Further debates have started to emerge in the shadows, is football in Europe too homogenous? Do we need a broader conversation around moving and standing game? Is tactical analysis reductionist? Another area of football that I love speaking about is pedagogy, the method and practise of teaching football. I feel that there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed in regards to coach education and how all coaches in Europe are being produced in exactly the same way, not to mention that the model which is being followed is not as 'optimal' as people in the game often make it out to be.
I'm referring to the model proposed by Paco Seriul-lo, the legendary former head of methodology at FC Barcelona, who pioneered these concepts, such as 'your space, my space', ultimately giving the world the blueprint for everyone else to follow. Information about how to 'assimilate' or 'construct' the positional model has penetrated every corner of the internet, YouTube is full of training sessions from Europe's biggest clubs, there are seminars on periodisation microcycles and e- books written by 'coaching experts' on building out from the back or playing the 'pep way'. This has resulted in a homogenisation of football methodology, each team prepares in the same way and this comes from coach education set by our federations.
After Barcelona's success other nations wanted to follow this model, to import these ideas wholesale to replace the existing footballing culture of their country, copy and paste templates changed the European coach overnight. Today, our academies conforms to session design templates that are deemed 'best practise', constraints led approach has been oversimplified and shapes intention (rather than encouraging them), whilst rigid structuralism and coach ego compromises a players individual spontaneity and functionalism.
The Brazilian's fought back against this hegemonic power, they fought to preserve their traditions, Diniz's Fluminense showed me (a coach who had known only positional play) that possession football could be something else other than playing through the thirds , numerical superiorities, zone occupation and 'optimal structures'. Relationism is not something a coach can assimilate, nor construct, construction happens when participation leads to action, its actions are embodied by its players and they are attuned to the changes in affordances, emotions and shared connections.
In this article I take an extensive look on a model that has been plagiarised by several federations across Europe after it was imported and globalised, understand the effect that universal principles and coach education has on practise design and finally, if a relational model can be proposed to oppose this.
To begin explaining Seriul-lo's training methodology, I'd like to start with a quote from the man himself, which I found in Simone Contran's excellent thesis- ''Our game is not made up of a succession of actions but a stochastic succession of phase spaces''. Occupying correct positions/zones in a pre defined structure is fundamental to the knowledge transfer from coach to player. Positional football is based on a spatial principle, a sequence of generated superiorities starting from the GK and moving through each line of the pitch, find the free man and advance.
There are free layers of knowledge transfer when coaching players using this model; known as 'the active zone, the zone of mutual help and the co-operation space'.
'The Active Zone' refers to the ball carrier and the space in his vicinity where other players have the opportunity to interact with the ball, for example the winger who is 1v1 with the FB.
'The Zone of Mutual Help' is where the players who are close enough to intervene with the ball but the distance between them restricts them from immediately interacting with the ball, but still close enough to intervene momentarily. For example, if the active zone is the Winger against the FB then a player in the zone of mutual help will be the no.8 making a half space run between two defenders, in anticipation of the pass behind defensive pressure from the ball carrier.
'The Co-operation space' refers to the players who have an indirect (dis)connection to the ball and do not take part in any direct construction of the attack, they are there to arrive into the box from departure positions- the far side no.8 or far side winger. Generally, this is where the initial knowledge transfer happens, to establish and familiarise the structure before any emergent actions or repetition can be drilled.
If you've been through the English system you might be thinking- this seems quite familiar- you would be correct, the FA have always told us to coach AWAY first, then OFF and finally the player ON the ball. Essentially, the FA plagiarised and watered down Seriul-lo's entire model, imported wholesale into a different footballing culture with no regard for the socio-cultural constraints and ecological factors that influence or have shaped our culture, traditions, attitudes ands our 'ways of knowing' about football.
'Ways of Knowing' (Gibson 1966) is used in sports pedagogy research to highlight sources of knowledge acquisition that are helpful in supporting human behaviour, there is knowledge about and knowledge of an environment. 'Knowledge about' is primarily external second hand information, providing a broader and general understanding, its methods are traditionally imparted through formal educational systems. On the other hand, 'Knowledge of' the environment is acquired through direct perceptual experience, active engagement with ones surroundings and it is notably contextual and situation dependent, allowing practitioners to navigate and adapt to different environments and stimuli.
Knowledge about develops an over reliance on universal principles and globalised models, leading to a generalised understanding of the environment, facilitating a more weighted coach-player interaction in knowledge transfer that is more dominant to the former. Players are not free to explore the affordances in the environment but facilitate the demands of repetition and behavioural constraints that the coach seeks to impose.
In this example, De Zerbi speaks about 'assimilating' behaviours in build up, the GK initiates the pressure by attracting aggressive pressure before using one of the double pivot to find the free CB, the universally known concept of finding the third man. ''The first thing that is trained is solutions, the GK waits for pressure and the rest of the players seek to occupy spaces''. The structure is set, the principles can be embedded and the decision making process strengthens with repetition of these intended outcomes.
Automation is fundamental because it seeks to strengthen a players decision making process, cognitive capacity and technical execution to make these actions more efficient. Recently, I have been reading the work of SilvaOB on X, his article on 'Automations' - pre defined patterns- is by far one of the most impressive pieces of work I've read on the subject, so I'm going to paraphrase it a little to explain why without automations the assimilation of a positional model does not happen.
It begins from 'acquiring information'- being aware of the positioning of teammates, body orientation, spatial awareness, opposition players, momentum of ball and game states. Secondly, a player process this information and projects emergent solutions or outcomes based on the drilled movement or positioning of his teammates and the passing angles available to him. The decision making itself is using this processed information to project an appropriate and 'advantageous' outcome and decide the appropriate technique.
Technical execution hinges on the 'correctness' of the decision made, body-brain orientation and demands of the speed of thought. Throughout a game a player is required to constantly assess and react to these scripted moments and respond 'correctly'- like mechanisms in build up that require finding the third man and breaking the initial line of pressure. These actions require geometrical structures that afford optimal angles, multiple options to the ball carrier and close proximity in result of a turnover.
Further up the pitch, automations have an equal influence on the behaviours of the individual, teams look for universal solutions such as half space runs and attacking in depth or a cutback finish in the 'second six yard box'- statistically where most goals are scored from. Automations generate the affordances to destabilise defensive blocks and attack in behind, there are queues and appropriate responses for every action- which is coached in Seriul-lo's framework that I explained earlier. Training exercises that result in combinations and finishing amongst attacking players are not designed to strengthen the behaviours between players but to embed these universal principles.
We've neglected small group exercises that were inter-sectoral for predominantly collective ones- positional games and unopposed combinations/patterns- 10v0 with mannequins for instance- exercises that are universally considered 'best practise' in the coaching community (4v4+3 position games) and that encourage 'correct decisions'. In the attacking third we see less embodiment of self expression, a player does not have creative control over his actions if certain advantages are continuously being looked to be generated and the ball forced or worked into one 'specific area'.
The importation of this globalised model was done specifically to produce only 'positional' coaches, embedding universal principles and establishing an organisation to promote repetition above all else is paramount to 'assimilating' a model. Standardised training curricula and templates may not reflect important local cultural context, undermining the development of a coaches creative and adaptive skills in session design. This is not exclusive to England, this model was imported wholesale in almost every federation in Europe, the Italian Federation uses acronyms such as; Construzione, Ampiezza, Rifinitura and Profonditá- Construction, Width, Penetration and Depth. Naturally, the FA has something similar (as you can imagine), whenever a coach developer makes a visit be sure to expect him to ask if you have 'Length, Width and Depth' in your attack.
This is where the idea of 'best practise' is so prevalent ; a coach must define learning outcomes, construct pre defined teaching and learning opportunities for efficient coaching interventions and design sessions that facilitate this. Again, at the FA were told to intervene and stop the session when the players have done something 'correct' to then reward and create an understanding of what needs to be 'repeated', that never appeased me even when I coached positional teams. The disconnect between the player and coach in its practical implementation when using these 'copy paste models' leads to the coach neglecting context in favour of universal principles, fulfilling institutional obligations and conformity. Fostering self emergent outcomes are not encouraged as we have over constrained the acquisition process.
I'm now going to explore the difference between coaching repetition vs functional movement and how this effects practise design. A team's organisation and coaching culture is prioritised before the needs of a player or developing their knowledge of the surroundings and how best to exploit acquired motor skills. To shape intentions, a coach implements task constraints to achieve specific learning outcomes, this facilitates an environment representative of a game. Some universal constraints may not replicate game situations or as Mark O' Sulivann says- promote effective perception action couplings, how humans regulate behaviour.
Two touch only constraints and 'there must be a minimum of X passes before a goal can be scored' or a progression to the next third of the pitch are the most common universal constraints that come to mind. Delaying and constraining emergent or individual actions to facilitate these 'shaped intentions' is incredibly detrimental to how a player perceives the environment around him, he's no longer looking for intuitive solutions but what is only deemed 'correct ones'. As O' Sulivann mentions in his paper- humans are surrounded by affordances which are always available to be perceived when these opportunities for action become meaningful.
Positional exercises encourage players to 'self regulate' their actions and separate emotion from logic, the coach imposes behavioural constraints to achieve a series of intended outcomes. Jamie Hamilton posted a video that caught my attention, Camilo Speranza, most recently the assistant manager to Paulo Pezzolano at Real Valladolid explained how he'd spent his whole career trying to get players to 'respect space 'and to for them to stop running forwards after the release of a pass. They are instead instructed to move backwards or to the side of the ball carrier to provide better support- moving game becomes standing game. If this player was to receive a return pass he can then appropriately open up his body, has optimal angles and can find the ball side.
When people often say that intuition or creativity is coached out of players I get the impression they're reforming solely to the final third and their actions there. I think the role of these positional exercises is far more influential to this argument than the players being governed by 'half spaces' or specific positional scaffolding, these tendencies are being interwoven into a players cognitive process, functionalism is in fact being trained out of them.
Verbal instructions from a coach can have an over constraining influence on actions performed and shaped intentions, a weighted coach-player dialogue surrounding zone occupation and arrival/departure points. Feedback is generalised- game model specific- and not personalised, players must comply to a game seen through the perspective of the coach. Practise design should be more open to interpretation and invite opportunities for transient actions and player led solutions in an organic context that isn't pre defined. Rather than imposing behaviours, a coach should challenge players to find solutions of playing through, around or over. Constraints should guide players to explore or encourage certain actions, not to dictate what actions they make because it's one of the 'intended outcomes' and complement repetition.
As O' Sullivan says in his paper, adopting a Constraints led Approach, an optimal framework for us to harness the non - linearity of player development, can often be interpreted as a negative influence and limit skill development by over constraining, especially with an approach that is centred to the 'game model'. It is often said that the 'game should be the teacher' - perhaps this is not what constraints models was intended to act as. 'Non linear' refers to small change in the physical, psychological and emotional characteristics of a player which can lead to changes in emergent behaviour.
In this example from Tuchel, he says constraints are important for breaking behavioural habits, forcing a desired action through manipulating the environment to avoid making repetitive coaching points, though the design of the session gears the practise to have repetition itself. There's nothing wrong with what Tuchel suggests, there was a defect in his team's performance - they were too reliant on finding affordances around and not seeking them through- as a result he's been creative to promote certain actions by manipulating the playing area. This exposes them to new situations that are more cognitively challenging.
Rather than a 'game centred' approach, could we promote a looser 'model' that is more lassiez fare? Where pedagogy isn't undermined by methodology and enhances the functionality of a player. An alternative where we go back to creating exercises that strengthen behavioural dynamics between players rather than embedding universal principles or following best practise. In an ecological dynamics framework, constraints highlight the complexity of non linear interactions while offering an explanation for emergent behaviours and associative actions. Skill and technique, a preference of intuition and player led actions form dynamic and moving interactions on the pitch and their surroundings.
I've often proposed the idea of 'Tabela players' in training, the jokers unlike in positional games are not fixed or used to generate numerical advantages or a more systematic approach to penetration, instead they are to encourage more dynamic and moving actions. The tabela player receives and must play back to the player he received from who runs beyond his pass to penetrate, rather than as the old cliche suggests 'to stand and admire your pass'. Or perhaps small spaced micro exercises where the conditions for certain moves are present, like a Paralela, diagonal facing goals with a 3v3 and an engagement line to promote depth, points are incentivised for scoring with give and go's, scoops and even more for a paralela.
Learning occurs during continuous developmental changes, this is articulated perfectly by Jake Pickles at a seminar explaining these more interactive constraints. He spoke about a pitch with 3 sectors, the coach can decide whether to let them play on a full pitch and then at his will change the boundaries to one of the wider sectors to invite players to tilt to the ball side and explore affordances there. Jake additionally spoke about implementing this approach to achieve more 'game centred' objectives, the defending team might only be able to defend in 2 of the 3 zones, this would encourage the attacking team to switch to the far side or to play aggressively through the defence dominant side with a tilt, whichever solution feels 'natural' to them.
The important thing is that the players are in a constant state of problem solving, players are not conditioned to make what is considered the 'correct choice' whether that is extra points through scoring with an overlap or half space run or switching to the far side. There shouldn't be one thing that the coach conditions the players to do, players shouldn't be looking for one specific outcome when there are a range of affordances that can arise in the game- learning the game vs looking for approval from the coach.
A coach manipulates the constraints to be responsive to the environment and the socio-cultural factors, for example certain SSG's or matches in reduced spaces favour the more physically dominant players, as a coach I have to find a way to create affordances where players can adapt through skill rather than physicality. Perception and participation leads to the construction of moving attacks, greater attention is paid to shared affordances which equates to shared interactions between skilful and adaptive players, facilitating maturation in the environment.
If I was to promote a methodology for 'functional movement' then i would not place an emphasis on repetition, instead encouraging players to learn from and explore the environment, develop relationships and exploit information moment couplings to help co-ordinate actions so they can play from the shared intention of affordances. This puts great value on an action like a Escadinha- Corta Luz and self emergent structures where defenders have to deal with multiple potential situations at once. The player adapts to the mutation of actions and where intention is disguised through deception, opening up several affordances locally.
Football should encourage relationships, connections and associations between players. the coach creates an environment that encourages socialisation and comfort above all else, supporting the players with high talent/low social competence to help them navigate these complexities better. For the coach it is essential to know about people and human nature, foster interpersonal relationships with good communication skills. As Diniz says- ''the human relationships that are established in the team are much more important than the tactical ones. People are at the heart of the game, not tactics''.
We've become accustomed to saying 'attacking organisation' when discussing how one team attacks, I much prefer what the French say- attacking animation- a team should be animated and not structured. The attacking animation through the ball zone with asymmetries, positional imperfections and sharing the space. Players are brought together to interpret a function which requires a greater reliance on intuition, in associative actions you have to react quickly to what is happening around you. Superiority cannot be just numerical, qualitative or positional but associative instead, mastering connection rather than an abstract conceptual objective.
I've adapted a model used by AIK Football that I feel helps me with getting these 'relational' concepts across, I started implementing it when I came across the work of James Vaughan and Mark O'Sullivan for the first time a few months ago. In the foundations for task design model there are 4 points of reference; the ball, direction, consequence and the opponent, with the representative information in the middle - to simulate a game like environment through practise tasks. This is how I interpreted it for a 'relational' playing idea.
Ball- How the players associate/relate between themselves, are the players close enough to form diagonals, escadinhas, toco y me voy- tabelas. They need to be receptive to these local affordances and local information.
Direction- what affordances are there? are they through, around, over or are they vertical or diagonal?
Consequence- turnover in possession- defensive diagonal- negative transition.
Opponent- The defensive behaviour (not structure) of the other team- man to man, zonal or hybrid? Has this changed when defending our tilt and our diagonals?
My practise tasks need to incorporate all 4 of these references whilst facilitating a 'game like environment'. There has to be perception- action coupling to maintain the connection between a player perceiving the environment and an action, a transfer of skills based on what the practise looks to help players explore (parallels/toco y me voy/escadinhas) which will result more likely in transfer into a game and the practises must include relevant information so players can become more attuned to it. Player voice and representation plays a fundamental part in my sessions, they are involved in promoting the strategic direction of attacks and supporting their teammate in the ball zone, this adds a layer of verbal and non verbal communication such as symbols, gestures and cues in body language.
As much as people ask me for insights into session plans I'm conscious about oversharing these on X as I believe there is a great opportunity for us to get inventive with the lack of information available. The best session design comes from ideas that feel personal to you, rigorous trial and error and removing any fixed positional scaffolding. It defeats the purpose of the homogeneity and institutionalism that we are trying to escape from in football currently, that's why I'll never publish an E book on it or try to monetise it because it's 'not in the public domain'. You can't fight the aggressive positional content machine like that, thats not what we should be doing.
Nobody should safeguard this sort of information but it shouldn't be pumped out aggressively at the same time, a lot of coaches or analysts that are fascinated with this discourse need to look more extensively into the literature. As I've said before, we get so caught up in the tactical paradigm that we don't appreciate that football can be understood from several different paradigms- I've learned more about coaching and primarily humans through diving deeper into ecological dynamics, socio-cultural constraints, representative information and shared affordances- which I've alluded to here- once you scratch the surface the literature available is phenomenal. Another reason why my stint at a UK university doing a 'football specific degree' was a complete waste of time.
My advice is to introduce the players to these concepts and when coaching remind them of these affordances and what could emerge through shared space in addition to encouraging what emerges naturally through shared intention, remove this 'my space, your space' dynamic that I addressed at the beginning of this article. Don't impose a curriculum, I've never liked them personally, I understand (not to say agree with) why they are used in academies - 'in maturation of talent' but my coaching is for too spontaneous, you recognise the needs of a player or their body language, fatigue (emotionally and physically) and you adapt to this in session, where in modern coaching culture we persist with what block were on or for the sake of working on a structured phase of play: e.g- build up and escaping pressure.
Try things out and see what works, perhaps thats not the extensive detail you clicked on this article to uncover, so unfortunately I'll have to disappoint you. I do love hearing back from coaches who follow my stuff to share their sessions or that they've taken inspiration from something I've put online, I hope to continue having great discussions with you and many more- regardless of the level. The response to my paralela practise was particularly impressive, as I mentioned earlier the benefit of exercises that strengthen small group/ inter sectoral concepts makes feedback and intervention so much more clear. The game is simplified without over constraining it, a series of game problems and common tasks that make situations clearer to navigate from the perception- action coupling.
I don't believe relationism should be confined to one outright proposed model, I'm simply proposing what works for me and with new coaching experiences and exposure to pedagogical literature it'll evolve and develop over time. It should be something thats bespoke to the environment, player dynamics, attitudes, the culture of the country and the interpretation of an idea based on shared dialogue between coach and player. For me, its not a case of somebody coming along to re-invent the wheel and introduce a blueprint like Seriul-lo did, its about bringing existing ideas together and personalising it to your needs, prioritising adaptability to your players and style of your coaching, thus rejecting a one size fits all method.
Playing language is arguably relationism's greatest methodological tool and the only one that we'll ever need. Language is something thats personal to us and it leaves room for interpretation, it resonates with us more than following a model that is generalised and is 'constructing' behaviours opposed to nurturing them. I've spoken before about Joe Denninson's work with bringing his unique terminology forward, he used various phrases to capture thew imagination of the players and get them to associate these phrases with forming relationships on the pitch. ''The ball is our sun'' and ''to share the power'' is used to encourage more players to come to the ball zone and participate- leading to action. ''Calm the storm'' and ''dancing on the edge'' is also used to help recognise the moments to establish a tilt, where a ''short switch'' for yo-yo.
I like these a lot, thats not to say I'd use them or not, but I believe it captures the essence of what's trying to be fostered. The ball is our only life force, its a powerful source of energy and our guiding light- it is the sole reference to what we play for. Language can be reviewed and adapted, it changes with new influences, ideas and greater migration, but it's a way for us to share experiences in a personal way, a way of communicating that goes beyond the confines of what is 'efficient' or 'correct'. Football is a vehicle for people to change their lives, that goes beyond results, as a coach we are connected to our work but also the people we touch along the way, embracing socialisation, showing empathy, human interaction is at the center of everything we look to achieve.
That brings this article to its conclusion, the discourse and skepticism surrounding Relationism won't change until it has a 'well defined' or written down methodology that's in the public domain, like Seriul-lo's one. I understand the importance of articles such as this one, without blowing my own trumpet, because it addresses relationism from the pedagogical paradigm and proposes ideas in which coaches can also build around- away from existing knowledge of the tactical paradigm through content.
I'm not saying my overall intention is to be the person who brings a 'functional methodology' into western discourse and ultimately create something akin to what Seriul-lo has done, which homogenises and ruins everything, but I appreciate that these ideas, especially from somebody who contributes actively to the discourse on X, are more valuable than oversharing session designs.
It should be worth saying that my interpretation of it would be completely different to what Antonio Gagliardi (ex Juventus and Italy), Fran Beltran (current Marbella head coach) or Henrik Rydström of Malmo would propose, all of which have had much more exposure to the professional football environment than I have. I would love to be part of that group that continues to broaden peoples horizons and makes professional clubs embrace the benefits of abandoning a game model centred coaching approach, especially in the academy, to put the player first. That's where the real change is done.
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