If someone asked me which discovery has most changed the way I see football, and above all the way I coach, I’d answer without hesitation: learning to watch the game away from the ball.
It has changed how I talk to my players and, more than anything, where I direct my attention. Not my methodology, not my philosophy. What changed is what I observe, and who I speak to while the move is unfolding.
The idea underneath it is simple: how much time a player has to think depends, in large part, on where he is in relation to the ball.
Let me step off the pitch for a moment to show you what I mean. Imagine you and I are standing two metres apart, and without warning I throw a pen at you and shout, “Catch it!”
Assuming you catch it: did you catch it because you had time to reflect on the fact that, a few milliseconds earlier, someone threw a pen at you and told you to catch it? Or because your hand moved before you’d finished the thought? Obviously the second.
Now put twenty metres between us and imagine the same throw. This time you see it coming. You track it, you adjust, you decide. The action becomes conscious.
Players live in the same reality. The man on the ball is the one with the least time to think, and too often he’s the one we coaches talk to most. Picture what he may already be dealing with:
- the ball itself;
- a nearby teammate already calling for the pass;
- two opponents pressing him, each arriving with a different body shape.
That alone is a lot of information to process. Now imagine we add our own voice to the pile: “Play it!”, “Pass!”, “Go right!”, “Dribble!”
I was one of those coaches. I admit it. And naturally, it still happens to me now and then.
But when I manage not to do it, my attention goes somewhere else: to the players who don’t have the ball, who might receive it in the next few seconds, and who could shape the entire development of the move.
What I actually look for
Specifically, four things:
- The body shape of the teammates near the ball. Are they positioned to play forward, or just to receive?
- Whether that body shape fits the situation. A marked player and a free player shouldn’t be standing the same way. There is no universally “correct” body shape, only one that suits the context.
- Whether they scan, and whether the scanning is qualitative rather than quantitative. A player shouldn’t look around for the sake of looking around. He should be hunting for information that buys him an advantage in the next action.
- Any imbalance in the opposition’s lines that could give us an advantage if we play into that space.
Each of these deserves an article of its own. But together they form the core of what a coach should be watching while the move unfolds.
Why does this matter? Because from the outside we have a different view of the pitch. Not better or worse than the players’ view, simply different. Our job is to offer them that second perspective: not to dictate the play, but to give them information they can’t easily gather from inside the game. We open doors they can’t see from the pitch. Whether they walk through them is their decision.
And here is the most fascinating part. When players get used to a coach who looks beyond the ball, they start doing it themselves, almost by osmosis. They begin thinking about the next action before it exists. They look for advantages before those advantages are visible. They anticipate.
Because if the coach doesn’t dictate the play to the man on the ball, but instead communicates with everyone around him, the players never become followers of instructions. They become readers of the game.
Be careful: this is not a coach taking a step back. If anything, it’s a step forward. It can sound like “speak less” or “give less information”, but that’s not it at all. It means giving information that can actually get through. How much a coach talks is a matter of personal style; I talk a lot. But I talk to the players who may be the future of the move.
Can this be trained?
Of course. It can and it must be. In every session, in every practice. The principle is always the same: design the game around a target behaviour, then discipline your attention to sit where that behaviour is born, not where the ball is.
Three examples of how I structure it.
1. 4v2 rondo: finding the third player
Dimensions: 12 x 12 metres. Depending on the level, anywhere between 10 x 10 and 14 x 14.
Constraints: No touch limit. The possession team scores a point when a two-player connection is followed by a pass to a third player who wasn’t involved in the previous action. If the defenders win the ball, they escape by carrying it over any side of the square.
Adaptations: Reduce the space to increase pressure; enlarge it to give more time for scanning; or move one possession player inside the square to change the angles and relationships.
Behaviours to observe:
- Scans before the second player receives the ball.
- Adjusts angle and distance to stay a viable next option.
- Moves out of the defender’s cover shadow rather than simply coming closer to the ball.
- Takes up a body shape that lets the next action continue quickly.
- Repositions in response to the defenders, not only to the movement of the ball.
Our focus here is never the man on the ball. It’s the potential third player.
2. Small-sided game: attacking the half-space
Dimensions: 6v6 without goalkeepers, roughly 40 x 32 metres, with mini-goals at each end. Two five-metre half-space channels are marked as visual references.
Constraints: Nobody is obliged to enter a half-space. A goal counts double when the move includes a run into a half-space that either finds the runner or creates an advantage for a teammate.
Adaptations: Change the width of the channels; vary where attacks begin; add a neutral player between the lines; or remove the scoring bonus once the behaviour starts appearing on its own.
Behaviours to observe:
- Scans the space and the defender before starting the run.
- Reads the defender’s body shape and blind side.
- Changes speed rather than running at one constant tempo.
- Times the run so the passer can actually play into it.
- Creates an advantage even when the runner doesn’t receive the ball.
Here the focus is less on the passer and more on the player who has to make the run, because he is the one who dictates the timing of the pass.
3. Conditioned game: the cut-back
Dimensions: 5v4 plus a goalkeeper in a final-third area of roughly 44 x 36 metres, with line goals for the defending team to counter into after winning the ball.
Constraints: The attacking team can score normally, but a goal counts double when it comes from a cut-back after the ball reaches a wide byline area. The solution is rewarded, never forced.
Adaptations: Vary the width of the pitch; add a recovering defender; change the starting position of the ball; or remove the double-value goal once the movement begins to emerge naturally.
Behaviours to observe:
- Scans before the cut-back is played.
- Arrives in the finishing space rather than waiting in it.
- Attacks the blind side or the space behind the first defensive line.
- Occupies a different height from the other runners instead of arriving on the same line.
- Adjusts the run to the ball-carrier’s body shape, the defenders, and the angle of the cut-back.
The focus is not on the player who delivers the cut-back. It’s on the player who must receive it.
And so on. The same logic transfers to any practice you design.
Because a good coach is not the one who takes a step back from the game.
A good coach is the one who takes a step forward.