#195 Trained for one game, faced another: a France U21 case on representative practice

Representative practice is one of those ideas that sounds simple until a match shows you exactly where your training stopped being representative. France U21 against Estonia U21. Final score six to one, but the number that stayed was a specific moment that kept repeating: a lateral penetration, a final acceleration to the edge of the box, and a ball into the danger area at a pace nothing in camp had produced.

Estonia had trained for exactly this situation. Sessions with coaches crossing on the byline, three distinct end actions, defenders sliding and reading. And still the game arrived at a tempo they had never once seen in training. That is not a player problem. That is a design problem.

In this episode: representativeness and the difference between general intensity and specific intensity — and why confusing the two is one of the most common, most invisible failures in practice design. Why the problem is almost always in the design, not the player. And why "we trained that" and "we trained the version of that which actually shows up at this level" are two completely different comments.

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Transcript

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Hello friends! This is Dukris Sal, where we talk about the beautiful but often misunderstood and complex game of football. It's a holistic, skillful, and adaptive journey to better humanity. Welcome back to ProCrisal. My name is Janis Sarajari, and today's topic is one of those subjects we keep repeating in our podcast: Representative practice. I want to speak about this topic through a very konkret, because something happened recently that gave me a fresh way to talk about it. And the case is the Estonia under 21 national teams last year's match away in France against the French under-21s. The final score was 6-1 away from home against the side with players already playing in the Premier League and PSG and such teams. So that on its own is context, a meaningful, a very strong team that will push our team into low block and then a lot of defensive actions around and inside the box. What was most instructive to me as a coach was a specific game situation that came up again and again, and how it exposed something about how we had prepared as a coaching staff and players, and how it exposed something about how we had prepared. And the situation is very familiar to us. An opponent is penetrating from the lateral corridor, maybe 3v3 or similar white configuration, penetrates from the side, makes a final acceleration to the edge of the penalty area and then passes the ball into the box. Sometimes along the ground between the center back and the goalkeeper, sometimes across to the back post, sometimes a cut back to the penalty spot, so different kinds of opportunities, three or four distinct end actions all from the same starting situation. France under 21 scored a couple of their goals exactly like this. And the interesting thing is we had trained for these situations. So we basically were ready to face this lateral penetration and acceleration. So during the camp we had built sessions specifically to prepare for defending these wide breakthroughs. And if you would ask us as a staff did we train for it? So we would say yes, we trained for it. But if you ask a sharper question Did we train in a representative way? Did the training actually represent a match? The answer is more uncomfortable for us. And that gap between we train it and we trained the real version of it is what I want to talk about today. So let me describe a little bit about the practice design we used because the design itself is what we have to think about or examine. So in the early sessions, the setup was quite conventional. Coaches and one or two players were positioned on the wide channel, delivering balls into the box for defenders to defend. And there were of course like different passing sequences to make the defensive line drop and go up and slide and such things. As the game progressed, we moved closer to the byline. We had coaches positioned on both sides near the goal line, and the ball was played to them quickly so that we could feed in three distinct end actions: the true ball between the center back and goalkeeper to cross into the box and the cutback. In terms of design, so this is already a quite okay move toward representative practice. Closer the line, more distinct end actions, defenders forced to withdraw towards the goal, decisions to make about whether to engage the crosser or stay on the goal side or such things, you know. Some of those reps started to look pretty good actually. The defenders had to read the situation, there was a lot of movement, a little bit even not total chaos, but a little bit chaos also recovering, challenging, interceptions, shot blocking and such things. And then we had the game and opponents scored and we were not able to defend. And what we discovered watching the match back was that the speed at which the ball arrived in the box at international elite under 21 level was on a completely different scale from anything we had managed to recreate in training. So the wingers' final acceleration was different, the contact on the ball was different, the line of the cross was different, the whole speed of the whole situation was different, and the whole event arrived at our defensive line at a tempo we had not produced once in the camp. There was one goal in particular where you could see exactly what it what this means. So our centerbacks and our goalkeeper simply didn't get to where they needed to be in time because the opponent was accelerating so fast from the lateral corridor and they passed the ball in front of the goal in such speed that it was easy tapping for the striker because we were not ready. So the ball came in so fast that by the time the goalkeeper reacted to it, the ball was already past him. You could see in his body that he had not anticipated it being that fast because nothing in his prior experience had told him a cross could come in like that. And that's interesting because we could say that all the players are not ready and players, players, players, but that is not a player mistake. That's a representativeness problem. So perception, action, coupling, how the players were attuned or to which kind of information players were attuned to in the training. The honest reflection here is that none of our coaches and probably none of our players can actually deliver that cross or can speed or accelerate in such a pace on the wing. So we just couldn't produce this in training. Some of these French swingers were Premier League PSG also, they the pace they put on a ball, the line they put it on, the timing and everything, that is something we couldn't easily simulate with our own players or staff. And this is where I would like to widen the lens because the lesson here is not just about Estonia or France or one specific session, it's a lesson about the concept we throw around a lot, which is intensity. So we say in coaching that practice has to be intense, players have to be pushed, they have to be uncomfortable, and there is actually truth in that game is very demanding, and we have to have to be in the limits. But there are different kinds of intensity. And the case I just described shows you which kind actually matters. So you can run aheur like white defense rehearsal at high general intensity. You can drill ball after ball into box and have a lot of kind of opa, now we're going a lot of chaos also. You can make the defenders chase, recover, sprint, do it again until they are exhausted and they will feel that they have been pushed. And that has a place, of course, this kind of trading. But it's not the same intensity as what the match demands. The intensity that the French match demanded was something more specific. The ball into the box arrived at a particular speed on a particular line after a particular acceleration by the attacker with particular runs unfolding in front of the goalkeeper. So the whole event has its own characteristic rhythm and tempo. That's the intensity we need to create. No general fatigue, but the specific tempo of the moment we are trying to prepare for. That's what I would call specific intensity. And often I would argue that we are more like more creating the general kind of intensity. Because it depends on the coaches and the players' ability to actually produce the inputs at the level the game produces them. One related point on this: when we discuss this with strength and conditioning colleagues, the conversation about speed training often comes up, and the standard view is that to get a real maximal sprint, you have to take the ball out of the picture. You set up a straight line, no ball, and let the player or players run. And the thinking is that any constraint pulls them off their top speed. I would actually argue that if the situation in training really is the situation of defending a fast wide breakthrough, the player has to run at full speed. Not because actually we told them to, but because the situation demands it. If they do not run at full speed, they cannot defend the goal. That kind of context-driven sprint is a real speed stimulus and it is also a real defensive rep, perception action. And what is a little bit sad but also inspiring is that the reason all these problems happen in our sessions and in our games, the reason is not the player, it is us, the coaches. We have not organized the situation such that flat out sprinting is required or it's like game-related sprinting that I really have to withdraw in front of the goal. And if it's not required, players will not produce it because of course the athletes will not burn own resources for no reason. So the problem almost always is in the design, and that's why we need to a little bit think about the design. So we tend to believe before a match that we understand what the match is going to demand. Then we watch the match back and we realize the gap, and only then if we are honest do we revise what intents or representative actually means for that situation. The belief that we understand demands is one of the most common and most invisible problems in coaching, I would say. It's not actually that we are lazy or careless, but we genuinely think we know and then the next level of opposition arrives and shows us we didn't know. And this applies for far beyond defending these lateral breakthroughs, it applies to how we o how we build up, applies to pressing, it applies to how we work in transitions. We routinely say we trained that and we did it, but we trained a slower, lower intensity, lower information version of it. The way through this I think is twofold. First we have to keep watching match footage with the question not uh did we train this, but did we train the version of this that actually shows up at this level? And these are different questions. Second, we have to keep working on practice design because design is where intensity is decided. Where do we place the players, where do we place the coaches, where does the ball start, how quickly does it move, what's the spacing and etc. All of these design choices are levers, and most of the time the gap between training and match comes down to those levers being set to generously. We will have uh one clip from this French match on our channel so you can see for yourselves the speed at which the ball was arriving in the box. It is worth looking at with the eyes of a coach asking could I produce this in my next session? Also, a reminder that Progress Sao, How We Have Misunderstood Football book that is already published in Estonian Finland, is being currently translated into English. Have a good week. See you next time.