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- Herausgeber: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
In order to achieve the result you're aiming for, you have to have a plan. In soccer, you need a match plan. Some of the most successful soccer coaches devise match plans for every one of their team's matches. A match plan describes a strategy that is used to be ideally prepared for the next match and be able to react to shifts in tactics or to particular match situations. This book aims to provide every soccer aficionado with a practical insight into the topics of match ideas, tactics, match systems and match plans using easy-to-understand language. On that basis, the author identifies advantages and disadvantages of various formations utilized by top teams and then uses match plans to analyze how those formations can be defeated in play.
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Timo Jankowski
Successful German Soccer Tactics
The Best Match Plans for a Winning Team
Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.
Contents
For my father, who now watches the most beautiful game in the world from way up high.
The contents of this book were carefully researched. However, all information is supplied without liability. Neither the author nor the publisher will be liable for possible disadvantages or damages resulting from this book.
CHAPTER 1 Soccer Starts in the Head
“Soccer always starts in the head, and from there it moves through the body to the feet, never the other way around.”
Iniesta demonstrating game intelligence against multiple opponents©picture-alliance/dpa
Soccer enchants and fascinates people like no other sport does.
Playing accomplished soccer at the highest level depends on many factors, such as athleticism, technique, tactics, game intelligence, mentality, and personality, all of which must be perfectly synchronized.
Any one of these factors alone does not bring success.
What characterizes a good soccer player is the intelligent merging of each of these individual factors to find the optimal solution for each game situation.
By using strategic measures that can be divided into individual, group, and team tactics, these factors can then be transferred to an entire team.
When two teams are evenly matched, in the end it is a good game idea, the right tactics, the appropriate system, and the perfect execution of a plan that emphasize the abilities of each individual player and bring success.
Every soccer magazine and every live soccer broadcast refer to and even depict terms like tactics, system of play, formations, 1-4-4-3, and match plan, but rarely are they explained in any detail.
Often the significance of these terms is underestimated, because at the end of the day, every success in soccer is the result of training, hard work, and detailed planning.
This funny but true anecdote illustrates the importance of tactical principles in soccer:
A youth coach says to his players: “Today the five of you will play in the back!” One of the young players courageously replies: “Uh, Coach, where exactly is the back and can I occasionally come forward?” The coach replies: “Hmm, good question…”
How are young players supposed to understand the game as a whole without understanding a game idea or tactic?
How are they supposed to learn that an attacker must also switch to defense after a turnover and that a defender gets involved in attacking play during possession?
Even at a young age, tactical themes can be explained in a fun way. Though terms like tactics or switching over don’t need to be mentioned at all, a tactical education process can already begin at a young age.
Throughout the history of soccer, each successful coach has always prepared and organized his team based on tactical considerations and plans, as well as his team’s—and the opponents’—strengths and weaknesses, further illustrating the importance of tactics.
Terms, such as the WM-system (1-3-2-2-3) created by former Arsenal coach Herbert Chapman and used by Germany in their 1954 World Cup victory, or the Italian Catenaccio (1-5-4-1) perfected by Helenio Herrera of Inter Milan, are deeply anchored in soccer history.
The well-known coach and three-time World Cup participant Guus Hiddink is convinced that a trainer should always focus on tactics first, because that is what soccer’s performance factors build on.
A coach must always be certain of his game idea and tactical requirements first before he can deduce the appropriate content for his training units.
Successful coach Guus Hiddink©picture-alliance/dpa
In soccer, a player is only as good as the next game, which is why a soccer coach always has to think about how to purposefully transfer a game idea and tactical measures to his team in order to win the next game.
Being optimally prepared for every game requires a plan for every single game day—the match plan.
The purpose of this book is to provide anyone who is interested in and enthusiastic about soccer with information on topics such as game idea, tactics, switching play, zone soccer, as well as advantages and disadvantages of various formations based on an analysis of world standards. After reading this book, you can apply these ideas and background knowledge to independently develop a specific match plan for a single game.
Have fun reading and putting it to use!
CHAPTER 2 Complexity Factors in Soccer
“We play best when the opponent isn’t there.”
Otto Rehhagel, 2004 European Champion with Greece©picture-alliance/dpa
First, I will explain the most important factors that make soccer such a complex high-performance sport and that greatly impact tactical considerations.
2.1 FOOT INSTEAD OF HAND
In soccer, the ball is played with the feet rather than the hands, like in basketball or team handball. Playing with the feet greatly increases the number of errors, because even with a perfect technique, the ball cannot be controlled nearly as well as it can with the hands. Because of their everyday use for activities such as writing or eating with a knife and fork, the hands allow for more finesse in sports than the feet do.
2.2 LARGE FIELD AND MANY PLAYERS
Other factors that make soccer a very challenging sport are the large number of players and the large playing field, which for international games must be 105 m long and 68 m wide per FIFA regulations, resulting in a 7140 m2 field.
Other team sports, such as team handball, basketball, or ice hockey, have fewer players and play on a smaller field, which creates many more scoring opportunities. So it is not unusual for basketball games to end with three-digit scores and team handball games with double-digit scores.
In soccer, however, a single moment can decide an entire game.
2.3 SMALL GOAL
Soccer originates in rugby. However, in todays’ rugby, players can put the ball down by hand behind the entire goal line to score a point on a playing field of roughly equal size, whereas in soccer the ball must be deposited into a 7.32 m x 2.44 m goal that is guarded by the only player who is allowed to use his hands.
2.4 EXTERNAL INFLUENCING FACTORS
External influencing factors, such as weather and the condition of the playing surface, also play a major role. Other team sports like team handball, basketball, or volleyball are played in a gymnasium where the floor is almost always the same and the weather is not a factor.
2.5 DIFFERENT QUALIFICATIONS
In soccer, the coordination of all athletic abilities, such as speed, coordination, strength, endurance, and agility, must be mastered to a degree that hardly any other sport requires. Other sports require an athlete to be well trained in only one of these abilities. In addition, the constant switching back and forth between offense and defense requires a high degree of game intelligence.
2.6 CONCLUSION
It is precisely because of this great complexity as well as a high degree of unpredictability and the many requirements that specific measures are needed to counteract the unpredictability principle in soccer as much as possible and to increase the probability of success.
Thus every coach needs to have a plan if he wants to train purposefully and improve his team.
The following approach would be the opposite and is unfortunately often used by coaches:
“What and how we train isn’t that important because almost everything that happens in soccer is coincidental!”
Now ask yourself whether you would like to train with such a coach.
The word training in itself suggests that I train systematically and intentionally to improve my performance.
“Every detail matters!”
Top teams can be seen playing recurring game situations that take place remarkably often and can’t be a coincidence.
By using the appropriate measures, it is possible for a team to create more scoring opportunities and to prevent the opponent’s scoring opportunities with defense.
Passing lanes and running lanes can be optimally synchronized so that exact implementation becomes more important than coincidence.
Standard situations, for instance, can be easily rehearsed and still have a lot of potential in soccer.
And, and, and…
CHAPTER 3 World Ranking Analysis: Characteristics of Top Players and Top Teams
“Look at the best team, learn from the best, be the best!”
Pele, World Player of the 20th century©picture-alliance/dpa
To begin with, every soccer coach must know what the distinguishing features of the best players and teams are. Only then can a coach develop suitable measures, such as a game idea, and a suitable training philosophy to train players at the highest level and with the highest standards.
Using a world ranking analysis, the best teams from the top international leagues as well as the Champions League, the Continental Championships, and, of course, the World Cups are analyzed and compared in order to make recommendations and to identify developments and trends in elite soccer. The following characteristics distinguish the top teams and top players in modern soccer.
World Champions Germany©picture-alliance/dpa
3.1 TECHNIQUE
All players, including the goalie, must have had perfect soccer training to be able to master all game situations under extreme pressure from the opponent and time limit.
The players must have perfect basic technical skills on which to build the respective techniques for positional play.
Here the 10,000-hour rule crops up once again. This rule says that it takes 10,000 hours to acquire a complex skill—for instance, a perfect positional playing technique in soccer.
An important point with respect to technique is that ball contact should be as brief as possible. Less ball contact separates the top teams from more average teams.
International top players pass the ball on average after one second!
Xavi – Perfect technique©picture-alliance/dpa
In addition, the former World Champions Iniesta and Xavi of FC Barcelona immediately pass on nearly every other ball with an extremely high success rate, making it extremely difficult for the opposing team to defend these players because the ball is changing locations every second.
During the 2012 European Championships, 11 out of 16 teams played far more than 500 passes on average per game. This statistic emphasizes the importance of passing play.
European Champion Spain even made an average 847 passes per game with a success rate of more then 80 %.
The goal of top teams is to appear as dominant as possible. To that end, it is important to have possession as much as possible.
This requires perfect passing. Because passing is the most common technical element in soccer, it must be mastered with both feet.
Every tenth of a second a teammate gains with an accurate and well-timed pass creates time for better decisions.
Technically perfect inside kick©picture-alliance/dpa
Compared to other kicks, such as the instep or outside of the foot, the inside kick offers the largest contact area and, therefore, the most accurate execution.
The run-up is straight toward the ball. The supporting leg is slightly bent toward the ball, and the supporting foot is approximately one to two foot-widths away from the ball.
The playing foot is rotated out at an approximately 90-degree angle to the supporting foot. The toe is flexed so that the sole is parallel to the ground. The arms provide balance with the elbows bent at the sides in a natural position.
As with every action, good body tension is important here. The ball must be struck in the center to keep it form bouncing.
3.2 ATHLETICISM
To be able to compete at the highest level, the fitness-related abilities of strength, endurance, speed, coordination, and agility must be perfectly developed and tailored to the specific position requirements.
Throughout soccer’s history, players’ running ability has greatly increased. Currently a team has to run 71.5 to 78 miles collectively if it wants to play at the highest level.
Elite soccer players run on average more than 7.5 miles per game.
Midfielders and wingbacks cover the most ground.
Mathieu Flamini of Arsenal London holds the European record of more than 9 miles per game.
Even international top-level goalies cover approximately 4 miles per game. The average heart rate for top soccer players who move throughout the game is 160 bpm, which is roughly 80 % of maximum oxygen absorption. This clearly attests to the greatly increased intensity at which these games are played.
Even more important than the amount of running is the quality of the running performance.
Cristiano Ronaldo—perfectly combined technique and athleticism©picture-alliance/dpa
Soccer has turned into a very intense intermittent serial sprint discipline in which a player has to complete up to 190 sprints per game.
In some cases, top international players run faster than 20.5 mph during a game when sprinting without the ball. This speed is not much slower than 100-m world record holder Usain Bolt, who ran an average 23 mph for his 100-m world record.
3.3 MENTAL FACTORS
Any player who takes the field in a lion’s den of 80,000 spectators or steps up to take the deciding penalty kick at a World Cup final must be very strong mentally.
Often it is precisely mental strength that determines whether someone makes the leap into pro soccer.
Self-confidence, assertiveness, passion, willingness to take risks, courage, and the desire to succeed are decisive mental factors.
Another important aspect is the player’s ability to handle criticism and to bring top performances under extremely high pressure.
More than a few coaches hold the following view:
“Mentality beats quality!”
Only those who won’t settle for anything less than the best performance can make it as pro soccer players.
In soccer training it is also extremely important to focus on healthy self-confidence at an early age.
