Soccer Tactics - Transition Play

In previous articles we have discussed the relative benefits of a possession vs a fast break approach to the game. Today, we'd like to briefly review what we believe to be the "engine" of modern soccer tactics:

Transition Play

Stepping back for a second, the aim of the game of soccer hasn't changed since its inception: Score goals and prevent the opposition from scoring on you. Sounds simple, but with today's athletic ability, technical ability and sophisticated training methods, its not so simple anymore, or is it?

Looking at the game from a different perspective, one can say that soccer is a game of constant change of possession. So one team is always defending trying to win the ball, while the other wants to move the ball into scoring position and score. Unless the team in possession scores, there will be a change of possession. After change of possession, both teams will need to transition:

The team that lost the ball now needs to transition from attacking to defending, trying to force a turnover. The team that was defending now needs to transition to attacking. How best to do this?

The simple answer in today's soccer is:

AS FAST AS POSSIBLE

Speed is of the essence. Looking at it from both teams' point of view:

Transitioning to Defense:

You want your team to immediately pressure the ball and not let the opponent get organized into an attacking mode. This is best done by putting a challenging and a support player on the opponent with the ball and everyone else to close down passing options by marking players and closing down passing lanes. This requires mental and physical speed. Mentally, your players need to react extremely quickly to a change of possession, perceive the position and movement of opponents and anticipate possible plays so they can prevent them. This requires lots of training sessions, co-ordination of positional responsibilities and communication. Physically, players need to be able to get to their destinations as fast as possible, sprinting and not jogging is the requirement.

Transitioning to Offense:

Your team has won possession of the ball. It should already know what the opponent wants, i.e. see comments above. Your goal is to get the ball moving towards the opponent's goal as quickly as possible, before the other team has done its job of marking and closing down options. In this transition, your players also need to react quickly, perceive where the spaces and opponents movements are, anticipate plays and make the runs and passes quickly. This requires technical accuracy (passing in particular), physical speed and mental speed.

If you train your team to be fast in both transitions, faster than any opponent you can imagine, and train to execute accurately at high pace, you will be successful.


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