Today we had a visit from one of the coaching team responsible for working personally with Carles Puyol of FC Barcelona.
Carles came to Soccer Services, the coaching team for football Catalunya, to ask for help improving several areas of his game from Joan Villa who had helped him in his youth at Barcelona.
In order to improve Puyol, who at 30 was at his physical peak, they needed to give him some tactical fundamentals to improve his positional play as well as his anticipation of the game. They worked on his movement and on his speed of thought which added valuable time to his game and allowed him to anticipate play much better.
Much of the lecture focussed on the spaces between defenders and how to transition into those spaces, we observed several examples where defenders got dragged out of position and never recovered. The key for centre backs is to maintain shape and occupy the space in the middle of the park thus leaving the attacker no room to move into. Staggering to think that a player as accomplished as Puyol had areas to improve his game, the fact that he took it on himself to do so is one of the main reasons he is one of the best central defenders on the planet.
The next part of the lecture focussed on defending tactics in general and below are some of the high level points discussed.
1. Defending the space as a first or second centre in clearing defensive situations.
2. Moving to cover the side when there is balance in the central area.
3. Limit running backwards in inferior situations.
4. Moving back in air balls that go into free space.
Defending 1 on 1
Anticipate the long passes.
Training programs.
Planned training, contents and coaching points and game preparation.
How to design games.
1. Training content and coaching point.
Age is a factor in this. Level is a factor in this.
1 content per session and 1 coaching point. e.g. Passing.
Prioritising drawing defenders before making the pass.
2. Types of exercises.
Initiation. A team reduced in number against another team with the purpose of beating
them. Ball is always used but no goals are used, score by number of passes or
having a zone to pass into.
Small sided game is always the way to finish this session. 3 v 3 or 4 v 4.
3. Players and floating players.
Minimum in any team should always be 3 players, if there are 2 players it is too hard
for them and it imbalances their relationship and doesn't allow triangle passing.
Maximum number of players should always be what the team normally plays in
competition. (11 a side)
4. Spaces
Passing, free spaces, supporting and shooting.
5. Marking zones/scoring criteria.
Following a specific conduct such as number of passes.
Reaching spaces. Time. Crossing spaces.
Has to be realistic and based on real game situations or it is pointless.
6. Rules.
Types of roles have to be taken into account. Player with ball, without ball or
defender.
Creating zones on the pitch and rules which relate to these zones. I.e. Shooting from
a specific area.
7. Key Questions.
In which position does the ball have to arrive with my team mate?
When do I have to pass the ball?
Create intelligent players.
All in all quite an intense day with a massive amount of information to take in.
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