Possess the ball – a new philosophy – Craig Foster




One of the challenges facing this country,
and particularly the FFA in their quest to make improvements in the long term
to Australian football, is to develop a culture of football, which is almost
the complete opposite to where we are at this point in time.



A culture, which values the ball over the athlete, skill over strength, and
football intelligence over graft and effort.

We will need to develop intuitive players who are adaptable during a game by
instinct not input, and the natural precursor to this of course is first to
develop intelligent coaches.

As Johan Cruyff once said, how can the student be better than the teacher?

So, to produce outstanding players we need excellent coaches who have an
understanding at the highest technical level.

This is indeed a long-term project requiring tremendous improvement in our
licences and methodology, but in the meantime one area that can be addressed is
to continue to advance the understanding of the football community,
particularly at the grass roots level, of what represents ‘good football’, and
of the importance of a philosophy of play based on possessing the ball.

Yet when we talk about a culture of the game and particularly a philosophy of
play, all those reading this with a good understanding of the game will know
that all around us are signs that at present our national philosophy is
deficient.

For instance, visit any junior club around the country and you will see more
running than playing, and most players being encouraged to play the ball
forward as soon as possible, regardless of the quality of the pass or any
evaluation of the option chosen.

In other words, there is a predominance of lumping the ball forward for big,
quick and usually strong kids to chase, to the detriment of players who prefer
to hold the ball and build up play in a slower and more intelligent manner.

This is a by product of a poor football philosophy inherited from England,
which values fast play over good, and which manifests itself in poor youth
coaching.

But this is a short sighted strategy which is anti player development since,
whilst this may win games for now, this style of play produces technically
deficient players who will be learning nothing about how to play the game which
is precisely, and only, what junior football is for!

And not only is it boring for the players, enforces results over fun and
enjoyment and therefore arguably produces a larger drop out rate of youngsters
in the early teens, it is in fact also ineffective once the players mature and
their physical strengths converge as adults.

Every junior club in the country should be teaching their coaches to appreciate
that until the very late teens, the total focus must be on producing players
who understand and can play the game, that is to say they can control and
manipulate the ball with great skill, maintain possession both individually and
collectively, intelligently construct an attack and respond well in defence,
and that teaching these principles of play fundamentally must take total
precedence over results.

And we will only be starting to improve when every youth coach is judged on the
quality of players he produces, not on the amount of trophies he wins.

We must all recognise that effort and running alone don’t win football matches,
technique, skill, and intelligent players do. That is why Brazil and Italy have nine
World Cups between them, Germany
three and Argentina
two. Because their football cultures, and their philosophy of play, are based
on these characteristics.

If you want absolute confirmation of the need for change, this year take a look
at the Under 14 or 15 National championships where tour best juniors come
together, and you will see that I am right.

These championships are shockingly low on teams that are both technically (that
is the individuals are capable), and tactically (the team works together,
demonstrates good cohesion, and can solve problems collectively), competent at
keeping the football for long periods.

Or, better still; take a look at our national teams.

Both the Joeys and Young Socorro’s who failed at even the earliest Asian
pre-qualifying stage could not keep the ball; clearly neither could the 17
girls. In fact the only team that played with any reasonable tactical skill was
the Under 20 Young Matildas, as yet our only youth age team to qualify though
Asia, who were intensely trained to do so and proved, as did the Socorro’s,
that when our teams are well coached they are capable of adaptation.

This inability to play to a high level is a factor of both culture and
philosophy.

And it remains a fundamental problem even at the highest senior levels of our
game.

In the last few weeks you might have noticed Sydney FC struggle for long
periods to keep the ball against pressure, likewise Adelaide United against the
Vietnamese, and the best sign of what our poor philosophy of football and no
insistence on playing from defence at junior levels produces, is to see
Australia struggle to play under defensive pressure against China in the second
half of the recent international.

So, enough of where we are, let’s explore some key elements of a good
philosophy of football.

Here is a start for any youth coaches and parents interested to know where they
now stand, and in what direction they should be heading:

1. To play the ball on the ground at
all times, which requires both supporting play and good technique;

2. To play short passes, which
requires players to support each other in attack and defence, and is harder to
defend and anticipate;

3. To play only longer balls in
response to a movement by a team-mate not in the hope of one – to move and ask
for the ball after which the pass is delivered;

4. To play longer passes, and
particularly those in the air, predominantly only when there is no closer
option and always into the feet of an attacker, never just into space for them
to chase;

5. To discourage young keepers in
kicking the ball long unless there is no other option (and even here one can
almost always be manufactured) and at all times have the keeper roll the ball
to a team-mate so the team can begin to play immediately from the back;

6. If, at any time, a youngster has
no option to find a team-mate, they should be encouraged always to keep the
ball. This may mean shielding it, keeping it moving to wait for a pass, or to
dribble forward to attack an opponent. At no time should they be told to kick
it away regardless of the position they play or where they are on the field,
and if the child loses the ball they should be encouraged to try again;

7. To encourage players to express
themselves through their football and recognise that everyone is not the same,
and shouldn’t play so. Some play fast, others slow, some play simple, others
read situations and find more complex solutions, and some have enough skill to
individually dominate a game, while others can only dream of doing so, but all
should be allowed to find their own game not forced to conform to a uniform way
of playing;

8. And, to SLOW DOWN, or more
specifically, vary the speed of play during a game, which requires a team to
hold the ball. After working to recover possession, every young team should
break forward only if they have an advantage in attack, otherwise they should
slow the play down and possess the ball, back and across the field, resting and
starting to position themselves in attack to take advantage of overloads in
numbers, or weaknesses in defence. Youth coaches need to understand that the
object of football is to keep the ball and to score goals through breaking down
a defence with passing and skill, not by booting the ball forward hoping for a
defensive mistake.

And of course a change in philosophy has ramifications for youth training.

It means that at youth levels, the only suitable training sessions should be
completely with the ball, with every player touching the ball between 500 and
1000 times, refining technique and 1 v 1 skills, learning the game principally
by playing in small games of 2 v 2, 3 v 3, 4 v 4, 5 v 5 and overload practices
such as 4 v 2, 4 v 3, 5 v 2.

In this way good coaches can coach the key moments when in possession, the
opponent in possession or the changeover, build awareness in the players to aid
understanding and decision making, and allow the players to develop a fee for
the game that comes only from thousands of hours playing it.

But at the same time the uneducated coach – such as the voluntary parent
supervisor – can, by playing these games, give the players a structure, which
aids their learning process without having to coach specific points of play.

All fairly straightforward, but a long, long way from where the bulk of our
young teams are at right now.

So, how do you know where your club or coach stands from a philosophical point
of view? One of the best ways is by their instructions to the players.

If the coach encourages players to slow down and relax on the ball, to take
their time, to possess the ball, to support each other, to play together, to
take opponents on, to take up positions at angles to each other, to circulate
the ball quickly around the team, to play one and two touch football, to create
triangles and diamonds in their play, to pass backwards when no forward option
is rational, to use the goalkeeper to maintain possession, to read game situations
and play away from pressure not into it, and to recognise and create numerical
overloads, they are on the right track.

If you hear a coach telling players to ‘get rid of it’, ‘clear their lines’,
‘get it in the box’, ‘get stuck in’, ‘don’t play at the back’, ‘don’t take
risks’, telling a keeper to kick the ball long or players to ‘hit the
channels’, run a million miles.

Your child is in danger of becoming a boring and uninventive player, and is
most unlikely either truly to discover the joy of playing the ball, or to even
excel in the game against other players who have spent a decade or more
possessing the ball.

And as to the physical aspect and all those coaches who want to make their
young players run instead of learning to manipulate the ball and the game
itself, yes, at the elite level players are very strong and often gifted
physically like Thierry Henry and Kaka, but just like these two the best are
footballers before athletes, and value technique over physique, because they
recognise that runners don’t make it to the top any more in football.

And don’t forget that Australia has always been physically strong, but we only
started to improve when Guus Hiddink finally told the players to keep the ball,
to play out from the back (or in his words, ‘to start the attack from
defence’), to use space more intelligently through better positional awareness,
to stop hitting the ball forward in hope or desperation, to understand how to
utilise the team’s spare man to keep possession, to support the ball possessor
in attack, and to be patient and play in all directions in the build up phase
until in a position to strike at the opponent.

These are the principles, which underline the correct philosophy of football,
and the very ones every junior club and coach should be required to teach.

Sometimes, of course, pictures tell a story most effectively and I was recently
sent an excellent video presentation by former Marconi player and now youth
coach Vince Colagiuri, which is one of the best discussions into a youth
development philosophy of football that I have seen.

It compares the philosophy of play at youth level in the USA against
that of Brazil,
and the findings presented about the USA correlate exactly to what is
happening here in Australia.

The video, titled Player Development Philosophy can be seen by clicking here and
should be required viewing for every youth coach in the country.

Once you have watched it, you would do the game a great service by distributing
it to your entire football email database, and thereby being proactive in
encouraging debate about Australia’s
philosophy of football.

Because through debate comes understanding, and until we arrive at a better
one, our kids will not be given the best chance to excel.

Let me know your thoughts at craig.foster@sbs.com.au

Best wishes and, as always, enjoy your football.

Last modified: 29 March 2007 05:27:02