10:24 with that. Whether there's two players, three players, one player, and giving themselves the space and the ability to see the ball that if the ball is going
10:32 to bounce, they might be able to take a couple of steps back to make sure it doesn't bounce over their head. If they're able to get to the ball and step
10:39 in front, they can. And these players can come in and cover if things go wrong. So that's a couple of things to look at on the whiteboard. Let's take a
10:46 look at on game footage. All right. So, here's our first situation. Uh, I'm going to pause it as we play and back it up in a second, but
10:54 we'll just see here. We have the ball way down low, long ball up to really big strike. You can see the size of that kid compared to some of these other kids on
11:03 team. Uses his a little bit of his pace, uses his power as my center backs are a little bit, you know, shy to engage with somebody that big. Let's back up though
11:12 a little bit. Let's just see where this begins. So you can see here we had possession of the ball down in this corner. We had just lost it and our
11:20 shape wasn't fantastic. Uh as we go through here and play, I'll pause this just a second. Right there. Uh right there. So now, as we talked about, as I talked
11:32 about on the whiteboard, my defensive line is high because that's where I like them to be because they usually we can have a lot of pressure on the ball. But in this
11:41 situation, that turnover happened so quickly that now the rest of my team is not in any sort of shape to help these folks out. And now it's really 3v2. But
11:52 because of the size of the number 77 on the field, even though we quote unquote outnumbered him, he's able to use his size and he doesn't have a lot of pace,
12:01 but it's his size that really keeps him to be able to keep that ball. And you'll see that a few more times in the game.
12:06 So, my striker is all the way down here because he was pressing the ball because we were down there. But you can see I don't have a lot of plays in the middle
12:14 of the field. My eights are pushed way up. The wingers are out there. So, even my six who might have been in here is actually better off than the fact that
12:22 he's right there because he's close to that defensive line. And so, as you can see, one-on-one battle. Kid kind of just knocks it forward. We able to catch up
12:32 with him, but you can see the size difference. I mean, the kid he's playing against is a larger than average fifth grader in that situation. That kid was
12:41 almost 5'9. Like, he was as tall as the college ref that was on the field. So, he's going to use those natural abilities that he has to push the play
12:49 up the field. So, that's one of the situations where we get in trouble with that. All right. So, in this situation, we'll see what's going on here. Again,
12:58 this ends up with a goal, right? We make the right play there, but then again, just a forward ball as we stop looking.
13:05 My poor defensive uh my uh center back just can't find a way around the kid when the ball bounces back. But again, ball quick transition. We can't really
13:15 slow this down as the play goes on. He makes a good play right here. It just comes to another kid and their first thought is, can I push it forward? Now
13:25 the big kid basically shields the ball, puts it in the back of the net for a one- nothing lead. But in this situation, you can see we're starting to adjust a little bit.
13:34 So this player hasn't gone very quickly with the punt. But you can see right there, right before that happens, as we're getting the remember to move back, you can see
13:46 this center back all of a sudden remember what we're trying to tell them here as we're making changes on the fly. and he starts walking backwards very quickly as he's getting
13:55 ready to go here. You can see they're all walking back and then we give that call. I can hear my assistant coach yell out to him and he takes a few steps back
14:03 and now you can see even my six is telling him push back, push back, push back. So, it's not exactly there because as we talked about on the board, the
14:14 next change we make is we have the six kind of invert below him. Right now, we're still with that six in front in front of the two center backs
14:24 to make our triangle. What we do a number of times is we invert that triangle and the six stays behind the two and the triangle looks like that,
14:33 but we don't go too far because remember we talked about being on off sides. We want to keep them drawn in off sides.
14:40 All right, here we have a goal kick and now you can see we're starting to make some of the changes. So, let's take a look right here. So this is one of the
14:47 main changes that we start to do. We talked about it on the whiteboard briefly and that is we have now gone to a mark manmarking/cover system. So if you
14:57 notice here, watch the big player in the middle at the center spot. And what my does, notice he's not looking at anything else really, but where that kid
15:07 is. Now, does he wander away a little bit because that other kid comes into play? Yes. But let's take a look at the situation we have going on here. So now
15:15 we're starting to get our players to understand, hey, we've got two center backs. They've got good size and pace to recover. Let's just drop back and keep
15:26 everything in front. And now my six has now manmarked this player to stay right with him. And what we've also said to my eights, here's one eight, and
15:37 here's the eight that intercepted the ball, is if they push another player up there, I need you to be aware. and one of you needs to go find that player. So,
15:47 in fact, this eight is basically come over to manmark this player and that's how he makes the interception. Let's scroll that back just a little bit. You can see here unlike some of the
15:57 pictures we showed earlier in the how all the players, the attacking players were pushed up and leaving a big gap.
16:03 You can now see here this eight has moved backwards before this goal kick happens. And as he does that, we've got more. We got a player in here to worry
16:14 about this. My winger is coming back watching him. My other winger is uh out of position and walking. Needs to get his butt back there. But that's a
16:22 different story alto together. But as you can see here, as that other eight moves back, he turns around, he looks, he looks behind him, see there's nobody
16:30 there. And then he sees, okay, this kid, I'm just going to step in front of him now because that ball was short. And then we are able to return back on the
16:37 attack as we go forward. So ways to deal with that is that manm marking/zonal marking between your six and your center backs or whatever defensive setup you have and also making
16:49 your midfielders in the center of the field. For my example, my two eights, making them more aware of what's going on behind them to get them more
16:56 connected so that they're not both pushed up. What's interesting here is it's in the second half of the same game. We're working on these pieces and parts. And now you can see the reaction
17:07 of my backline is much quicker. My six is still in the game. And you can see already he's turned and he's running.
17:13 You can see his body shape while he's keeping his head back looking. I have a different set of eights in there. One of the eights is there. And the other one,
17:19 the eight and the wing are swapped. But you can see now my team has much more urgency. They can see the other team is basically racing up the field. This kid
17:28 on the near side doesn't run with as much gusto as some of his teammates and some great footwork from my wing player and they get through up the field. But
17:37 what was interesting is as the game along went along, my players start to recognize, hey, we've now got to worry about this and we need to get off of
17:46 that center line and get behind it and keep our heads up for where that ball and those runners are coming from. You can see the punt really probably should
17:53 have went to the other side of the field where the other player was. Maybe he saw this player was in empty space back over in this area and thought, "Okay, I'll
18:01 put it there." But again, much deeper defensive set on that transition helps you with that component. Now, here's an example where we look at perhaps the man
18:12 marking. That big kid is now right here on the field. You could see him kind of uh dwarfing everybody else on the field.
18:20 All right. and my six is actually right here keeping an eye on things. You would expect my six to be here. But because we've said to him now, hey, your job is
18:31 to keep eyes on this kid at all time.
18:33 That's exactly what he's doing. So, you can see here this winger has come back to help because he realizes there's only two there. Here's my center back and
18:42 here's this center back. And my winger is covering his winger as is his responsibility on our system. So, we'll play this through here. We have some opportunities here to
18:55 win the ball. Gets a little messy here, but again, watch. He's just watching.
19:00 Actually, it's really interesting right here because at this point, this has now been happening for a little bit. You could actually see this kid giving him eyes like, "Are you still looking at
19:14 Because now that's what's been happening much of the second half is he's basically just been following him around and he's actually getting pretty annoyed with it because nobody's ever done this
19:22 to him before. It's kind of amusing.
19:24 He's got eyes. He sees he's there again. Right. So we're getting in his head a little bit, but he's just keeping them in front of him, keeping he doesn't
19:34 have to be in manmarking. You don't have to be in the kid's shirt the whole time, but he knows where he is the whole time.
19:39 He just took another glance over to look for him to see where he was. Part of manmarking is letting that player know, I'm going to be with you wherever you go
19:47 on the field. And for some of these kids, it starts to get in their head. You can see here he's running across. He has them in front of him. Not
19:57 the most orthodox sort of uh situation here. Ball kind of kicks back on the turf. We actually get a handball out of that, but better situational on that.
20:07 Here we have a goal kick. Now again, you can see now this is a good example. It's a really good example here. Here's our manm marking. They're literally tangled
20:16 up like 77's actually pushing him at this at this moment. Here is one of my eights all the way back into the defensive half. Center back here, center
20:25 back keeping since the ball is on this side of the field, the center back's cheated over. Here is my winger tucked in. Here's my other eight. Here's my
20:35 other winger. And here's my striker. So, we've really now pushed the whole operation back. We've given them places to play, but we've taken away most of the main options that they may go with.
20:46 And you'll see here in this situation, they're now trying to force the ball. It actually hits my striker. So, then they take another long shot. It hits my
20:55 winger and we get inbound and get a shot on net at least with that retrieval. So, again, changing our pressing options.
21:03 The man-to-man. Now it's starting to make them think twice about playing to that big kid. We've pulled back some more of my midfield players. The eight is almost acting as a six, helping out
21:13 in the back, keeping things in front of them. And then we're just keeping a token presence around the players that they might try for or being in the way
21:20 of where they go. And you can see in that example, goal kick, they couldn't get it up and out, hit my striker who was standing right in front of them.
21:27 They go for another long ball. It goes straight to my winger who then ends up getting a shot on that. So coaches, I hope you found that useful and
21:35 informative and could see some of the things we were starting to try and do to do a better job with dealing with these teams that are playing long ball. Now,
21:43 we've spent a little bit more time in our practices talking about having a better and slightly deeper defensive state and setup to go in our defense setup instead of pushing up so high.
21:54 Being more quick to recognize that we need to drop off a little bit more. And then when we're in possession, honestly, being able to move the ball around
22:02 through the backline to move these big teams around because they're not that mobile. They're not that good at that game. They're used to somebody just being direct with them all the time. And
22:11 we're finding a little bit more success as we go along in the season. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, share, and give me a comment.
22:18 And if there's another sort of situation you see a lot happening in your games, let me know. Maybe I've seen it, too.
22:24 Maybe have some footage, or maybe we can just talk about it. So, otherwise, I don't have much more to say today. Uh, no ranting or anything else at the
22:31 moment. So, I hope you're all having a great end of season if it's your spring season like it is for mine. I mean, to try out season, which is always a
22:39 administrative nightmare, but maybe I'll talk about that someday. But until next time, I hope you're doing well on the field. I'll see you real soon. Bye-bye.
