Combinations
It’s enough to drive any coach crazy: You practice shooting combinations over and over again, but when the game is on, your players don’t use them! When you do score, it’s more often because of your opponents’ mistakes — or a lucky coincidence — than because of the combinations you’ve practiced. But still, it really is a good idea to use practiced combinations in match conditions. Even though youth and amateur coaches don’t have the opportunity to study video of their next opponent, they can still provide their players with useful information. In many cases, second half of the game or during first half after seen the opponent players.
However, since your opponent have done the same thing, you can be sure your own top attackers will be tightly marked. Your offense gets bogged down, and as a result, your defenders tend to get overworked: They make more mistakes, and the opposition gets more chances to score. Fortunately, you don’t have to recruit new, unknown attackers every season! Instead, you can use running and passing patterns to expand your offensive repertoire. Synchronizing your running and passing also reduces your chances of losing the ball, because the defensive players involved in your attack are constantly covered.
Before you start practicing the combinations, ask yourself the following questions:
• How can I make the best use of my players’ individual skills?
• What’s the most appropriate formation to use?
• Can I take advantage of any weaknesses in the opposition’s formation?
Players skills
To take maximum advantage of your players’ individual skills (passing accuracy, speed, heading, crossing, etc.), you should set up your running paths and passing lanes accordingly, and you might even consider changing players’ positions. Ideally, you should have a variety of appropriate player types at your disposal. Running and passing patterns also give less athletic players a head start over their opponents.
Your & Opponent formation
Which players take part in the attack? On one hand, it depends on your basic formation: In a formation focused on counterattacking, for example, fewer players start out on offense than in a formation with three forwards. On the other hand, the roles of some players, e.g. inside defenders, limit their involvement in attacking play.
Opponent formation simply describes players’ basic positions on the field. It doesn’t tell us much about how the team attacks and defends.