Dan's Soccer Notes

For an introduction into how defenses work, watch Howard Chang's tutorial--watch it a few times. https://vimeo.com/209025500 Chang highlights these concepts: 1. Line Spacing -- the team defends by keeping the forward, midfielders and defenders close together 2. Shape (density--expanding and compressing laterally) 3. Setting the line -- keeping people outside the 18 yard box, or  6 yard box. 4. Check for runners -- head is always swiveling to keep track of offensive players Here are some useful defensive phrases used on the field: 1. "Plus one" This means the defense always has one more player than the offense. Man-to-man defense is untenable in competitive soccer. In the above example, 7 has a free kick. The opposing team has kept two forwards high, so we keep 3 defenders back. 2 + 1 = 3. Very simple. Now it is the second half. We are trailing and need a goal. The opposing team has only left one player high, so player 3 moves up to participate in the att...

Few players in their young teens can put a corner kick accurately in the 6 yard box. In fact, you have probably even seen pros hit a corner kick poorly at least once or twice a game. Thankfully, kicking the ball directly to the box is not the only option for scoring on a corner kick. First up, I have to make a big warning for any short corner option. WATCH THE OFFSIDES! Once the kicker passes to another player, the defense can push up, leaving attackers in an offside position. Attackers have to watch the defenders. Often, young defenders are focused on the ball and marking players and don't clear the box as a first instinct, which is good for us. Let's start with an easy pass to the fullback. Here we try to give the fullback Player 2 a shot or pass to the far post. So everybody is getting out of the way. 5 runs toward the kicker to draw his defender out. He's pretending to be a short corner option. 10 makes a run to the top of the box where he can receive a pa...

Here is a wind velocity diagram of a hurricane. The lines show the direction of wind flow. In soccer the same thing happens with player movement, only the the ball rotates the opposite direction as the players do. How does that work? Have you ever seen one of these puzzles? When a piece slides into an open space, the open space moves the other way! When a player moves into open space to collect the ball, where does the open space go? It is where the player just left! Now rotate this slider puzzle so it looks like how we play: diagonally. Green has the ball. He can't play forward because there is no space. The pass will be intercepted. So he plays back. Blue moves into space to collect and has only one option: the space he just created. Luckily, Grey was already moving into the space, which now leaves space for Green to receive the ball in the forward direction. The players all move clockwise, while passing counterclockwise. This is how soccer is played! Thi...

3-2-3-2 The 3-2-3-2 is a formation used exclusively in youth soccer and yields fantastic results. One soccer coach I know  knew little about soccer, but his teams won state championships year after year. His teams used this formation to beat teams with far better skill at all positions. As you can see, the 3-2-3-2 has a ton of advantages: 1. Maximum number of passing options with triangles and diamonds all over the field 2. More lines (4 instead of 3). This means: 3. Shorter range passes, and 4. Less distance to run in transition 5. Strong central position -- it's like having 3 center midfielders 6. Defend with 5 players 7. Transition with 5 players 8. Attack with 5 players 9. Midfielders line up naturally in coverage gaps of common formations. Just take a look at all these short passing options! It has only two obvious drawbacks. 1. 3-2-3-2 is a narrow formation. It can be beat with a wide attack using long crosses. However, most kids at this age can...

Welcome soccer players and supporters! To kick things off, let's go to a real classic. This video comes from Howard Chang.  https://vimeo.com/213286495 . The video came out just 2 years ago and is already a fixture in the online soccer training world. Watch it a few times and make sure to understand the basic concepts of individual movement. 1. Always move. 2. Always look. 3. Don't always move straight. Read on. There's lots more. Now let's apply those simple concepts to team play. 1. Move into space This is how you get open. It's also how you move defenders. Moving into space between defenders is critical for strikers to create opportunities for runs and through balls for other players. 2. Move diagonally Moving up and down the field is exactly what the opposing defense wants. Most of our movement should be diagonal or transitioning from lateral to diagonal, or diagonal to vertical, because this puts us between defenders. Soccer is a zone de...