Upon planning your training session or match day squad, you will have to consider a number of factors as well what players will be involved. Some get confused of what football actually is, so to summarise, it is a players sport and it’s their decisions, which will shape the outcome of the team.
Too often throughout football, coaches use a variety of different starting points that can cause confusion and mis – guide the process that they are intending. Some of the starting points used, could be;
Taking the coaches favoured formation to begin planning
Considering what form the team has been in
The severity of the fixture that is being played
Choosing principles and a ‘how’, above the ‘what’
While the above isn’t exclusive to one coach or organisation, I have experienced the above along my own journey. For some (myself included), you may not know or have known (once upon time), the actual starting point you used or actually need.
Without going too far ahead, we need to look at our players. These are the most important aspect of the game, as their decisions will influence what actually happens. Where do the players fit though, in our hierarchy of planning?
Before planning a training session or picking the starting team, you have to consider the playing ability, above everything else.
What are your players capable of?
What do they struggle with?
Where are your best units of communication?
Who needs support, under the different pressures the game produces?
Once you know what the capabilities of your players are, you can then consider the next step in the process of implementing your team intentions. Taking the capabilities in to account, can also be summarised as, the ability your players have, in executing football actions.
How may you set up your team in attack, in order to build up?
Which actions do you want your players to execute, when you lose the ball?
Having intentions in place, gives direction to ‘how’ you want the game to be played. While this doesn’t mean there are any guarantees of success, it allows for more objective feedback to be sought and gives the players responsibly of aligning their intentions, with that of the team.
Would you request that your brand new under 7 team that hasn’t played before, take part in a training session, that Pep Guardiola designed for his Manchester City players? Then when it goes wrong, do you question the ability of certain individuals? While this could be something that you’ve previously seen in the past, it clearly isn’t the best starting point you could take.
While deciding on your team intentions, can your players;
Achieve these desired outcomes, in order to assist with the team objective?
Execute what you’re requesting?
If this plan (a) doesn’t work, what is your plan (b)?
How often do you evaluate and adapt these intentions?
Lastly, you have to implement a playing formation which is a tool used to execute your team intentions, while also taking into consideration the abilities of your players. A previous post found here, highlights this information; https://www.parktopro.com/formations/
From reading this brief blog, I hope you can now understand the importance of your players and how you could assist them, in contributing to your team objectives.
