''I want to arrive to professional football and not do 'tactics'"
"My purpose is to show the world that there is no need for 'tactics'- that is to say the players are intelligent, they know how to organise themselves, you (the coach) set challenges and they understand the rules of the game"
''This is what tactics are, constantly adapting to the demands of the game. Interactions and Purposes''
Those were the words of Venezia coach Jordi Lie Fernandez in an interview with Marti Cañellas, as a young coach I was led to believe that coaching was just about giving the team as much organisation as possible, the tactical idea is the primary reference that the game revolves around- the individual becomes an abstract property. It's concerning that if you were to ask a cohort of UEFA A Licence students to draw up their 'game model'- something that should be distinct and personal to them- they would all ultimately produce something near identical. Identical language, references, structures and practises.
Football coaching is nothing more than a franchise.
It's a conveyor belt of coaches and players being produced in the same way, the most linear form of player and coach 'development' you can find- shaped intention and homogenisation. This trickles down from UEFA and has saturated all corners of the game- non league, youth football to grassroots. The UEFA Youth League for example is just a showpiece for coaches to show that they can coach a structure and influence games, it's not about giving the players a platform to express themselves but instead put the coaches in the spotlight. Every action and attacking dynamic is contingent to creating and finding the third man.
A game model, in it's traditional defenition, is a tool coaches will devise to consider certain factors that will influence the football principles they will be looking to assimilate; this could be the quality or specific characteristics of the players at our disposal, the culture of the club, the culture of the country/league we are playing in and the aims and objectives of the board or hierarchy above you (head of coaching or youth development for academy sides). The principles of positional play and training methodology will rarely change in whichever club you are coaching in, irrespective of the cultural considerations, traditions of that region and history of the club.
Game models, referring to the attacking organisation, promote the use of globalised structures as a solution to overcoming opposition pressure and gaining terrain on the pitch, whilst explaining which spaces and combinations that are prioritised. These are universal concepts of attacking football according to positional logic that shape a coaches game model; occupying certain zones by staggering players on different lines so players can autonomously break pressure with up- back and through to find the third man, static occupation across all 5 lanes of positional attack that shape how and where the teams attacks are built and their ability to transition.
Most of a coaches concepts are ultimately pre determined and transferable regardless of what club, environment, structure (resources) and context he finds himself in. Bellow is an extract from Andrea Pirlo's UEFA Pro Licence thesis- il calcio che vorrei (the football that I want)- you can instantly get a clear visual and theoretical idea of what his team will look like in spite of these factors, a game built from globalised principles and rationality, all coaches everywhere aspire to achieve the same football. This is detrimental to our sport, football doesn't and shouldn't have to follow strict logic or guidelines, football (by design) is irregular.
There are two types of teams, those who choose to exploit the positional advantage and the 'undefendable spaces' at every opportunity or those that look to prioritise penetrating the spaces in between two players rather than concrete lines of defensive pressure. Attack is determined by our behaviours and vacated spaces, we must go against the momentum and order of structured attack, every action and attacking dynamic should not be contingent to creating and finding the free man. I've been following the comments of Argentina assistant coach Matias Manna with close attention-
''Ultimately football is unrepeatable. In a game that can't be lost, otherwise the players become robots and that's very bad. There's a homogenous standard, new technologies have led to this, training sessions look the same in Rosario, China and Finland. Argentina does not want to imitate a European model"
These comments echo the beliefs of many inside or on the fringes of the professional game, like in society, our ideas should always evolve but not at the expense of our culture being replaced or rewritten, change should compliment what has come before. The phenomenon of methodology imported wholesale irrespective of the culture traditions of a countries footballing culture, replaced by an 'optimal model' that results in all teams preparing and subsequently looking the same.
Earlier this Spring I had spoken to coaches from a professional club playing in UEFA competitions about this and their proposals for what they call an 'anti game model'. Their idea is to use the player as the starting reference to build their game idea from, not pre defined conceptions about team organisation, roles or positions. Initially this sounded refreshing to hear a club moving away from something so universally practised, the heart of the decision was to maximise the strengths of player relationships and for these to be not be interfered by a 'greater model'.
How would this work in practise? Opposed to the centralised reference of team organisation, these are their points of reference that i've used to support my idea for a more holistic framework:
- player reference
- teammate reference
- opponent reference
- training reference
- coaching reference
Player reference:
Each player is a world of their own, he has the artistic control of what he can do with the ball, influencing the team intention by conducting the play and actions of those surrounding him. Their intentions are the catalyst for excellence, our coaching should help players realise and fulfil these intentions- in contribution to the collective intention. The starting reference is the player themselves and not game principles, we need to understand how a player perceives the game and how to strengthen this and attune them to new possibilities and coexisting behaviours- his teammates and local information.
For example, attuning players to diagonal affordances opens up a broader range of connections, receiving in the diagonal corridor a player maximises his perception. The change in body orientation allows for several emergent solutions that puts the defender in a moment of doubt as he now has to defend several potential actions at once. Certain progressions that would be possible with diagonal perception would not be possible with standard vertical orientation- receiving with the back to the defender for the up- back and through. It's about how the pitch is read.
''The problem is in football that you learn to play the game the wrong way round, first execution, then decision making and perception last"- Arsene Wenger.
The secondary reference for a player is understanding his 5 weaknesses and 5 strengths, how does this shape our collective intention? How do the players around him strategically plan actions? If a player is not good at invading space or attacking the depth, he should receive to feet and not space, he should look to operate in front or inside the block opposed to the upside- positions where the opposition affords us more space. As a coaching staff we should have a clear idea of their capabilities in all these key actions and what they attempted the most to better understand their game behaviours- what they try mindlessly- considering actions they consistently do well and ones they don't.
The coach identifies these areas of improvement, considering 5 references of physical, technical, tactical, contextual and phycological factors. If a player consistently makes poor decisions and play always breaks down a coach can look to prioritise improving his phycological state in high stress situations (contextual). However this doesn't always necessarily mean that as coaches we should seek to reduce the game to make these scenarios look easier (tactical) , thus undermining the complexity of all footballs properties (physical/contextual).
We use this understanding to tailor the suggestions that we promote and the coaching/analysis that we give. Players must learn to play football through the lens of their own and their teammates strengths, self awareness is fundamental. Players should be constantly aligning themselves with their qualities, prioritising this as coaches uses these to help them impose themselves on the game, opposed to shaping their intentions. By recognising these qualities and assessing whether they stabilise our attacks or instigate them gives them context in relation to spatial and strategical references in the game.
We can also take inspiration from Seriul-lo's cognitive cycle - The cycle of interaction- which highlights the importance placed on perception, self evaluation, intuition and decision making. Decision to interaction is at the heart of this process, helping the player capture the relevant information, interpret it and self evaluate to facilitate an interaction. The cycle of interaction helps hide a players decision making and impacts the environment that conditions and modifies it simultaneously and permanently. The coach has the opportunity to optimise a players psycho-emotional behaviours that correspond to their emotive, expressive-creative and mental structures.
Teammate Reference:
A few years ago, I listened to a podcast with ex Liverpool assistant Pep Ljinders, when speaking to youth players after coming back to training from youth team international fixtures he would always ask them who the best players in their team were. With these names the scouts would go away and observe these players and make a formal approach to sign. The reason for this, as said by Lijnders- ''when we were kids and played football in the streets we all knew who the best players were, the ones we should pass too and the ones we shouldn't. The kids are the best scouts''.
We can apply this to our game reference, if those on the pitch deeply know each others strengths then ''we go beyond anticipation and into telepathy''. The player with the ball dictates the tempo, but the functions of those around him dictate every potentiality, players need to use this information to propel the attack when these opportunities arise. This knowledge can't be transferred by the coach, it happens when the players are exposed to challenge and reach an on field maturity that allows them to regulate and self organise their progressions. They play from an emotional connection.
A players physio-behaviours are important to team integration, Seriul-lo proposes that we should enhance resonance networks within the team so players understand their teammates individuality as much as their own. We have the opportunity to optimise behaviours that correspond to emotions, self expression and mental structures. Each player is a world of his own. Players perceive, conceive and execute strategic group tactics- space of mutual help (2v2/3v3 scale) to solve problems that arise locally and improve the context of the team- collective. These players must share a system of values, intentions and inhabit an environment of intimacy. Do we want them to be constrained to our ideas as coaches or adapt to the environment?
''Expert players , while they are performing a certain action, are already evaluating their environment and deciding what will be next'' - Xesco Espar.
Researcher James Vaughan often comments in his work that football is an example of an adaptive complex system, in which the organisation has its own smaller system - or sphere- of influence that responds to local information to form interactions. The phenomenon of emergence allows these systems to develop collective intelligence and shared intentionality, they self organise without centralised control. Our aim is to prioritise, develop and strengthen these synergies within these spheres of influence, synergies over correct spacing. Tactical concepts are important but play is decided by shared understanding and synergies, this cannot be undermined.
We want players to be able to lead attacks not by tactic board solutions but by communication, intention, activity around the ball carrier and perception-action coupling. Instead of coach-player knowledge transfer, this emphasises the need for active (mindless) transfer of understanding, players orientate their actions according to the functions of their teammates, as said by the coaches 'this creates the preconditions for the greatest possible synergies to emerge'. This is articulated incredibly well by Thierry Henry, talking about how he adapted to his Arsenal teammates.
Opponent Reference:
Players need to know what they need to do to play successfully against an opponent, gaining a further understanding of team behaviours and how they connect with each other on the pitch, coaching from an opponent reference should aid this. Tactics are a consequence of player behaviour, therefore it can only exist as a secondary product and cannot be the starting point in a methodological framework. The starting point is communication (the two way exchange of communication in a footballing context), with the ball the players must understand what the best next action is, without the ball its about understanding who is the player thats meant to jump to the ball carrier (and who covers behind).
Personally, using the opponent as a key reference goes against the concept of structuring our attacking actions through the thirds of progression, I don't believe in having a set or concrete idea for build up, progression and the final third. I don't think this imagery should interfere with player decision making and what types of solutions that can be found. I look to remove this visualisation by using the oppositions defensive behaviours as a reference for how we strategise our attack; we should consider the intricacies of their defensive structure, is it wide or narrow? Is it passive or aggressive? Are they deep or adjusting the depth constantly? Are there any weak players that we can target and overload (share space), or opportunities to use counter or double movements instantaneously. Where are the affordances, are they vertical or diagonal (vertical depth/diagonal depth).
Zonal defensive theory is becoming somewhat of an outlier , zonal teams are getting more compact, the spaces between the lines are non existent, to which defensive systems now accommodate for 1v1s and spatial coverage (hybrid defending) even when close to their own goal. Instead of shifting on horizontal lines, defensive teams are using diagonal lines of shift to reorganise and adapt their structures. We would once consider defending as an abstract concept such as 'blocks' it's now evident that we are living in the age of mutation.
This gives us the opportunity to explore more dynamic advantages, if the defensive reference points of two banks of 4 are removed and we are confronted with a mix of zonal/man orientations around the box with no real 'phase space' then we can ultimately split what would be these two lines of defence with a sole combination or penetration. It gives us a great chance to go against their momentum and ignore established logic of 'overload to isolate' at every opportunity, when there are perfectly exploitable affordances inside.
''Superiority is ever changing, it is emergent from spatial awareness, individual qualities and player relations. Dominance docent come from adaptability and quick responses to dynamics (and to receptive information)- advantages emerge from navigating the flow of play''- Jorg van Der Berggen.
Training Reference:
The weighted importance of structure being omnipresent in most session design makes 'intended outcomes' become more predictable, we see more reliance on universal principles, less diversification in technique and approaches to problem solving. It's evident that players need a common idea to be able to play from shared intention, collaboration in attacking moves should be present in game theoretic problems that they encounter in real time. It should be our responsibility as coaches to identify what the players want to do and consider what we want to attune their attention to in the game. Our individual players, in particular their characteristics -what they bring- are our tactics.
This is the idea we start from, the players are tasked with developing and solving the picture themselves. Our aim as coaches is to not stifle the potential situations that would emerge organically if we hadn't rationalised the game into a 'set picture' and give concrete 'automated' solutions. For example, returning to the aforementioned opponent reference, if we was to train a phase of play we would give only organisation to the out of possession team's defensive line, we then discuss with the in possession team and say ''their defensive line is high- how do we exploit this? The players come up with the strategy in the moment, we step in if we need to and coach into what we see emerge naturally.
In a previous article I had spoken about a framework I had been using called 'the foundations for task design model' and its use of ecological dynamics- which I will talk more about and give practical examples of throughout this article. I introduced the reference points; direction, consequence, the ball and the opponent. All tasks all incorporate these references whilst facilitating a game like environment. We try to give players minimal instructions and let them find solutions, the exercises are planned with a theme in mind but never restricted to that 'one solution'. The exercises often direct the players attention to what we perceive to be important- diagonal play, dummies, toco y me voy, traveling together- but the players are the ones that negotiate the strategy and decide how we reach the goal.
Sometimes we use different ways of encouraging player led strategy and plan loose practises where the social objectives are more prominent than the tactical ones. We'll play SSG's with a social constraint or theme, inspired by my time working in youth football/studying youth modules on courses, for example one game called 'guess who' involves each team having to elect a player to score a goal, unbeknown to the other team, only he can score and the team has to come up with their own strategy to get the selected player in a position to score. After the selected player scores a goal the teams have to both elect new target players.
We could use other themes; Football bingo- where the coach outlines a number of intended 'technical' or 'group tactic actions' and the first team to complete three in a row scores a goal- for example: a scooped pass, an Escadinha + corta luz or a give and go could all be potential intended outcomes. These are successful in youth football, some might consider them 'cheesy' or 'child-like' but there's no reason why it can't work in senior football as well, exercises that are light hearted, encourage socialisation and prioritises human interactions above embedding game centric principles.
When I plan pre season, the first two weeks are built solely around this- if we consider that practise is shaped by phycological, social, physical and tactical objectives (all of which are present), what we as coaches impose as 'tactics' has the least relevance. I don't believe in turning up day one of pre season with a determined idea of how we should be structured and our tactical concepts and then spending all of pre season trying to get us closer to looking more complete in the coaches image, concepts should be tailored, built around the players and adapted to the information that we are receiving.
''I write to find out what I think''- Joan Didion - perhaps we could train to find out how we play?
Players acquire knowledge of the football environment only through active experience, the ability to manage informational constraints (restrictions, rewards, rules) and the perception of the environment (position of teammates, opponents, and the ball) occur while personally moving in the game, not while listening to coaches talking about the game. This also applies to coaches, who must learn to know and recognise their behaviours within training, not limiting themselves to knowing what training is.
Coaching Reference:
The way we coach is a product of the way we choose to train, environment and culture shapes our coaching delivery. I believe that every coach should be interested in knowing in depth human behavior; we cannot continue to talk about the game and training without first understanding as best as possible how human beings learn and decide. Psychology is always present.
The principle of coaching reference is to create concepts around the players themselves, this is why I feel so strongly about not importing universal principles from one group of players to the next, coaching inspiration must be personal. Coaching reference aims to marry together all the previous mentioned references; optimising the conditions for the individual, aiming to develop and strengthen pre existing synergies between within the collective and using information about the opponent and our profiling to determine our style.
Concepts such as diagonal play are defined in a way to help players read the situation and develop a common language, which i've also spoken about in a previous article. If you are the first player in an Escadinha, you and the other players in this line must know the optimal behaviours to facilitate said action- the weight of pass, the timing of the corta luz to take out the opponent, correct body orientation and also the intention of the 'fourth man' to invade the space behind the defence- 'it acts as an auxiliary tool in creating intentions'.
Knowing your teammate is the most important external concept that exists in football, players need to be equipped with this knowledge at an explicit level, while the game is understood through these interactions. If the priorities for conveying information are set this way and implicit training creates the highest possible number of such situations, so the player can achieve an optimal level of situational efficiency, then over time this knowledge becomes subconscious and behaviours become unconsciously sufficient.
As I said earlier, players orientate their actions to each other, these dynamics gives a team an 'identity', the coach should provide the players with as few concepts as possible but those concepts should promote these synergies. This is what Carlo Ancelotti talks about when he addressed criticisms over his Real Madrid having no clear identity- ''The fact that my teams don't have a clear identity is a merit, not a fault. I adapt. If a team doesn't have a clear identity it's not a limit, it's a quality, collective mobility is very important. I adapt to the characteristics of my players, I don't want a team with a clear identity''.
Recently, I've been researching Paco Seriul-lo's 'structured training' for a paper that I'm looking to publish, (as I alluded to when talking about his cognitive cycle earlier) I won't share too many of my findings in this article but theres a few things i'd wish to comment on. It's surprising that his interpretation and frameworks for structured training have a lot in common with the ecological principles that I and many others propose.
Ecological principles shape athlete performance through the environment, tasks and constraints, whereas cognitive principles shape athlete performance through mental processes like decision making, focus- automation exercises, isolated techniques - drilling. The aims and outcomes of cognitive exercises are more instructional and concrete whereas Ecological ones are more negotiated between player- environment- teammate- opponent and coach- complimenting the framework I introduced earlier.
By coaching using the dynamic interaction between the environment, player and task, we ensure that the players learn to adapt to and co-ordinate their actions and movements- transfer to a game situations and aiding the acquisition and co-ordination of key motor skills. Affordances are moments to invite and interact with an action, coaches must understand what constraints support the exploration of these affordances , promote diverse solutions and not limit players to conditioned solutions. Actions are emergent from the relations between players, the receptive information from the environment and the objective that needs to be achieved, whilst keeping in mind the link between perception and action
Coaching Principles for Ecological Dynamics
- Relationship between players and the environment
Players must perceive the relevant information from the environment to be able to move and solve solutions. Player movement cannot be taught in isolation, there must be a context or objective to facilitate greater adaption.
- Creating problems of executing movement
When a player perceives his movement to find solutions based on the dynamics around him, perceiving opportunities for action is a hallmark of elite level ability. Exercises must either represent the game situation or be tasked with synergising associative dynamics- as we'd see in micro games.
- Constraint imposed
When a coach imposes a constraint with the aim of not conditioning a player into correct decisions or movement but instead to get players to explore a wider range of affordances. Session design looks to promote discovery and still have 'encouraged actions' present without constricting the players to explore that exclusively through repetition. In contrast to standard coaching practise- will get, could get, might get- all solutions are of equal value. This is determined by playing area, parameters, coaching points and equipment used.
- Repetition without Repetition
The players tell us the way to resolve problems. Even though every case has nuances and eccentricities, we can't let repetitions and mechanisms become a staple of our work, instead encouraging higher levels of variation and functionalism. Training is not a form of linear development and players learn at their own personal pace.
- Subjective personal movement
A player solves a problem through their own personal characteristics- socio-cultural, physical or technical. The coach puts the individual at the heart of the learning process, players resolve the problem- not the coach- his presence is to support not drive the practise.
How do we make this practical?
Coaches often use complimentary tasks, which are often position or concept specific (almost exclusively for the individual scale/intervention space), they are an opportunity with us to present the player with the context in which they will likely perform and execute said action in the game. Commonly, complimentary tasks are performed as isolated practise- thats to say exercises are often unopposed with high repetition; for example finishing after a layoff or circuits that incorporate explosive motor skills like dribbling, heading. Im looking to make these tasks more ecological and less instructional to fully replicate the game environment and attune players to the solutions that the environment itself presents itself to them.
Finishing exercises are almost exclusively done unopposed, this fails to emphasise the need for training 'awkward or improvised finishes' - where strikers really develop their craft and mastery. In a game the ball arrives at them in many different directions and speeds- it can come through crowds of players, the ball can hang in the air, be flicked on or deflected. Therefore they constantly have to adapt, rearrange their footwork and body to put themselves in the best possible position to strike at goal.
Diniz's finishing practise explores different possibilities just by adding another GK to feed and a defender for interference and make it opposed. There are important social benefits, the ST and GK can work together on how he can feed the ball, how the ST positions himself- wide, central, whether he starts with his back to the defender to spin off or deeper to take shot or give him space to dribble/ accelerate. Psychology is present, each strike gives the defender, striker and goalkeeper new information Rach time which alters the decision making they will all make for the next shot.
Anticipation is the ability to recognise potential cues and behavioural patterns in the environment, when the solution isn't immediate the decision making is delayed until the solution comes. Unopposed exercises remove the contextual interference of the defender, who is a fundamental reference for the ball carrier, this cannot be reduced. Each defender brings different habits and eccentricities, as does every attacker (no 1v1 is ever the same), each player brings with him a world of possibilities.
Paul McGuiness shared an example of Messi during his time at PSG, when the mannequins were set up he said ''I need a defender to read his information and find my move, to unbalance him- its more about bringing him with you, then feint and move sideways''. Attackers are in a constant state of problem solving, they shouldn't be looking for a sole outcome when there are a range of affordances and different finishes that can occur in the game.
Intelligence + Creativity + Perception + Anticipation = Solution.
How can we link this back to the player, teammate, opposition, training, coach framework that I introduced earlier. We can do this by promoting social objectives, the football bingo game for example- adapt it to finishing or types of finishes/placement. High over the GK's shoulder, bend into the corner, through the GK or defenders legs, low into the ground. Not only do we get a range of finishes we also get aspects of competitiveness and collaboration to set up these finishes - in a game realistic environment. Small spaces, 4v4/5v5 in the length and width of the 18 yard box- space and numbers adapted to the physical objectives of that day/phase of pre season- now we have a more game representative exercise that will result in better transfer to the game.
On days where coaches want to work on more specific concepts or patterns, perhaps it's not a ST who we want to design a complimentary task for but instead a winger or number 8 arriving to finish- how do we adapt? Again, traditionally coaches look to unopposed practise to familiarise players with specific game objectives- up, back and through the mannequins before a finish or give and go then finish (bounce pass) . These exercises help players with their explosiveness and the trajectory of possibilities - game flow- but reduces the complexity of the situation and its emergent properties.
In this example, Guardiola works on this exact up- back- through combination, you can get an idea from the video how meticulous he likes to work and the importance he places on players finding the right solutions to fully take advantage of the positional +1 on the defensive line. Decision making here is shaped with this in mind, with the intention of this transferring to the game when they are confronted by this anticipated situation, players are attuned to this sole outcome of moving the ball to the third man and releasing a player in behind.
Alternatively, we might propose a micro game with floaters who once passed to have to return the ball in behind- give & go, third man, diagonal ball, reverse balls, scooped passes- here we get several outcomes from one picture rather than only being attuned to just one. Which player's movement will break the last line, where does it come from? Will it be in-out like the Hakimi run in PSG's goal earlier or from out to in like a diagonal third man run?). It's important that coaches design practises that represent the diversification in affordances. Endless possibilities from a sole game phase.
The tactical and physical objectives are still present but now with the game situation there is a strengthened social objective of collaboration- how players lead the strategy of attack each time and the psychological objective of self/group accountability, also the confidence that is gained from a successful action in a realistic environment. This task can be performed at various complexities - low complexity (overload for offensive team 3v3+2) or high complexity (match up or underload for the offensive team- 5v3+1) depending on phase of pre season and how much importance you value on managing physical fatigue and cognitive load.
This way, decisions are less centralised or 'game model centric' and more open to these emerging affordances and information- whether a defender shifts his body weight to the other side, if a gap appears between two players to dribble, potential clusters in the ball zone - dummies, give and go, overload to isolate? We leave these decisions to the players, their capabilities and how they interact with each other build our tactical concepts, as coaches we have to simply provide the environment that facilitates this state of problem solving. In our game, we shouldn't make players too reliant on attack by structure, collective attack should never be textbook or ABC coaching, we want to be unpredictable.
The free man is the central concept of modern football, many of what we identify as 'advantages' are associated with how quickly and effectively we can find and exploit this condition. We can also consider the free man important for visualising and explaining situations that arise in moments of imbalance in defensive systems. But we should not overlook alternative forms of advantage; qualitative, dynamic and socio-affective. Does the player who gives us 'superiority' have a time- space advantage? Is there unopposed space around the ball carrier/recipient?
To consider the conditions of Seriul-lo's intervention space (the ball carrier vs his direct rival) we must accept that the phenomenon is greater than the sum of its parts- play is conditioned by ones individualism, perceived role (big picture/small picture) and interpretation of that specific phase space. Advantage is generated as a result of action, inaction, constant organisation, reorganisation and what is understood by the flow of proposals and responses- elements of the opposition interference. if we want to outplay the opponent session design needs to adhere to the demands the game proposes to the players.
Furthermore, training should be a space for experimentation above all else, instead of relentlessly 'rehearsing' game phases and attune players to these 'centralised solutions'. The space in which the players are interacting in is just a hypothesis, producing spaces that bring out certain qualities intrinsically- the player experiences it and does it on his own accord. It's about encouraging trial and error and offering the players bitesize points and reminding them of these affordances, related to our team concepts. If a coach is too much of a presence in an activity then he is corrupting the whole process.
To conclude, I hope this article gives you a more rounded insight into my interpretation of working with ecological principles and my practical examples, which I try to share as much as necessary. The intention of this article was to go deeper on these pedagogical frameworks that i've been exploring and implementing in my own practise; to promote player centric, relational and self organising systems. Also, creating a shared idea for strengthening and prioritising the synergies and concepts built from the players- rather than a top down approach. We look to optimise the conditions for the individual and use receptive information (opponent, ball, consequence and movement) to determine our style.
Is the optimal found at the extreme or the middle? I think it becomes more apparent that though tactical concepts are important and must compliment these synergies and self intentionality, this links back to my previous article 'big picture vs small picture' where I spoke about deciders, instigators and the psychology that is present in these fast moving attacking actions.
I would like to acknowledge Yiannis Tsala and Goran Rosanda for the conversations that we've had throughout this period that have shaped these ideas, reflections and developments.
As always, if you'd like to challenge or engage with any of these topics please feel free to send me a message on X- I try to respond to as many of them as I can and enjoy reading/responding to them a lot- especially those who have also been applying these concepts that I speak about into their own coaching. Hopefully my work gives you an alternative perspective on doing things.
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