| The Time Man |
How many times in a game do we hear the coach passing messages on to the field?
What is generally the context of these messages? Tactics, technique, motivation?
The motivation factor always will be there. A prime area of the coach’s responsibility is to reinforce by positive methods when possible (with the occasional negative comment, I am sure).
As for technique in the game, we all understand that one cannot coach an individual player’s errors in a game, that is for the training ground. If a coach attempts to correct his players’ individual mistakes while the game is in motion, he may possibly lose control of the big picture and take that player’s eye, and others around him, from the game. This form of micromanagement coaching leads only to frustration and loss of confidence on the part of the player, coach and team. Have a look for yourself at how teams can dissolve or solidify via the coach’s game management.
So this leaves the tactical side of the game. This is where I believe creating the “Time Man” can benefit the game.
What is the Time Man?
Look up! Create Space! Tuck in! Man on! Pressure the ball! Push him wide! Any of these sound familiar? What do they all have in common? They all require time, either the creation or use of this valuable asset. It is very difficult for an attacking player to create time by himself, when under pressure. He can dribble into space, but what is probably going to be there….pressure. His first role as an attacking player, according to Alan Wade’s principles, is to penetrate, but penetration without maintaining possession, unless it is a shot, often leads to counterattacks and continuous direct play.
Watching today’s youth game, it seems to run on an end-to-end shuttle basis, with very little building or style of play, especially at the lower levels. It reads as though the coach’s main tactic is just to get the ball to his forwards as quickly as possible and let them do all the work.
What do they do? They penetrate at speed down the field losing their support (another one of Wade’s attacking principles); become isolated and lose possession, setting up the counter for the opposition, and so on.
This is a generalization: There are teams who work the ball well and who have mastered the 90-minute counterattack, but let us focus here on the ones who have not!
How can we change this? By creating the Time Man.
Some of you at the end of this article are going to say, “That was just indirect play.” You would be right, but how long did it take you as a coach to learn and understand indirect play? We do not have that time at the training ground, and we are coaching players, not coaches. The coach needs to simplify, a single statement or a visionary buzz word, bringing back the pictures from the training ground, the hours of coaching that can express the transfer of an indirect style of play. That means the creation of time and space, that final frontier, which equals vision and composure, hence enabling the team to apply their coached style of play, with numbers up in support.
The player with the ball, what is he? Correct, an attacker. What is his first thought? To shoot. If this option is not available, what is his next action…Penetration? At coaching clinics we are taught penetration is gained individually by passing or dribbling the ball forward, but generally there is little or no mention about “Team Penetration.” As a central midfielder, for example, if after your thought of shooting has passed through your mind and it is not on, your next action, as coached, is penetration. If you dribble the ball through your midfield, what are you leaving behind you? You are leaving space, a possible area for the opposition to counterattack. If you directly pass the ball to your strikers, they often turn and take on the defense without support and little foundation. That is unless they utilize the role of “target men” using the CM as their “Time Man.”
What if we teach our teams about the ability to gain individual and team penetration using a Time Man? The CM stops looks up and reads in advance the above. He/she drops the ball back to her supporting player who is in space and has time, hence the Time Man (CM, RM, LM, possibly CB depending on shape). From this visual clue, the outside (or inside depending on shape) players make the team penetrating runs to width in support of the attack and create a numbers-up scenario. Because the CM or CB who now has possession of the ball is in space, has created time for his team to organize, slowing down the game and allowing the foundation of the attack to be built on stone and not sand. He/she could now play a penetrating pass to the flank creating the cross or dribble with support, re-working the ball through the midfield in a numbers up situation. This same model can be used to create time to break out of the defensive third using the outside and center backs.
This can happen all over the field in various positions as long as supporting players position themselves in time and space, communicate and read the pictures from the training ground. As the old adage goes, “There is always space behind you.”
Watching teams like Manchester United or Arsenal offer a great visual aid to this creation of a “Time Man.”
The idea of the Time Man is not new; it is a variance of building the game indirectly. But maybe the thought and direction in which it could be coached is new. Bring it into your games and training and see if it works for you.
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