Today’s game of football is played at an impressive pace. Yet, decisive and paused moments such as set pieces have the power to determine the outcome of a match. In this article, we analyse and discuss the importance of set pieces and strategy in modern football. We will further explain how coaches can implement technical and tactical training in their teams to outsmart opponents.
The WEURO 2022, which ended last Sunday, has been the best in history for many reasons. The physical and technical level has been extremely high, with no team out of tune. The spectacle has been comparable to the games of the final phases of the WUCL and that is why the television ratings and attendance at the stadiums have been so high.
Coaches often prepare game plans as if they were chess battles, but reality shows that in many cases the situations that were anticipated don't occur as imagined. But why? In this article we will discuss about the reasons, and which premises you should consider as a coach when preparing a game plan, to be successful.
Olympique Lyonnais won their 8th UEFA Women's Champions League trophy against FC Barcelona (3-1) in the final played at the Juventus Stadium (Torino, Italy). The French champions based their game plan in a very well organized pressing that did not allow Barcelona have a comfortable build-up during the whole match. In this analysis, we will try to illustrate how Lyon structured their defensive structure.
In football, open skills are much more prevalent than closed skills. This means that when planning training sessions, coaches must take into account this specificity and work on specific content in their drills. The question most coaches ask themselves, though, is from when should they start working in these type of skills.
Ada Hegerberg is the all-time leading goalscorer of the UEFA Women's Champions League at the age of only 26. The Norwegian striker has lead Olympique Lyonnais to 5 straight Champions League trophies (2016-2020), scoring in three of the Finals. She has proved to be a world-class topscorer, as we could recently see in the semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain, where she scored in both games and help her teammates create many chances with her movements.
Soccer players need to master many concepts in order to play well in training and matches. We need to sort these concepts as players need to learn them from when they are children until they retire. Players go through different stages and in each of them there is content which is more appropriate to be taught than other.
Rangnick has been credited as the architect of the high-pressing game widely used nowadays by a number of top teams. Coaches such as Jürgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel, Julian Nagelsmann, Hansi Flick, Ralph Hasenhüttl and Jesse Marsch have all been influenced by him to varying degrees. We've analysed some of the characteristics of this method, which specially focuses in the transitions, both in attack and defense.
Marcelo 'El Loco' Bielsa is one of the most influential managers of the 21st century, with a unique style that makes him so special. In this article, we perform a tactical analysis on some of the keys of his game model.
How should success we measured at grassroots level? In our approach, winning or losing should not be the metric to take into account. We propose an approach with metrics defined based on the training content the team is working.
