Reader,
“If I have to make a tackle, then I have already made a mistake” – Paolo Maldini
I might be showing my age by quoting the legendary Italian centre-back, Paolo Maldini, but in my mind, he is on the all-time list of great defenders.
Whilst we all love to watch players on the ball, dribbling, driving and running with the ball, one of my favourite parts of coaching is defending.
When developing defenders, we must praise and reinforce defensive behaviours in young players who show determination and desire to stop goals – it’s easy to get attracted to the ball, and forget the ‘dirty jobs’ that some players thrive on.
Trends in football constantly change and however you set your teams up, defending is a skill that needs working. When working at Brentford’s academy we used analogies of swarming like ‘Bees’ when it came to a full press with our young players.
Other teams prefer to set traps with the press, forcing play one way to win the ball back. When I first started coaching, I was always inspired by the thrilling counter-attacks of Mourinho’s Chelsea teams in the early 2000s and we all know how Diego Simeone has stamped his mark on the game as one of the masters of defending to counter-attack.
Like them or not, Mourinho and Simeone have been effective at organising their teams to be compact, disciplined and controlled before launching counter-attacks with speed.
Three Things to Consider
- How often do you purposefully plan for defending or off-the-ball moments in your session design? Whether it’s 1v1s or team tactics, it’s important to make this a focus of player development.
- Can you design sessions that task players to solve problems before them, giving them a choice of whether to press, hold or drop? A simple activity I have used is ‘traffic light defending’ where players have a green light high up the pitch to press, an amber light in the middle third (to make a decision based on information) and a red light in the back third to delay, show away and allow teammates to recover before regaining the ball.
- Defending can lend itself to coaches ‘over-coaching’. Find the balance between giving too much information, setting problems for players to solve (e.g. defending outnumbered) and ensuring they are clear on your tactical approach on game day. Don’t be afraid to allow player voice in these moments, the players can often sense whether a defensive tactic is working or failing, and never forget it’s OK to change on the run in a game.
One thing for you to try this week
Plan a session around defending, that includes 1v1 moments, small group work and tactical team defending.
One Critical Resource on the Topic
Check out this PDP Live Session with players from the Melbourne Victory U20 squad which includes 3 different defensive components including a team tactical practice.
