 
The Complete Guide to Coaching Soccer Systems and Tactics
Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 2
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 On: 2007-09-06
As a kids soccer coach with no prior soccer experience, I found this book very helpful and very clearly written. I recommend it highly.
 On: 2005-07-20
A rather mediocre rehashment of football facts known and recognized by the coaching community all over the world. It is regrettable that even today all that mumbo-jumbo reinforced by diagrams passes for empirical science in football. There is indeed, a rapidly developing field of applying analytical tools of science to football in a variety of fields - calibration and periodization of training, modeling of situational modules, calculations of intensity volumes, energy expenditures and recuperation methodology, biokinetics, vision development and evaluation strategies, etc. Although the author makes a judicious comment that skills and techniques are preeminently important, the pages dedicated to the description of systems evolution are quite redundant. For one thing, it is not clear if the information is offered as a guideline to effective coaching or merely as a football literacy crash course. The basis of high level contemporary football is a passing game and the ratio of passing versus dribbling has been totally reversed as a result of entirely different game strategies elaborated over the last thirty years. In view of all that, effective dribbling, has become even more important.On average best club and national teams statistically take between 35-40 dribbles during the course of the game and all of it occurs in vital areas of the field. Individual technical/tactical actions for midfielders comprise an impressive 80 to 120 aggregate, while combined team actions reach 1000. With regards to systems, if we extricate ourselves from the pseudoscience, the coach whose team on balance has six players superior to six opponents in terms of skills and athletic performance with the remaining four equal in quality to the four opponents, then regardless of the system employed his team should beat the adversary unless the training is structured according to wrong algorithms both in content and periodization. If the balance is even, then it becomes a game of who can outsmart the opponent at any given time and situation under conditions of fluidity and unpredictability. Systems are of tertiary importance and today theres not a serious coach who might hope to spring a surpise on the opponent. Most teams today employ a mixture of zone and individual marking amd covering, even in the old rigid WM and its modifications defenders provided support and cover. The author might want to refresh his memory by studying the 30s and 40s tactics only to dicsover that the great Beckenbauer was not the inventor of the sweeper position. It is true that he had taken it to an entirely new level, but the trail blazer he was not. Comparing the pros and cons of man-to-man and zonal play the author opines that the weakness of man-to-man marking is that the players are taken out of their positions by all kinds of runs made by the opposition players. Well, two things: Germany applied this rigid system and legitimately beat the "clockwork orange" in 1974; if we consider the versatility aspect, then its absolutely obvious that in transition game once the defending team has won possession, every player has to perform efficiently in a wider range of roles than those employing the zonal play. I have yet to see a right defender in a classic 4-4-2 formation crossing from the position of the left outside midfielder. That players have become more versatile is a fact, but with the possible exception of Brazil most teams still have players ascribed concrete tasks. The Euro 2000 tactical analyis is quite inadequate, after all the now ubiquitous "trequartista" or the attacking midfielder had come to fruition at that tournament. Unfortunately, the book is of very limited value to youth coaches, unless they are eager to cover their inadequacies by diagraming Xs and Os and discussing systems. One of the greatest coaches in the history of the game Arrigo Sacchi had tremendous success with the AC Milan and the Italian national team. But he miserably failed at Atletico in Spain. He was still a visionary, yet he didnt have the right material available.
On: 2005-07-19
A rather mediocre rehashment of football facts known and recognized by the coaching community all over the world. It is regrettable that even today all that mumbo-jumbo reinforced by diagrams passes for empirical science in football. There is indeed, a rapidly developing field of applying analytical tools of science to football in a variety of fields - calibration and periodization of training, modeling of situational modules, calculations of intensity volumes, energy expenditures and recuperation methodology, biokinetics, vision development and evaluation strategies, etc. Although the author makes a judicious comment that skills and techniques are preeminently important, the pages dedicated to the description of systems evolution are quite redundant. For one thing, it is not clear if the information is offered as a guideline to effective coaching or merely as a football literacy crash course. The basis of high level contemporary football is a passing game and the ratio of passing versus dribbling has been totally reversed as a result of entirely different game strategies elaborated over the last thirty years. In view of all that, effective dribbling, has become even more important.On average best club and national teams statistically take between 35-40 dribbles during the course of the game and all of it occurs in vital areas of the field. Individual technical/tactical actions for midfielders comprise an impressive 80 to 120 aggregate, while combined team actions reach 1000. With regards to systems, if we extricate ourselves from the pseudoscience, the coach whose team on balance has six players superior to six opponents in terms of skills and athletic performance with the remaining four equal in quality to the four opponents, then regardless of the system employed his team should beat the adversary unless the training is structured according to wrong algorithms both in content and periodization. If the balance is even, then it becomes a game of who can outsmart the opponent at any given time and situation under conditions of fluidity and unpredictability. Systems are of tertiary importance and today theres not a serious coach who might hope to spring a surpise on the opponent. Most teams today employ a mixture of zone and individual marking amd covering, even in the old rigid WM and its modifications defenders provided support and cover. The author might want to refresh his memory by studying the 30s and 40s tactics only to dicsover that the great Beckenbauer was not the inventor of the sweeper position. It is true that he had taken it to an entirely new level, but the trail blazer he was not. Comparing the pros and cons of man-to-man and zonal play the author opines that the weakness of man-to-man marking is that the players are taken out of their positions by all kinds of runs made by the opposition players. Well, two things: Germany applied this rigid system and legitimately beat the "clockwork orange" in 1974; if we consider the versatility aspect, then its absolutely obvious that in transition game once the defending team has won possession, every player has to perform efficiently in a wider range of roles than those employing the zonal play. I have yet to see a right defender in a classic 4-4-2 formation crossing from the position of the left outside midfielder. That players have become more versatile is a fact, but with the possible exception of Brazil most teams still have players ascribed concrete tasks. The Euro 2000 tactical analyis is quite inadequate, after all the now ubiquitous "trequartista" or the attacking midfielder had come to fruition at that tournament. Unfortunately, the book is of very limited value to youth coaches, unless they are eager to cover their inadequacies by diagraming Xs and Os and discussing systems. One of the greatest coaches in the history of the game Arrigo Sacchi had tremendous success with the AC Milan and the Italian national team. But he miserably failed at Atletico in Spain. He was still a visionary, yet he didnt have the right material available.
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