JOGO FUNCIONAL

  There's something bubbling in football's undercurrent. After many years of positional dominance the conversation seems to be meandering. An alternative has been proposed to Positional play's domination,  as the discourse develops we will get exposed to more relational or functional teams, it won't be long before the masses will begin to want something more.  However, positionism's day is far from nigh, as an industry we created a linear and coherent approach to  the 'development' of football. Rigid and sectoral curriculums and periodisation models were imposed as well as imitated, trickling down into the academy structure and now externally from the professional environment in to youth football. The positional model has also been strictly imposed on to how federation's educate their coaches, influencing several factors that shape how football will be played and directed in the long term.  The globalisation and homogeny of our sport, through the tactica...

Written by Roman Quane (aka Jogo Funcional)  There's been a lot of interest on X lately for uncovering the secret of relationism, how can I as a coach assimilate it? There must be a magic formula or training model that I can impose to get my players performing escadinhas/corta luz and toco y me voy? Initially, coming from a positional mindset, I thought the same.  In this article I look to explore how a coach can create an environment for relationism, I'm not going to hold your hand and give you exercise's but I'll look to provide insight into how we can create rather than imitate.  There is so much information to us available online about positional play, you don't need to look far to see articles that go in depth and explain every intricacy of what it is- superiorities, third man, 5 lines of attack, rest defence and have all since become universal footballing concepts. Look on YouTube then suddenly several training sessions from positional coaches will pop up, the...

  When does utopia become dystopia? When football is institutionalised to the point where everybody thinks exactly the same.  MY PERSONAL JOURNAL  Lets rewind a little, I decided to start journaling my thoughts about football on X (and subsequently this blog) to articulate how I've come to feel about the game over the last 15-18 months. In that time I've coached, a UEFA C licence, been doing analyst work in the BUCS Premier (the highest level of university football in England),  been studying at university, then was differed 'held back' a year and consistently been taking setbacks as I try to find a way to make a career out of my greatest passion, football.  After the resumption of football during the pandemic i started watching many leagues, European football always fascinated me but in this period i became truly immersed in it. I was inspired by watching Conte’s Inter, Gasperini’s Atalanta, Nagelsmann’s Leipzig, Bie...