Chapter 7
Finish With the Attack
The chapter on defending examined some of the different ways a team can restrict the space and time available to their opponents. Now let’s look at attacking play from the opposite perspective — creating space and time.
Stretch the Opponents
When you have the ball, your opponents will try to keep their team compact and limit the amount of space between and inside their lines. Defenders will funnel back along their recovery lines to gain a numerical advantage, Diagram 6-9. They want a concentrated block of players between you and their goal.
One of the first things that you can do to counter their efforts is to establish width in your attack. You stretch the defenders across the entire width of the field. This will open up space between the players in a line offsetting the other team’s concentration-of-players tactic.
In Diagram 7-1, the goalkeeper has just caught the ball. The right and left back players move quickly outside, parallel to the end line. This is the fastest way for a team to develop width in its back and middle thirds. This gives the defenders the largest area to cover.
Often youth players are in too much of a hurry to get to the opponent’s goal in situations like this. They move on the most direct line to the other goal. This is the same line that the defenders want to take. As a result, both opponents will be moving into the same space, at approximately the same speed. After running 20 yards there’s no change in the distance between the attackers and the defenders. The attackers have failed to create any useable space. On the other hand, attackers who take the shortest route to the sideline will find open space within just a few yards, especially if their immediate opponent recovers back towards their goal. They are not running on the same lines. And if the defenders follow them “out wide” they’ll become separated from their teammates. The attackers are creating useable space in the shortest amount of time.
Diagram 7-2a shows how a three-player top line can stretch and pose problems for a concentrated defense. The defenders have retreated back to their goal, and the goalkeeper is acting as a sweeper behind them. They have built a solid block of defenders around their penalty area. If the attackers can switch the ball from the center forward to one of the wings they maybe able to penetrate around the back line into the space behind them.
If the outside defenders counter this by closely marking the wingers, Diagram 7-2b, they leave the central defender isolated against the center forward.
Now the midfielder can follow her pass to the center forward or simply carry the ball herself. Either situation creates a 2v1 in front of the goal.
When you’re trying to stretch a team from end to end, you will either be spreading out the players in different lines or different players in the same line, e.g. the left back and left midfielder or the two central defenders.
Diagram 7-3 shows attacker 1, between two defenders. (These could be the two central defenders, or they could be the center back and center midfielder.) The top defender is being drawn to the attacker with the ball, while the other is busy marking attacker 1. Attacker 1 is in the space behind, on the blind side of the pressurizing defender. By moving to her right, attacker 1 has become available for a pass in the space behind the pressurizing defender. The attackers have created space between the two defenders and exploited it.
Attacker 2 in Diagram 7-3 shows another way you can penetrate into the space behind the defense, this time using an overlapping run. The defender is ball watching and not paying attention to attacker 2. She can see the back of the defenders head and the ball at the same time. The defender has to split her vision between the ball and attacker 2, she never has all of the information she needs to do her job and this puts her under additional stress. (Blind side attackers don’t call or shout for the ball, because that takes away the element of surprise.)
You can even create space by standing still. Diagram 7-4 shows the situation when the right wing has beaten her opponent and dribbled down the flank. In this case the central defender has to choose between two basic tasks: To stay goal side of the ball or to mark the center forward. The central defender decides to recover goal side of the ball, so she moves from point 1 to 2. But the center forward has only run from point 3 to point 4. She simply stopped and let the defender go on which opened up space between the two of them. The central defender is caught between conflicting tasks and the center forward has taken advantage of it.
