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0:01 well hello welcome back it's coach KW here taking a couple of weeks off uh lots of soccer going on in my world and a little bit more to go here in the
0:10 season happy to be back um this video tonight I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit because uh I've got a lot of questions about 9v9 everybody's anxious
0:20 to get off a 7v7 and get to 9v9 and while this Channel right now is really dedicated to 7v7 soccer I understand that lots of people are looking to the
0:29 future of the well what do I do like what am I doing in 7v7 that's going to help me in 9v9 so I want to talk a
0:35 little bit about that because while I'm not really going to talk about how to play 9b9 here I want to help you think about how you will think about it
0:44 yourself because really the ultimate goal is 11 V1 and that's kind of the trick of this so we're going to go back to the tactics board um as opposed to
0:51 just staring at the computer screen move some magnets around and try to have some fun okay so as I've said before 7v7 soccer really is the foundation setting
1:01 for everything that comes after 9v9 and 11 v11 and I'm pretty adamant about how to play 7v7 with the one 1231 because again I feel for Town level soccer
1:15 especially this formation lets you teach all the different components that you're going to need when you get to the full field game at 11v 11 so we have keeper
1:25 we work on that we have Central Defenders they work as a pair that comes in hand as we'll see in a little bit we have Central midfielders we have wide
1:34 midfielders SL attackers SL fullbacks because they're moving up and down and we have an attacker so we've covered all the areas on the pitch that eventually we're going to get to at 11 V1 so try
1:45 not to look ahead down at the below section the thing to understand with 7v7 is it's the foundational but it's not necessarily going to set you up for 11
1:55 v11 so a couple of comments I've got in the comment section which I love comments in the comment section uh please keep them up is would you call
2:05 these a two or a three or would you do something different what is this for 11 v11 and when I look at 7v7 I don't think about 11 v11 except for the fact that
2:15 using this formation you're training all the relationships and areas of the field and skills you're going to need eventually at 11 v11 9v9 is a weird animal 9v9 and the formation you play in
2:31 9v9 should be dictated by what you're going to do in 11 v11 so while 7v7 to 9v9 doesn't have a direct correlation because I play this formation in 7v7 I'm
2:43 going to play formation B in 9v9 that's not the way to look at it you look at it as when I get to 11 v11 my town or my
2:55 area or my preference for playing an 11 v11 is going to be X back up a step now and say how can my 9v9 formation support those goals so
3:08 that when I have my kids for two years in 9b9 I'm setting them up for success in the formation I ultimately want to play at 11 v11 and that's where that
3:18 connection comes it's not from 7v7 to 9v9 it's 11 V1 to 9v9 and sometimes people get hung up on that again that's my opinion but I feel like if you think
3:29 about it logically you pretty much the only conclusion can come to because the sep7 game is so far away from the demands of 11 v11 that you really can't
3:40 make a direct comparison you're setting themselves up for a foundational success so that as they grow they've built on those skills you need at 11 v11 but 7v7
3:52 doesn't translate necessarily straight to 11 v11 except in some overarching ways that again you are training players for relationships and let's talk about those relationships in a minute okay so
4:07 here we are in our preferred formation right and if you watched the video I have on the relationships for the defensive relationships of players I've got two videos that break down each
4:18 positional area keeper Center Defenders wide Center mid and attacker and it talks about their defensive responsibilities on the field specifically if you look at those again it covers all the different areas of the
4:32 field and the ways that a player would have to approach that and the relationships they have with neighboring players if you look at that and extrapolate that out to 11 v11 I think
4:42 you can naturally make those connections so take a look at those videos of that interests you but here with 7v7 we have those relationships both attacking and
4:51 defending we obviously have this natural relationship with these two players here central Defenders because they have to move together in certain ways to be successful we have relationships from
5:04 these Central Defenders these two players and this player as a center mid in a triangle and how they interact together we have interactions with wide players and Central players and
5:15 attackers we have relationships with this player with players behind in support and it overlaps and things like that so there's a lot of relationship building that happens at 7v7 that sets
5:27 the foundation so when thinking about 9v9 you want to take a look at what it is you want to do at 11 v11 and then make that transition I'm going to share
5:37 with you what we do in my town and why we do it this way and why our goals are to be this way but your town or your
5:45 preference might be something different you may have a different class of player you may have much more athletic and dedicated players again if this is a club coach watching this you should know
5:54 most of this and I'm not telling you anything new this is really again for Town level players kids who are going to be playing up to seventh or e8th grade
6:02 and then heading off to high school they're not the level of an MLs next or an ecnl or na or whatever alphabet suit player that's playing at a higher level
6:11 of Club um than what you know a high school team there's some fantastic high school teams don't get me wrong I'm just saying they're not always are the equal
6:21 to that this is for Town level soccer so for us in our town what we've fallen into is a modified version of the 4231 and I have it set up here on the bottom
6:33 of the board to save some time and what I say by a modified version of the uh 4231 it's that we've taken some pieces of it that lots of other teams play
6:45 again in all these formations there are lots of different ways and philosophies you can play it we play it a certain way and one of the ways and the reasons I'm
6:53 going to show you in a minute we do it is we realize that our players especially these wide players they don't necessarily come with the stamina built
7:01 in to run the full field in seventh and eighth grade they just don't so a lot of times you know we have coaches that come in and like oh I want to play a 4-33
7:10 because you know what they've seen Man City and Liverpool play it and other players and they think oh I'm going to do that but if you look at that game in
7:18 the modern sense these fullbacks are acting as wide Wingers half the time running up and down this pitch over and over again your typical seventh and eighth grade Town player does not have
7:31 the stamina to be making 70 yard runs up and down the field so it's unrealistic to think that you're going to take a team and play in a 4-33 like a Liverpool
7:40 or a man city or insert any name of team that you watch on TV because they're not the same type of player right so you have to realize what it is you're going
7:49 to have when you get there there are ways to play the 4-33 or any other formation in ways that may support the types of players you have our choice is
7:58 this the four 2 31 and the way that we do this is we utilize these two players as two sixes and a 10 so we have this
8:08 triangle in the middle but these two players along with these two wide players really form the backbone of this team in as much as the way we have
8:17 defined playing this system is these two players are double pivot and they work on a seesaw so when the ball is on this side of the field we instruct these
8:26 players to rotate like this on now this supporting my center backs and this wide player tucks in so now this wide player pulled up in here and now we're trying
8:40 to surround that ball and have numerical superiority on that side of the field in this type of formation for us what this gives us is a strong rest defense these
8:50 three plus one gives us a nice solid foundation and so if things go south here we have a really solid foundation is there Wide Open Space over here there
9:00 sure is but again at this level of town level soccer 40 and 50 yard Crossing balls from here to here with pressure on is very unlikely and if it does happen
9:13 in the air it's plenty of time for these players to shuffle over to this side of the field I do this with my teams when I coach the higher level teams uh seventh
9:21 grade teams in my town is I'll have somebody knock a ball from here to here and have this backline shift and that ball comes over and by by the time the
9:29 ball bounces twice these players are already over to this edge of the box or further it really is that easy for them to do so we do this but the key point of
9:38 this is when the ball slides over here now my six drops so these two have pivoted over this guy comes up these guys come over and now this player drops
9:48 in so it allows this player to not have to bomb up and down the field and only this player to now move forward along with this wide Winger and the striker
9:58 Etc ET ET so the idea is we're conserving energy by doing this Tick Tock if you will these two players kind of sliding back and forth and the wide
10:08 player sliding back and forth what does that have to do with 9v9 well because we are playing this sort of formation in 11 v11 if I reset these and pull this out
10:19 of the way if we were to look at this as 7v7 it'd be really easy all I'd have to do is take these four players away and what do we have back two Center mid
10:33 y players and this we now have the mirror of that so that's simple so what do I do at 9v9 so for what I do at 9v9
10:43 and again because it's supporting this sort of thing now I want to reinforce this pair working together and so all I do for 9b9 is I simply add two Defenders
10:56 or'll just grab whatever color I basically add two Defenders Behind These Defenders now what do I have here I've got if you look at it this way it looks
11:09 like the 7v7 with two Defenders on it if you look at it this way it now starts to look like that 4231 that we had going on
11:21 here because we're just missing these two lower wide players on the field so now when I go to 9b9 I'll be adding these two players these two players who
11:32 usually were a pair as Defenders now we're going to be a pair of sixes and now we're going to train them to do the sliding back and forth 9v9 I don't
11:41 necessarily need to have four Defenders back there so I can afford to keep these players high when I slide over like this I still have this rest defense of three
11:52 players because it's 9v9 so there's a little less attacking Force going on there's two less players so three players is a a good option to have a
12:00 nice rest defense in case another team is pushing three three attackers up against us at least it's one V one and most of the time in 9v9 you see a 332 or
12:10 4-31 and so they're not pressing three players up so you hope to have a numerical superiority there but now we're working on the partnership of these two players searing back and forth
12:22 as the ball moves from one side of the field to the other you're working on these wide players where you can tell them times you do need to come into the
12:31 back line because now maybe they do have a little bit more stamina on a half-size field 9v9 remember is half of an 11v 11 field so you can work on that piece as
12:40 well to say hey we want to be more defensive in the game drop back in when the balls on the other side and let's just worry about we've now got five
12:49 players around this ball we should have numerical superiority if we need it ideally we keep this player out why because in the 9v9 game and in this
12:58 version too the 11 v11 really the idea is when you've overloaded one side of the field you're looking to win the ball get it through the 10 or the nine out
13:06 wide and they'll break out this way and that's the same concept we're going to have here at 9v9 but again this 9v9 situation is directly influenced by this
13:16 11 v11 and again we can do lots of things we can call this a 431 we could call this a 4211 we could call this lots of
13:27 different things the way I like like to think about 9v9 is it's really a 251 with a Midfield triangle that's kind of the conceptual way I want my players and
13:37 coaches to think about this is we have a Midfield triangle so we can work on rotations where the players can rotate around and they can invert the triangle
13:45 depending on what's going on maybe with down a goal we need to be more offensive we just Le one player back and now we push it up and that's the same concept
13:53 that happens in this same concept that happens in a 433 if you're playing a diamond Midfield so it's a great way to train all those pieces but
14:01 again this 9v9 was dictated really by this and that's sort of what I want to leave you with is as you think about how you're getting through to 7v7 and what
14:11 you're going to do with that as you get to 9b9 hopefully you're working on playing out of the back hopefully you're playing out of some possession here so
14:21 the players get used to this it gets really hard that second year 7v7 because the field that felt enormous when they were third graders now feels tiny when
14:29 the field size doubles but only two players go on it's going to feel enormous again and if you're a team can already possess the ball through the
14:36 back passing when you get the 9v9 you're really going to start to dominate games because you'll be able to move the ball effectively and efficiently while the
14:44 other team is chasing a lot on The Big Field you'll wear them down especially in that first year where everybody's a little smaller and younger and then as
14:52 you get up to the second year of it it gets a little tighter again it makes it a little bit harder but at least you worked those skills and you've develop
14:59 them over time they should get better and better at it also remember there's no build out line in 9b9 so now they're going to be pressed right up against
15:06 your box so developing these skills to be able to play out of the back on the smaller field is going to just pay all sorts of difference when you get to 9v9
15:13 and 11 V1 so I hope this is helpful of thinking about the future of 9v9 and hope answers a lot of those questions that you send me that i' love to answer
15:23 on the comments about 9v9 is really a reflection of 11 v11 work backwards don't try to work forward from 7b7 remember to like subscribe share with your fellow coaches if you think this
15:35 has been useful for you because again we're trying to make sure that we can get our kids the most Progressive and informed coaching from you to help them
15:43 be better players to be better supported when they make it maybe to the high school level or they decide to go to Club level or Beyond so until next time
15:52 thank you very much have a great day bye
