Hi everyone, this is Dave Wright and welcome to the Play Development Project podcast. I hope you're having a great week where you're listening. This week we published a new Masterclass discussion in the form of a webinar replay on small-sided games in youth football. This is an almost 90-minute presentation from Dan Wright and myself on some of our favourite small-sided games, and it's underpinned by some background on constraints lead coaching and demonstrates a few examples of some lead-in practices and adaptations to the games that we present.
On top of this, we answer a few of our community questions live in the discussion from our webinar attendees, challenging us with some of their thoughts and ideas on what we present, so I've made for good discussion. Look out for some more practical content in the form of a new live session coming up on the site, as well as a brand new blog contributor, all coming soon, so watch this space. On today's podcast, Dan and I tackle another community question, and it's practical one around directional versus non-directional practices. The conversation sees us debate the pros and cons, and given the subjective nature of the topic, we'd love to hear from you with your thoughts.
Feel free to message us via the PDP Facebook page or at PlayDP on Twitter if you agree or disagree with some of the ideas in this conversation. I hope you enjoyed the discussion and don't forget, as always, you can head over to Play Development Project.com and sign up to access our huge range of coaching content. Hi everyone, my name is Dave Wright and welcome to another Play Development Project Q&A. As usual, I'm joined by PDP Tech Supervisor and Academy Coach Dan Wright.
Dan, how are you going this week? I'm very well, thank you. Really looking forward to this question. I think we're going to get into some good detail and maybe a heated discussion.
So yeah, looking forward to this one. We'd love a bit of debate. We'll see how we go. Is everything been good up there on the training ground for you?
Yeah, so it's an interesting time of year. We're heading into a tournament season. So from a grassroots point of view, there's lots of kind of 5v5, 6v6, 77 tournaments popping up, and then we're starting to enter a few tournaments. We're starting to see boys maybe playing in different situations, different environments, maybe with some more pressure and just kind of opportunity for them to show the things that they've kind of lived throughout the season.
So, yeah, from a social point of view, these tournaments are great. So a lot of the time the kids get to spend their time with each other and just have fortunate strong bonds, which are quite important. Yeah, certainly very exciting and always great experiences tournaments. And they usually throw up a few surprises as well.
So good luck with that. We'll crack on with the question. It's a really interesting one. It's coming via the PDP Facebook page from Nicky.
And he has said should position be directional. Now this is one that can be quite an interesting discussion around positional games and directional position and really represented a design. And I guess talking about realism and these kind of things. So we're not initially saw the question that he added a bit of detail around the fact he's working with young girls team and he used to do 66 non-directional position to get them popping the ball around.
So he had good success with repeated practice. So, Dan, what are your first thoughts on this one? Yeah, it's an interesting one because the simple question for me should position perhaps be directional was a difficult answer. I would say there are benefits to it being directional, but I could also name some benefits but being non-directional.
So I think we're going to talk about, basically, the touch on kind of representative design. We're going to talk about that. The realism, the repetition and the relevance of our practice and maybe what the desired intention is and are we hitting that intention by it being directional or not directional? I think before we start this chat, you talked about kind of sharing your experiences of going from possession to be anything.
And now you would say most of your possession practices are directional, is that fair to say? Yeah, look, I think I'm a big believer in positional games. I would argue that they tend to be directional, whilst I appreciate that they're not always, you know, 4v1 or a 4v2 or smaller Rondo may not be. I think the idea of working on height, width and depth and ensuring that players are moving the ball in a realistic way in positional games.
I think I do favor that. I do have a lot of memories of doing non-directional position games. I can think of transition games where it might be three teams of four and one team is trying to press against let's say it's 84 and then they went off the blue team, the blue team and defense. So there's a transition element and that would be somewhat argue of a position game, obviously it's an overloaded position, but it's not really directional since we're going towards goals or we're going up and down.
I think also I can reflect on my experience of going through the youth awards in the UK and I was lucky enough to be working with Jeff Noonan who was at the FA and he was observing an assessment and gave some great feedback around realistic direction in terms of some of my practices and some of the challenges where you know, when the ball and put it into a goal and I tried to twist things up and I was trying to perhaps over complicate things at times. And I think that was a great lesson for me in terms of my own coaching and just looking at, okay, there's two goals, it's an invasion game, we're going one end to the other. Probably since then I've gone a lot more directional and away from just a box with 10 players, 5v5, trying to keep the ball because I think whilst there is obviously pressure, which is real, there is obviously an opportunity to play a variety of passes and distances. I think having a direction and attacking the feeling transition moment is much more real to the game so probably lean towards keeping it directional more often than not.
So that's kind of where I'm starting. I think there is room for debate and discussion here. What are your thoughts around perhaps the benefits of non-direction and how often do you use it? I think there can be some benefits to non-directional.
I think if we were, let's try and give a specific example. So if we were looking to try and help a central midfielder receive the ball through 360 degrees and you could do this through a directional possession. But one way to maybe get a lot of repetition of receiving the ball on different angles and playing it in different directions kind of playing through that 360 degrees would be to put him in the middle of a practice that was non-directional. If we just kind of take your example of it maybe be in directional, maybe with some target goals or end zones to try and play him, he would probably get repetition of that.
But unless you're playing with really high numbers, quite often his pictures would be forwards and backwards so he would kind of step back and play forwards. I think we talk about some of the best holding players, what he'd call them, sixes or fours in the world. A lot of them would play through 360 degrees. Maybe that picture of receiving from a centre back and playing out to a full back or receiving from one side to the back and playing out to the opposite side, full back or window.
That could be quite hard to achieve through a possession practice. So as far as I'm just kind of playing, that was advocate and say, if everything is directional, are you going to get enough repetition? And then again, it could come back to kind of the abilities of the individuals. I think if I had younger players, you might just want to work on non-directional to talk about supporting positions all the time.
Although that would be maybe a bit artificial in the sense that you might not penetrate an area or exploit a space. But if we're talking about Dave's got the ball, if you're on Dave's team, how are you going to support it, just moving your feet to come and get it. And you could do that in the direction of practice. But again, the repetition of how many times you do that.
So just envisaging the questions asking about 606 with no kind of neutral players could be quite difficult. So the reason for one of the outcomes, whether the girls might be going to give them the ball is because if one of them's got it, the other five are going to have to move to other kind of supporting positions because they'll be matched up. Could you do that directionally? Yeah.
Where you get as much repetition, probably a pass and receive in the ball. Maybe not because if we go back to your example of using goals, if the purpose is always to penetrate, then maybe there's more value and attunement to pass the ball forward and score a goal rather than to keep the football and to play. So it might look like I'm just thinking off the top of the head, it might look like it's a moment of the game as well. It's what you see from transitioning from maybe 5 to 5 all the way through to 11 to 11.
At 5 to 5, there is some kind of passing chains of 5, 6, 7 passes, kids get the ball and they try and work it to the end as quick as possible. And like a little team. But in a level of 11, it's quite difficult to get the ball from the goalkeeper and get it to your number 9, so that seems goal, that's quite difficult, doesn't happen very often. So at the moments where you're midfield or back four, we'll have to keep the ball for 15, 20 passes, yeah, probably.
How do you replicate that in a possession practice? That would be the challenge. So I think it comes back to what's the intention of the practice, what individuals are you trying to help or affect and then how much real is a repetition of relevance on the game? Do you want to do loads of realism?
It would be directional for me. If you want loads of repetition for individuals, then you might make it slightly artificial, slightly different to just a two goal game or a directional game. I've waffled on a bit there, but the point is a bit in there. Yeah, but it was all good waffles.
So super interesting. And I think just to be clear for those who may be just starting out as coaches, directional doesn't necessarily mean it has to have goals. It could just be that there is that clear direction of passing from an end to an end or a zone to a zone or a target player. Look, I think we've got a couple of passing practices on the live session library where, you know, there isn't necessarily goals in play, but what we've got is the intention of hype with depth or potentially a focus on receiving shapes.
I think you're bang on with your point around what is the outcome of the practice. I think that's where we have to start. Now, if your outcome with a group of under 12 girls is, you know, they're learning the game, they're learning how to pass a receipt. They're learning about perhaps the principle of support.
Then maybe that non-directional practice has its value, but I think also you can teach that within directional positional games in a 4v4 plus 3, for example, obviously it's 11 players. If you had 12, you know, like Nicki has suggested, it would be a 4v4 plus 4. You can talk about supporting either underneath the ball if the ball's gone from the central target player, let's say at the bottom of the square, out to the right side of the player, and they haven't received beyond, maybe they've got to bounce it back and the movement of that player is to support underneath. Then you're talking about players supporting in front of the ball, or perhaps in between lines and in between players.
Now, again, these concepts can be as advanced as you like in terms of positional games and positional play. But with very young players who are learning the game, you can still teach those principles of height, width and depth, and also receiving between lines. And, you know, on a recent Masterclass discussion with Gabrielle Flores, who's over there at following our, we both had the pleasure of working with Gage, a great coach. We were talking about one of our former colleagues referring to the idea of receiving on a clear line, or can you show your teammate your feet?
Just simple principles with young players in simple language, which when working on position and understanding, passing and receiving in an opposed setting, is really important. So those kind of concepts for me can come out in both, which I don't think answers the question, but again, similar to you, I'm sort of throwing grenades out there a little bit and just sort of throwing ideas in the mix as to what can be the pros and cons. But I do like the positional games because of the appreciation of space. I think that's probably the summary of why I would favour those now.
But again, in the past, I have done non-directional possession. And I think maybe what we're talking about is the best coach you find a way to relate that to the game. Absolutely. So if it's players that have got quite a skill set and quite a hard training age that it might be easier to put on a practice that looks more like the game, with younger players or less able players or players with a lot of training age, you might have to make a practice simpler but find a way to relate it back to what they know.
So just when you were talking about passing lines and showing your feet, I've watched the coach who works locally near where I live. He works with very young players, probably six and sevens, and what he talks about stepping into the light. And he works in schools and he was observing a teacher talking about kind of light and shadows, stick with me here. And the kid's understanding that if you put something in front of the light, it makes a shadow.
So he was talking about the ball being a beam of light. And if you're in the way of me receiving the ball, then I'm just doing a shadow. Because all this massive beam of light is shining out with Dave standing in the way, so it makes a shadow. And he was asking the players to step into the light, which was brilliant because they've been doing it and it was kind of cross-curricular learning.
I suppose they call it in a school, but really simple idea of where you stood at the moment you were in a shadow and from a really tactical analysis stuff that you see on Twitter, that would be like a cover shadow. So either the player standing in that line of the ball, and could you just make two steps to the left and know you're stepping into the light to receive the ball. Now, trying to speak to the question, you could do that directionally and non-directionally, the principle of supporting the ball would be the same. Now, what which I did is show you an example of what you look like for six and seven-year-olds.
You probably wouldn't use that language with another 23-part. It's just again that the skill of maybe the publisher would later practice to what is the desired outcome, but that language as far as the language you shared from Gage is an interesting web, how any practice should relate to the game and should be representative. But maybe representative of what their game looks like. So my example is for six and seven-year-olds, Gage might be for teenagers because passing lines makes sense to be 13 or 14.
Whereas passing lines to a six-year-old, you probably get a shot at the shoulder. It's a really good example of age-appropriate coaching and the language required for different players. Obviously, we've all got to adapt our approach for different levels of players. I remember a couple of years ago going into a training camp.
I was lucky enough to go home and do some coaching in New Zealand. Some of the players were of real mixed ability. That was interesting coming from an academy environment where you're working with certain players at a certain level within these young age groups and then seeing players. It was great in the coaching sense of going, I've got to be really clear in my language, really clear in my purpose, and working with players who perhaps hadn't seen the sessions that I was putting on and that I was used to delivering because they were in a different program and they were operating in their own way.
I think that was a really interesting experience just in terms of rewinding and going, not back down the spectrum in terms of opposed versus unopposed, but just dialing it down a little bit and making it appropriate for the players you're working with. I think going back to Nicky's question, it's really important that if he's got a grasp on his context and the level of players that he's working with, the ability of the girls he's working with, and he's seen success in the past with this particular approach, I couldn't sit here and say, don't do it. I would think as long as you're getting good outcomes in terms of we're focusing on passing receiving and support, great. If it's starting to look like a swarm of ease and it's very unrealistic, then perhaps you could consider bringing some directional goals in.
But again, without seeing the sessions very hard to sit there and go, this is right or wrong. I think as long as you're beginning or starting with the Y, which is a term we've sort of pinched from Simon's Sinek a few times starting with Y and working backwards as to what you're trying to achieve, I think you're on the right path. Any sort of additional thoughts to this one, Dan, before we wrap it up? Yeah, I think my next step would be what is it like on GameDay?
Because if you're practising where consistently non-directional, you might see a lack of shooting, you might see a lack of players running in behind and penetrating with a run or penetrating with a forward-pastor to score a goal. So this might be a good starting point if you want to talk about those things maybe in a couple of weeks' time or in a couple of sessions' time. But if you get to a Saturday or Sunday or a GameDay and the guys just keep the ball that don't go anywhere, then that might tell you what you need to know. If you're starting logicals, I want to build a possession-based framework and this is the way to do it to get to there, then that might make sense.
But if we get to GameDay and they play out from the goalkeeper and just keep it and keep it and keep it and never think about going behind, then that might be some sort of link to practice sign. And it kind of comes back full circle to my example of the number four of you, number four is getting it and always sticking it behind when nobody's there. You might have to go to a different part of the practice spectrum. So really, again, another really simple question which I hope you've put two or three hours and it comes back to the variety and volume point again, doesn't it?
They need to see different things linked into what they know linked into the opposition they're going to play. It's the area space. If you did a non-directional practice in an area that was too big, it would be too easy, it'd be too unrealistic. I'm not sure how well it would transfer.
I have non-directional practices that are really tight to encourage the players to play one or two touches at times. I wouldn't do it every week. I wouldn't do it 20 times a season. But if we've had other games where people are taking too many touches and getting quite a position, a really simple way of creating that need and creating that kind of problem for them and exaggerating that problem is to make it tight and it should be by 5.10 yards.
Everybody's in and it's just almost like fight ball and the best player's fun to play with one or two touches. So it comes back to 90 players as well. What do you guys need? What do you try to have them do?
So really good question. Hopefully, we've given some kind of some meat set aside on the buns there. Definitely. Well, look just in terms of content.
We do have a masterclass discussion which Dan and I actually filmed full presentation of how to implement constraints in a small-sided game. So obviously, we've talked about task constraints a lot in the past and often they come with some kind of sacrifice whether it's realism, relevance or repetition and sometimes it's a trade-off one to the other. The session playing library has got a number of non-directional positioning practices where there's one in there called Pop City which is really good which a colleague of mine came up with one of the clubs that used to work with a really nice tight space session similar to what you're alluding to. But there's almost 100 different plans in there of positional games, directional practices, small-sided games and so on.
So highly recommend Nicky jumps in there and checks those out. And of course plenty of content if you search session plans and so on the site you'll see a lot of written content around session design as well. So really interesting question, no right or wrong answer but some good thoughts there. Dan, thank you again for your time.
No, it's been a good one, Nicky. Excellent, we hope we've helped Nicky with his challenge there and we will look forward to another Play Development Project Q&A very soon. Thanks for joining us on the Play Development Project podcast. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PlayaDB or find us on Facebook.
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