One of the areas we struggled in against our recent loss to Mustangs was our build out- how we lost the ball in front of our goal and they took advantage of it. Let's review what we want from our defense and midfield when building out, and how we plan on improving through training.
The below picture shows our build out that resulted in a goal against us. The first thing to notice is their high press with their striker and all three midfielders. This gives our defensive unit a problem to solve- do we go around, through or over them? If we don't go over them with a long kick the next problem is how do we go around, through or over them (with a short pass)?
The ideal build out position is our center backs are to the sides of the goalie, our wingers are wide touching the sidelines and our midfielder lower. So, in this picture, Julian would come down, Jera and Day would be touching the paint on the sidelines and Matteo in the middle as an option.
In this next picture we see their build out as a response to our pressing. In a small field like this we want our attackers to press as a unit- wingers press high against their center backs, like they were doing to us, while the striker presses the goalie. In this picture, Day and Jera would support Trystan's press hoping to cause an error and regain the ball in front of their net.
An unsupported striker isn't very effective and wears out quickly, as seen in this clip.
The last big area of improvement is our passing when in possession of the ball. In order to pass well we need to have supporting players that are open, this means they need to be wide and/or deep on the field with an open line of pass. The below picture shows us with the ball on a throw-in and how tight we are. When we are out of position we limit our passing options.
To summarize the above points, we need to improve our build out, pressing as a unit, and passing (which includes finding/creating space). It's important our players understand these principles so reading this blog post and discussing with them these ideas will help with that. I'd love to get questions in practice about what is written here.
To improve our build out, in practice we will work on quick passing and 1v1 skills to pass around, through and over on a high press. We will continue to ask our team to press as a unit and continue to practice the "Y" passing exercises and other pass-and-run drills to improve our passing. Our players need to work hard in practice to learn the skills and apply quick decision making, and be brave enough to use them in our games. This goes for our parents too, they need to be brave enough to allow our players to take risks in order to learn.
I'll leave you with coach Mike's pregame talk for the Elite game, where he discussed these very points.
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