The Soccer Coaching Podcast
The Soccer Coaching Podcast
Episode 113 - Formations, Styles, and Player Roles, a conversation with Ray Power
Episode 113,
Brought to you in association with our friends at Soccer Coach Weekly (@SoccerCoachWeek)
Episode 113 - Formations and Playing Positions, a conversation with Ray Power
Football formations mystify many coaches – are they essential blueprints or merely starting points for something more fluid? Ray Power, Head of Football at Bangladesh's National Academy (BKSP), masterfully deconstructs this question through the lens of both elite and grassroots football development.
Power introduces the refreshing concept of a "base formation" as simply your team's home – a familiar structure players return to when uncertain, rather than a rigid tactical straightjacket. This perspective immediately transforms how coaches might approach formations with their teams. "Your formation is like home," Power explains. "When you're struggling or not quite sure what to do next, you have home base."
The conversation illuminates crucial distinctions between formations and playing styles, using the example of Mourinho's Chelsea and Guardiola's Barcelona both using 4-3-3 formations but producing dramatically different football. This reveals why cookie-cutter approaches to tactical systems inevitably fall short – each team's unique player attributes create entirely different dynamics within the same numerical structure.
For youth coaches transitioning players to 11-a-side football, Power offers particularly valuable insights. Rather than being wedded to a single formation, he advocates cycling players through multiple tactical approaches throughout their development journey. This builds more versatile footballers with broader tactical understanding – like Michael Carrick who surprisingly admitted never playing center-back despite his physical and technical suitability for the position.
Power's analysis of in-game formation changes reveals the psychological component often overlooked in tactical discussions. When players are comfortable with multiple formations, they adjust more seamlessly during matches without the anxiety that typically accompanies positional shifts. This psychological comfort allows teams to adapt to opposition threats or exploit emerging opportunities with confidence.
Whether you're a grassroots coach seeking to navigate the complexities of formations or an experienced tactician looking for fresh perspectives, Ray's practical wisdom and accessible approach make this episode an essential tactical masterclass. By understanding formations as dynamic frameworks rather than rigid systems, coaches at all levels can develop more adaptable, tactically intelligent players ready for football's ever-evolving demands.
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Ray Power - @power_ray
Formations and Player Positions Webinar - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/raypowercoacheducation/1480696
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Welcome to the Soccer Coaching Podcast, brought to you in association with our friends at Soccer Coach Weekly, reflecting our shared ambition to help coaches have the most effective, enjoyable and successful coaching journey for them and their players. We hope you enjoy this episode and thanks for listening. All right, everyone. Just a quick introduction before we start the podcast and a conversation with ray. Ray has kindly offered a 15 discount to one of his ray power coach education webinars that he's done previously around the topic of formations and playing positions. So if there are listeners that want to find out more about the conversation we're going to have on this podcast now and delve a bit deeper, you can click on the link in the show notes, type in on the discount code podcast and you'll get 15% off that webinar. Thanks, enjoy the podcast, ray. Welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing, my friend? Yes, gosh, it's been a while it's been a while it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for inviting me back on yeah, well, I don't know how many you've done now, but you're going to be up with one of, if not our most invited on guest, or I don't know, but you've got to be three or four, maybe I don't even know.
Speaker 2:But it's, it's a, it's a good number if I had a gun to my head, I'd probably say this is the third, is it, is it third? Yeah, I think. Maybe I'm going to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know it's always a pleasure having you on the podcast. We were saying just briefly before we hit the record button these things are always quite selfish. I always learn loads from your podcast, so I look forward to them. I'm going to learn a lot today, I know, because the topic I think is a really good one, especially for where I am with my little footballing journey, so I'm forward to it. Um, and and I know that there won't be many people that haven't heard, if you rightly so, because all the wonderful work you do out there, um, but just by way of maybe with an update when we last spoke, just kind of what you're doing now and where you're at and how things have been scott, you, you need to be my agent, by the way, because your intros are are thorough, like that.
Speaker 2:It's brilliant. Um, I am so. I think it's a couple of years I had a stint in bangladesh before going back to the uk and I'm now back in bangladesh at bksp, which is there's no direct translation, I wouldn't have thought. But it's like the national academy here, so a little bit like france's bangladesh's version of france's claire fontaine. So we we have the best kids in the country, male and female players. But it's like the National Academy here, so a little bit like Bangladesh's version of France's Claire Fontaine. So we have the best kids in the country, male and female players. They come here, they train, they live, they go to school entirely residential. So I head up the technical side of the football on every ball that's kicked here and, as usual, with all the other stuff, you, if you fancy reading what I say, I've got a few books always on the go. I've got one coming out again soon and you said right at the beginning of this chat that you invite people on.
Speaker 2:That you want to listen to absolutely I do the same, but only selfish, yeah yeah, so I get good people into my programs to to deliver expert webinars on on football coaching and stuff. So all of that is really still ongoing from the last time we spoke. So normally, normally have something going on.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, I know you're always busy with the, you know on the on the grass stuff, as well as the kind of coach development stuff. So fantastic to see. How have you found it out in Bangladesh? I mean, I'm going to guess the culture is very different and you know there'd be things that you know. I mean, football does translate across the globe quite nicely, but I guess there are a few differences out there. Are there in what you've experienced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like you could probably compartmentalize a few things around, like football, it's got a language of its own, you know what I mean, and a love of its own, even even here, um, where probably best known sport wise for cricket, um, but football is, is mad popular and there's a, there's a good level of player here, even if they struggle to, um, to sort of make it out of the country, if that makes sense. And then, look, you do have the cultural things, the day-to-day things that are obviously vastly different than the UK and whatnot. But you know, no matter where you go in the world, there's good people, there's always football somewhere. So, yeah, I've always enjoyed my. This is my second stint here, as I said, and I've always enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic, brilliant, brilliant. Thanks. So much, okay, and then just we'll touch quick, that's okay, just on the books and stuff. How is that going?
Speaker 2:and you know, um, what's on the plans with regards to the, to the books so imminently, um and by imminent I probably still mean maybe a month or two away from coaching through superiorities is going to be my latest one. So it sort of evolved from an original discussion I had with my publisher about like a tactical workbook that just kind of evolved and took shape in it and kind of just went in a completely different way. Um, and the book ends up looking at football coaching through the idea of superiorities, and so people might be or might not be familiar with the idea of things like numerical superiority and qualitative and dynamic and so on. Um, so the book is designed to challenge the coach to analyze as you read you, analyze your team through whatever particular lens that we've got on. At that time it sounds complicated, but you know my stuff is kind of I intended to decomplicate things, so hopefully it does that. So that'll be out soon.
Speaker 1:Right, I think that's one of your gifts. Honestly, when I see some of the things you put out there and I look at the kind of headline talks or something else, I think, oh no, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a, a mind blower. But actually with this, the way you position the stuff and the way you put the content out, it just becomes really clear really quickly. Um so, even people like me, who aren't the shopper in the box, can understand stuff. So I'm look, I'll be getting this book and I'll be trying to work my way through it, and if it can pass the Scott test, you're going to be fine.
Speaker 2:The lot. Actually it's completely intentional, you know, partly because before I ever started writing I kind of like I read a few translated books and things like that and maybe website stuff that just sometimes make you feel like an idiot when you're reading it. So my USp quickly became well, if I'm going to put something that my, my editor is kind of well versed in this idea that if something's not clear, if something doesn't quite ring through, that it's got to, it's got to be edited and changed and stuff like that. So it's completely intentional, so I'm pleased to be able to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, the last thing you want to do is sweat when you're reading a book or whatever you know, just trying to pick up some new ones, so yeah, well, football and learning is hard work enough, right?
Speaker 1:don't put barriers in the way unnecessarily, and sometimes just the terminology, and you know, if you can put. I remember having a lecturer at university and he was really smart, but he was like, look, if I can't explain it to a seven-year-old, I don't understand. Understand it myself, you know, and I kind of thought that's the way of looking at things and I think like a seven-year-old, so it definitely works for me.
Speaker 2:Look, we can genuinely now we can laugh it off and we can make a joke about all that sort of stuff, but I think it's just a way of reaching people, and I love the people who join my programs and courses and stuff like that. I talk about light bulb moments all the time. So I just like being able to induce light bulb moments in coaching and as many coaches as I possibly can, and I found the best, certainly through through writing and the webinars to be able to do that in, hopefully, a way that's just really understandable for people in the first place, because otherwise, what exactly is it I'm trying to teach if I don't want people just to understand?
Speaker 1:so yeah, makes sense. All right, brilliant, thank you, ray. Well, as always with you. There is literally a thousand ones which we could pick up and discuss, like I I hate reaching out to you because I think what am I going to ask you about? Because I could cover like a thousand things really, um, but we managed to think of one, uh, or narrow it down to one, should I say.
Speaker 1:And again, this is a bit selfish for me because I think it's become more prevalent as I've moved into the 11-a-side part of the game with the young ones that I coach, so it's the under-13s. But we've kind of gone through that five-a-side, seven-a-side, nine-a-side, and these things weren't unimportant before but they certainly have probably more prevalence now. So what we're going to talk about for the next 45 minutes so if that's okay, ray is looking at kind of formations, styles and, I guess, player roles, responsibilities, um, and and like how important they are and you know how we might approach looking at those from a coaching perspective. Um, if that sounds okay with you, I don't that's too broad, but if that's kind of a good topic to discuss so, and maybe we'll find ourselves going in a few different directions than we planned.
Speaker 2:So, hopefully, uh, yeah, let's get into it perfect, brilliant, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, let's just start with the basics. Then, so kind of just understanding formations um, so how would you define a football formation and how important are they? And it's not a loaded question, because obviously we're talking about as loads, but you know, I I have gone from the position of thinking actually formations don't really, though they're everything and then they're nothing, and then they're a little bit important and I don't know where I am with myself. So be great to get your view on kind of what they are and how important you think they are yeah, you've actually taken the words out my mouth, to be fair, I think.
Speaker 2:I think they're everything and nothing all in one, and we've just said this. We would like things to be understandable. So just to beef that up a little bit is I've recently done a short course, actually, about the idea of formations and I prefer to think of formations as a structuring or a spread of players. Right, and that's so obvious to begin with, and that's so obvious to begin with Now, that structure, a spread of players, of 11 players, is impossible to get perfect, right, because the pitch is too big, there's too many variables involved in the game to make sense of every element of the game. So what formations end up being is, rather than a 4-3-3, for example, a 4-3-3 might look like something completely different when you're in the final third and you're attacking, because in that moment you're trying to give all the energy to the attack, you're trying to stop the counterattack and you're trying to balance off, and it will look different again when you're, uh, we'll say, low block defending or whatever the case may be. So if we think, I always like to think of a formation, as I call it, a base formation. All right, if you want to think of something um, like home. Right, so your formation is like home.
Speaker 2:So when you're struggling, are you not quite sure what to do next? You have home base, if you like. So I'm the I don't know the number six, or the defensive midfielder, or deep line midfielder, so I've made a forward run, I've done something, or I've gone and covered a runner, or I've gone out wide to put out a fire, my kind of like. If I'm not quite sure what to do next, I'm back in, or there's a set play, or something like that. We're back into our base formation. What I would love everyone to really appreciate, that that base formation is so fluid Once you leave it. It's more fluid than it is structured, if you know what I mean. And different coaches might give different players roles and responsibilities within the same structure, but it's why you know, sort of the same formation might look completely different in terms of how it's played.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, okay. Well, we're going to dig into this even further. So thank you for kind of just putting that as a starting point for us and I guess, alongside that, then, if you could just help us clarify this, or to me, I have understanding a little bit. Um, like we hear about, you know formations and styles of play. Um, what would you say is difference between those things? What's the difference between a formation and a style?
Speaker 2:or is there a difference? Yeah, I think there is. Yeah, I think there's. In fact, I don't think there's a connection necessarily between between the two. Um, this, this style of play. So if you watch a guardiola team, let's just make it really obvious if you watch a Guardiola team, you know it's a Guardiola team, regardless of whether it's got a back three, a back four, a front two, two wingers, no wingers. You know it's a Guardiola team because of a certain style short passing back to front and so on.
Speaker 2:Now, if we I see a lot of and I'm trying to say this carefully because I want to make sure I'm saying it right you'll see books or you'll see youtube videos and you'll see other content where you go, this is how you play 3-5-2. This is how you play 4-4-2 or whatever it happens to be. And we must understand that that content and those ideas are the starting point only. So, yes, your first, let's say someone, scott, was to say to you next weekend, we want you and your team to play with a 4-4-2 diamond, right? Probably the first thing you do is go okay, well, how does that work? Like, what does that spread? Tell you, what does all that do? And then you would put, let's say, your style on top of that. All right, so having a starting point where, yes, I do have to understand the spread here, I have to understand I did a webinar with John McKenzie, who's the TIFO and the athletic and all that. He did a brilliant webinar from us around hybrid defending and he spoke about a poor man's blanket, right. So this idea and I've stolen this off him every conversation I've had about this I've stolen off him. So it's sort of like, um, blanket doesn't, doesn't keep your head warm and your feet warm.
Speaker 2:You kind of have to to figure out, uh, which one you want to prioritize, and and that's essentially what we're doing with our, our style, or whatever it might be. Um, so once you get that starting point around, how you know this spread of your team functions, it's then about, well, okay, within that system, within that structure, how do we get our style? Do we send our fullbacks on? Do we send one of the fullbacks on? Is our number 10 a maverick with no defensive responsibilities? Or is the number 10 a workerverick with no defensive responsibilities? Or is the number 10 a worker Because we've got a problem in certain parts of midfield sometimes?
Speaker 2:What do our strikers, all that sort of stuff then comes with your style, and if we think about two of the most famous teams in probably the early part of the noughties, I guess, or the late noughties, you had the Mourinho, the first Mourinho, chelsea team 4-3-3, drogba, robben, duff, you know, makalele, lampard that one, it was a 4-3-3, just like the Barcelona Pep Guardiola's was a few years later in a 4-3-3. So the same spread of players, but one was direct counter-attacking, you know, quick, from back to front, prioritized defense, you would say. The other one was short passes, build up, you know, leave one or two players on the halfway line and and we'll attack, attack you at will. So it's the same formation but a completely different style or completely different idea yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1:Thanks, ray. Do you think part of the evolution over the years of football? I? I get a sense that maybe historically the formation was kind of what you had first and you put your style on top of it. It feels now more coaches have their style and then they put the formation around that. Do you think that's a shift? And I could be wrong, but if you go back, maybe like 50, 60 years ago, like most people were playing like a certain formation and that was it and you know the players head might detect the style. But now I think it seems more like it's a bit more of a craft than an art and coaches want to bring their style first and put information around that. Is that something you disagree with or am I getting that wrong?
Speaker 2:To a point like you'll always find someone or something that will. You could form a great debate or argument against what you've said, like there's a for and against. For sure. I think the history of football tactics go through staples at different times. So wm back in the day, and then it become like I I certainly grew up on. 90 percent of teams I would watch would play 4-4-2 and then it became 4-3-3, and then it's sort of now you'd probably say it's 4-2-3-1, is is the most popular um, but by no means out on its own either.
Speaker 2:So I think with coaches, you look at someone like um amir, mass, um at man, united at the moment he's, he's welded to a formation and and not just the formation itself, but he there's certain things he wants to embed within that formation, a certain style that he's trying to bring along there, and rightly or wrongly, because if it goes well and we've seen coaches do it before if it goes well, then everyone's happy, like Conte.
Speaker 2:Antonio Conte, although he's playing with a back four in Napoli at the minute, but Antonio Conte brought his sort of three at the back to Chelsea, swept all in front of him the Italian national team, all that sort of stuff. So I will accept that coaches may have a niche thing, but I think they're very much. If you're just going to transport a formation around the place, I still think you need an idea on top of that, rather than just oh, oh, we're going to play, pick any three centre halves and we'll just play them, because you know my job is done, so to speak. So I think there's a lot of nuance in there.
Speaker 1:Well, as I asked the question, I suddenly thought, mate, I think actually that's probably not correct, but I'm thinking again. Well, I think, with Amarin, maybe part of that is the fact that he feels that that formation best represents the style of football he wants to play. You know, I guess I think he comes, although I get frustrated. I'm not an United fan. The friends I've got that are very frustrated, um, you know. But I think what they're hoping is like the long term, a bit like when Pep first came to the Premier League and even with Klopp, with Liverpool, you know, arteta, arsenal, it took them a season or two to kind of get that, get it working how they wanted to work, but I felt like the style dictated what they were trying to achieve, rather than maybe a set formation with amaran I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1:I just think with him again, maybe as a question rather than a statement. Right, do you think it's a mistake? Maybe to you know, almost show your cards and only have one formation? Should you know more than football now? Do we need to have a bit more fluidity in that and not be locked into necessarily one Because you know it is showing your cards, isn't it? If that's just one way you're going to play your football.
Speaker 2:I think within football there's a dynamism right that will, and you've also got individual players that will interact with the game differently. So how Virgil van Dijk plays as a left-sided centre-back and how Martinez plays as a left-sided centre-back are entirely different, because they are entirely different With the kind of idea. I think the message that that potentially sends the coaches working with young players like in your situation, for example, 11 v 11 is new, you're making your way. Young player, like in your situation, for example, you know 11 v 11 is new, you're making your way I think it kind of says to us that you can be a one-trick pony. You know what I mean and you only need to understand what you understand. And and I think, if you're working in youth development, I think that's I actually think that's really quite right, or potentially because you want, I would like to think that after X amount of years taking a group of players or teams through youth development, you would want them to go into the adult game, being quite a little bit of a Swiss army knife, wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:so not just one solution or one thing.
Speaker 2:The bigger the toolbox, the better someone will turn around and say, well, barcelona and Ajax, they did the whole 4-3-3 thing forever, but they're Barcelona and Ajax, aren't they? You know what I mean. If their players don't make it there, they'll make it elsewhere, whereas I think I've had a few light bulb moments throughout the years and one of them, actually, quite randomly speaking about man United was years ago when, michael, there was some injury problems. I can't remember when exactly it was, but michael carrick, you know six foot three defensive midfielder, whatever he was was forced to play at centre-back for a couple of months maybe, I can't remember exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and he came out in the press. I think he was 28 or something like that. He came out in the press and says I've never played here before and I kind of thought that left as you can tell it's left a mark on me thinking well, how can you come through a whole system as a tall defensive midfielder and not play that? Now, if you said, okay, I didn't play an inverted winger, yeah yeah, or you know something but something where you're like if you were a pawn on a chess board those are two.
Speaker 1:You're linked in, aren't you? It's a linking player. Yeah, now, if you were, if you were a pawn on a chess board? Those are two. You're linked in, aren't you? It's a linking player, yeah.
Speaker 2:If you were Bruno Fernandes and you never played there. That's a different kind of relationship, or Paul Scholes, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I remember bringing a young lad to Ablesport to late teens to quite a big club in the UK and it was kind of like first day of the trial I played right wing back and he hadn't. His answer was no and you think, oh no, do you know what I mean? We just killed the trial before we've even sort of set foot on the pitch. So I do think it's really important that you hear a lot of coaches and I was one of them that would I hate playing three at the back, don't like.
Speaker 2:I don't like playing that formation because of whatever, and I think, well, that that's fine, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't, or it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take your players on a journey through tactical development, through through the use of formation, so you can be that center back that's played in a two and a three and a four and a five you know what I mean. Or a midfielder that's played in a two or three or four or five and so on, strikers that play with and without partners with them, without number tens and all that. Yeah, um, a few years ago I kind of came up with a formula I don't I don't think it's a perfect formula, but a reasonable formula whereby you could take players through, probably cycle them through four different formations as a base, not as everything, but as a base that gives them some good outcomes by the end of their journey.
Speaker 2:So I don't like that idea of being welded to one.
Speaker 1:And in your views then. Then, so there has been that shift over the years with regards to kind of I guess you know your more traditional formations and that, and maybe flavors of the month, you know, um, what do you think's driven some of that and what were the evolution of those formational changes? And are we going back, maybe, to what we saw, maybe in the 50s and 60s? Like, well, maybe it's like attacking, and you know it seems to be going back that way. Really, what drives it? And are we going to go full circle? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I think what drives? It is exactly what drives. Any sort of change is like what's needed. So you look at this season, probably more than most. You see more teams are so much better at pressing now and so much better at winning the ball back high up the pitch and you can put that down to a reaction from teams getting really good at playing out from the back and and does that reaction then, well, if if these are really good at pressing, then maybe we have to go over the press so we end up back with whatever target men strike, target men strikers and it will always be done in a different way. Um, so I don't think we ever truly go back, um, for example. So you look at, let's just, let's just throw some mud at a wall here.
Speaker 2:If you think that you look at manchester city over the last couple of years with harland, they go, they go uh, forward quicker with quality, okay, rather than you know, you're kind of just your alamo style type stuff. Um, but the the consequence is that if you're going to do that, you're going to need a physically imposing striker of some sort. And then if you've got a physically opposed, you know, imposing striker, what do you have around him. Like, do you then have left wingers that play on the left hand side so that they can feed um? You know the attacking threat like that. It may be in a different way than you would have done with with gigs and beckham back in the day, but yeah, you know, do we see? You know strong footed players playing on the strong side and you know a smaller striker, second striker playing off a bigger one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and, and it'll go through that, um, that evolution for as long as this game will be played, you know yeah you think about when you look at, we cycle through sort of a journey through very quickly earlier, from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1,. For example, when everyone played 4-4-2, you would put a number 10 in your team right and that number 10 would play between the lines and find them passes between the four and the four and hurt you. So coaches went we're not just going to let that happen, we're going to put a defensive midfielder in, yeah, and we're going to make that difficult. And then we're good, and you know what? Now we're going to put two in there, because that will give us a little bit of balance between midfield attack and defense and it turns into a four, two, three, one.
Speaker 2:Now we don't really see number tens anymore, certainly not number tens that just stand in a pocket and and sort of wait, yeah, we have these really dynamic forward players that can play right, left, center and um, and kind of take that the next level. So there'll always be that um, you know one style throws a punch, and then, and everyone reacts, um, and that that'll go on as long as we're, as long as we're playing it's the evolution right of the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, one thing drives something else. Um, well, I guess we spoke then a bit about styles and formations, but I guess the key factor this is probably the players that you've got. Um, so how much does that influence what you, what you do as a coach, and from your understanding of it, do I change my formation to suit the players that I've got or do I make the players play in the formation? What's your thoughts around that?
Speaker 2:There's two. We must be really clear here that there's two. If you're a senior professional manager that's going out on a saturday to win a game, you, you ultimately talk about reuben amarin all we want, but he's gonna, he's gonna live or die on a sword, right and with the ideas he has. Um, when, when we're talking youth development, I I firmly believe that we need to cycle through different ideas and different ways of playing. Right, but to answer your question because I do think it's a really important question, that doesn't actually, I don't think it has a single answer um, you, you will have, sometimes you will have decisions to make. So we're, let's say, you spent two months playing three, four, three for argument's sake, and you get all them texts on a friday night from everyone. Your striker goes missing, your, you number 10 that makes the thing work goes missing. You've then got a decision, don't you? Do I throw the cards up in the air and see where they land, or do I pop a replacement into those positions? And you weigh that up without ever knowing what the best outcome is going to be, and sometimes that's a trial and error kind of process to go down. So I don't know if there's actually a silver bullet.
Speaker 2:But we do see coaches that are either welded to a formation or they are welded to Carlo Ancelotti, for example. Like everyone worries Carlo Ancelotti, he example, like everyone worries Carlo Ancelotti, he's got the best inside left would you call him Vinicius Junior inside left, forward, whatever you want to call him now in the world for the last couple of years. And then they sign another that you could suggest inside left, centre, forward now. So it's not like he's going to be an Mbappe. It's not like Carlo Ancel to be in Mbappe. It's not like Carlo Ancelotti is the perfect manager, because he won't select one over the other. Mourinho selects potentially one over the other at a certain point in his career because the system, you know, they're working together.
Speaker 2:Whereas an Ancelotti will go. Ok, these are the players I want to get on the pitch. If I have these three players on the pitch, then I need this Makalele type player on the pitch and I'll play Bellingham from the left, but really he's a central midfielder and he will do that more readily than others will. And Ancelotti is actually a really interesting case in point, because Ancelotti was himself welded to a 4-4-2 diamond back when he would have, not only when he started coaching, because he still pulls it out now, but that famous Milan team as well, from the early 2000s. But he was literally welded to that until he, I guess, opened his mind I don't know if that's the right thing to say about a legend like that but until he sort of needed to move away from it at a point. So I don't know if there's ever, if there's ever, a truly right answer.
Speaker 2:You know if we're going to really take this conversation, probably not for today, but you can go right into the bells of the culture of a team, the culture of a club, the culture of a country. You know, when I first arrived here in Bangladesh, there was, like people, the most familiar thing they have tactically would be 4-4-2, low block, counter-attack and that kind of anything. Away from that is a step, should we say? So you know, our man United, really a 3-4-3 club, doesn't really feel right. Chelsea, fine, because they just change with the wind. Man United's just not, I don't know. Some things feel like they fit and sometimes they don't, and I can't really tell you why. But I think that's that's an important factor as well and in the academy system, ray, you often hear that.
Speaker 1:Well, I often hear that the youth teams will mirror the system that's maybe played by the first team, which always starts with a little bit odd, because obviously things do change, and system that's maybe played by the first team, which always strikes me as a little bit odd because obviously things do change and you know, you know, some of these youth players could be 10 years away from that. You know, they're at best kind of thing um, what's your take on me? And we're hearing right, that's often the case from your experience and understanding. And if so, is that you know? Is there some logic in that? It seems strange to me. That's all that. I just think part of the development stuff and everything else, why would you be linked in necessarily, as you get closer, I can understand, maybe you're going to firm up a little bit towards that, but in the younger age groups I'm talking 13, 14, 15, still, so not not little little ones, but do they need to be linked into the first team formation, do you think?
Speaker 2:I think there needs to be, there needs to be something, a line in them. So, whether that's a stage process, like you say, where the later, the latter period of your journey, you will start to reflect and certainly like a reserves or b team, or 21s or 23s, whatever, whatever your b team might be, and then in 18s or 19s there's, there's a huge advantage in sending a player from those environments into the first team environment that knows what roles and responsibilities are expected, or at least he has a feel for the shape of the game around him. Um, you know, some clubs even go further and bring that down to the same set plays and all that sort of stuff. So what do you want? When you change environments, the first thing you try to look for is familiarity, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, no matter where you you are. That's what your mind craves familiarity. So that seems to make sense. Chris Ramsey, who was most recently at QPR I'm not sure exactly where he is now actually he was Technical Director at QPR. He was at Tottenham. He's got some really, really good long-term stuff that he's put out there over the last probably 20 years. And he asked the question when I interviewed Chris from my book years ago now he talked about are you developing players for the first team or are you developing players for the game? And I thought it was a really subtle way of asking a question that if you're only developing players for your first team, then there's going to be quite a scrap heap left in most clubs. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:You remember Dennis Bergkamp. When he left Ajax he went to Inter Milan, yeah you know and couldn't get a kick like he couldn't. It didn't work, did it? No, you don't put Dennis Bergkamp I can't remember exactly what they did. They put him in a wide right or put him in a midfield five or whatever they did, or a front of the zone. It was like Dennis Bergkamp needs to go into a possession based team that's got a lot of the ball. That would get the ball to him in good areas and so. But when you're talking about Bergkamps of this world and the players that will come through that kind of thing at Ajax, at Barcelona, we're not talking about the same kids that are coming through us. The bulk of clubs we'll say up and down the UK there's 10,000 kids or whatever that's in them.
Speaker 1:So I feel, and I feel quite strongly, that there should be a huge rounded effect from going through a system that could take you 10 years, 12 years sometimes yeah, exactly come through and and have, have a toolbox you can go to yeah, um, even if your environment changes well, it might come on to the next point we'll talk about in a minute, which is role responsibilities, which I think that might dovetail in as in maybe more important the younger you are right divining roles, responsibilities rather than positional in the formation.
Speaker 1:But that might come later on in your journey. But just before I do last question about formations, because it's coming to pay now, thinking I've got to ask this one really, what about opposition? You know, should we be tweaking? I mean again, I guess you, ideally, you bring your team out and you put them out there and they dominate as they are and that's it and you own it. But if you're on the other side of that and you're not dominating, how important then maybe to have some flexibility and be able to change what you do in the game with regards to formation, to kind of strengthen, deal with the opposition's strengths but also impose your own. Is that something that we should be thinking about as coaches?
Speaker 2:I absolutely think so, and that's the ebb and flow now, isn't it? That's like everything put together in one pot and you throw it all into one pot together and watch how it interacts. If you think about the earliest establishment of this game, where there's going to be a goalkeeper and 10 outfield players and someone's going right, this can't just be like one big sort of five a side where everyone, whatever they want, we've got to sort of structure and spread the players organization yeah and I think like the most basic form of that is how can we control, um, some of these variables, these huge amount of variables?
Speaker 2:so we'll control it by having four defenders, we'll control it by having whatever five forwards. It was back in the day, or however it is that you want. That's your way of making this really variable game somewhat predictable for you. And then you put the opposition on top of it and you now go okay, this has to interact somehow. So, like you say, if you're dominant, you can be dominant because of a formation. So you watch man United there's such a spotlight on them at the moment but you can see them in certain games being dominant because an outside centre-back is stepping forward, or they've got wing-backs that will go high up the pitch and all that sort of stuff. Two tens, that's tough to play against off. Two tens like that's tough to play against. But you also know that if I go and I play against them with a or three, three, with two wide wingers or whatever it is, that you'll have certain advantages in another area. So what's?
Speaker 1:blanket, isn't it?
Speaker 2:this exactly, and what's tempting to do is and I think what what people go to first is oh we, we can't play with a three at the back against a team with two wide wingers because they're going to stretch us. They go well. Actually, how does our formation interact around the problems that were given by the opposition, if that makes sense? So my left-sided centre-back, for example, if he goes to press one of those wide wingers there's?
Speaker 2:my six drop in maybe or but whatever way they sell the six dropping in or the you know the other centre back on a big cover and stuff like that he or she needs to know we talk about it here all the time. If, if a player in particular is committing him or herself to something kind of out of the box, we'll say yeah, then then he needs to know that while I'm doing this, what's going on behind me needs to stack up. You know what I mean. It needs to be happening, yeah, and then in another moment of the game, by staying potentially in that formation, then you'll get your advantages out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not saying it's easy or it's that straightforward, it definitely isn't numbers you in midfield, for example then that out number that's numerical superiority counts in certain moments. It doesn't count in every moment. So if they're building up or something and and they've got one extra player than you, then then your job is to okay within our system or our ideas. We need another body in here, yeah Right, everything else being even they're of similar quality, and all that sort of stuff. You need another body in here.
Speaker 2:If the ball's out the left, well, maybe my right winger can come in and just be that extra one that gives us equality in there. Or a striker Firmino drops in to sit on a defensive midfielder, or whatever it is, but they might only be temporary. And again, that comes back to the dynamic and we're sorry to labour this, but I feel quite strongly about it. I think the sooner coaches think about formations and tactics as being something dynamic rather than something you know, like you see on the bbc, where you've got four here or four here, if it looks like that when they play out, does it not?
Speaker 2:never, never and but, but we're kind of accustomed to it like it should look like that. Yeah, like you could, you could argue that that guardiola plays two, three, five more than he plays four, three, three. You know what I mean. Because of, because of the dynamism of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And even with Arsenal the other day, you see like they made some change during the game. And then Califuri came on and they went basically in position. They went to a back three, essentially threes and the left back had free range plays and he scores a goal from the right-wing position, because you know, you can't put that on a chart anyway. It doesn't. That's not a formation, that's just a way of changing in and out of possession, depending on you know the game state, I guess, and and that's what you want, don't you want you want a fluid team that can see the opportunities, recognize danger and and adjust accordingly, right, like a well-oiled machine, I guess that's the ideal world of it, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I had a colleague of mine a couple of years ago. He used to say um, we will start on a varied, but let's say it would start um 4-3-3, but we will finish the attack 2-3-5. Like he would literally use those words with players, so that you can sort of just underpin that dynamism, um, which I think is the key word in all this yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to explain now why I think that being a grassroots coach on a Sunday is tougher than being a coach in the Premier League. We don't get to know what's coming ahead of us. Like literally, you can play a team on a Sunday and you've got no idea who's going to turn up. You've got no idea how big their players are or small, or where they're going to play or formation. It takes about 10 minutes to work out what formation they're playing. Anyway, before I do things when I think of the Premier League, you should know who you're going to play against. I know who the good players are, what they can do. I roughly know how they're probably going to play.
Speaker 1:I'm not really saying it's easy, I know it's not easier, but you think actually you know, as a grassroots football coach, if you can really get your head around some of this stuff, it could be a massive on your feet in game moments and see opportunities. And I'm not great at this, I need to work this more. But I think if you can see that what they're doing, what they're trying to achieve as an opposition, and what and where your strengths and weaknesses may be, then having that fluid state and be able to do in-game actions can really help you not just to win a game, but also to challenge your players and to help them understand how they can maximize their game impact you can.
Speaker 2:You can talk about that idea of different. Different levels are offering you different problems. For sure. I'm kind of smiling inside because we played it was one of those rearranged when I was back in England. It was one of those rearranged fixtures where you ended up playing them back to back. Yeah, in our case it was Wednesday and Wednesday and we went up there and this was in the National League under 19.
Speaker 1:So a really good level of the level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't you have some idea of, you know what teams are going to come with, or you speak to people on the on the circuit and you kind of you have an idea but you don't know, yeah. So we went I won't name the club, but we went up and they played with a diamond and a 4-4-2 diamond and they won the game and gave us a problem because of that. So the next week so I'm putting all these variables together they play with a diamond. So that's quite niche, so it's not like something they just made up this morning, yeah, and then they won the game, right. So that's another kind of like why would they change? And then, so we prepared that week to play against the diamonds and what did they do? They rock up. They rocked up with a three at the back system, and so it wasn't as, even if it was like, oh, we just played a diamond because we had to, now we're going to go back and play 4-4-2 because we just reset. It was a completely yeah, yeah, and I thought, and it was, it was one of the best environments for me and my coaches and even the other coaches in the league, but we used to always talk about how cool it was that everyone was 12 or 13 clubs in the division.
Speaker 2:Everyone played when it was a different way, with a different idea, and you'd play three at the back, four at the back. You'd play diamonds two up front. You know what I mean. And you have all these variables. Like what an education? That is absolutely in the game and you're absolutely right. If you can, if you can have a group of players in front of you, that's adaptable at least just in that structure. I'm not talking about playing a left back at at number 10 because you've had to reshuffle the whole thing. I'm just talking about, like the Calafuri idea, the Trent Alexander-Arnold idea, even the Dani Alves of 20 years ago. You know to be reasonably flexible within a setup. We're really I find myself really fortunate actually here in Bangladesh, partly because I'm not sure some of the younger players they know any better. But you like, if we had a back four today and you could change the positions of all four of them and they'd just crack on.
Speaker 1:They'd just crack on, honestly.
Speaker 2:And because of that they're more two-footed, they're more open-minded. But normally now we would go into a game with minimum two formations where we'd go, even if we don't know the opposition, we will go. Do you know what? We'll try this and we'll do it this way, and if it's like what happened in the last game, then within 10 seconds we can change to the last time we did it was from a 4-3-3 into a 3-4-3, I think. And we were able to do it slickly because we kind of expected to do it.
Speaker 1:You've got players that can do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we not to do you know what? It's not. Yes, having the players to do it is one thing, but we have the. We've set it up to allow us to do that. Yeah, you know what I mean. And we, so we've gone through with three at the back formation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so no one's getting scared or panicky and they understand it's part of it all and it's just another tool you can use. Yeah, I guess part of that psychological isn't it as well? Because a lot of the players just confidence just to be able to say I can do that for your coach or do this for the team, that's okay, and not spend five minutes in a game worrying about what might go wrong and then adjusting to it before just doing it yeah, I think that's the major part.
Speaker 2:Actually, that's like sorry to, yeah, no, cross you that, that psychological part where you go, okay, this is familiar, like we, this is familiar, now we can, yeah, we do this, we've done it. Um, and it's not, I don't have to spend countless minutes going, you know, johnny you're playing left back.
Speaker 1:I told you yeah, Don't make your runs. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Put three fingers in the air, go to a three and boom, boom, boom done.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Now it's better if you do it when the ball's out of play and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:But you can do it, yeah. Yeah, if you prepare the environment around it, I guess you can do it. Ray, what about in and out of possession? And just last information to information I'm going to get into responsibilities in a minute but just in and out of possession, I mean, again, it seems that you know, you can see in the Premier League now, pretty much most teams default back to kind of a 4-4-2 out of possession pretty quickly, certainly maybe a 4-5-1 or a 5-4-1, something like that. They just seem to sit back out of possession. And is that something you've seen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and I think it's like if we're really going to number game it, you would almost call, for example some people will roll their eyes when I say this, but just bear with me You'd probably say some teams play 4-4-2-0, if that makes sense. So both Liverpool and man City did it a couple of weeks ago, whereby they were intentionally playing phases of the game without a striker. But I think that's an important kind of thing to pin down, that if you're going to play a certain part of the game, let's say out of position, with two number 10s defending, then acknowledging that your nine becomes a 10 is is really helpful. And you know, look how you.
Speaker 2:I would suggest that if you're defending in a low block and every team, you need to understand that every team, regardless of how good they are, will find themselves in a low, compact block at various points in the game.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, so the biggest teams in the world, will you just have to block up and you have to, yeah, defend the box, defend the goal, all that sort of stuff in in certain moments. Now the big teams don't have to do it as much as the smaller ones, but they still have to do it at points and and if, if you don't sort of get your, your, your block right and your distances right, it's, it's a problem. So it only makes sense that if 80% to 90% of goals come inside the box, so can we keep the ball and the opponent outside the box. So a low block is doing it for the same reasons that a high press is, it's just that we're in different parts of the field. I'm going to high press so the ball's a million miles from our box. You're going to low block because I've got a campaign and I've got a and the intent's the same, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah?
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, yeah, ultimately, all we're doing, ultimately, what we're doing really is can we protect both boxes? All right, because, sorry, can we protect one box and attack another box? Because as soon as the ball arrives in there, that's where goals come from. So we'll do that with formations and we'll do it with different ideas, but that's ultimately what it is. So to defend, for example, your 3-4-3 on paper, you put 3-4-3 down and then you put 5-4-1 opposite it. It doesn't even look familiar, but it's just a matter of wingbacks dropping, the two number 10s dropping, and suddenly you've got something that's quite fluid should we say you can switch between?
Speaker 1:yeah, fantastic. Thank you so much, ray. Okay, well, look, I think we've covered formations. I think we spoke a bit about stars, which is great. We've looked at how they might adapt depending on the players. You've got opposition, things like that, um, and you've touched it a couple times during the conversation. What about roles, responsibilities? Then you know what? What is it? What does it mean by that in the sense of players, responsibilities, and how might that then impact on formations and maybe make the same formation different, depending on how a coach uses those?
Speaker 2:there's an argument. If we take this to the nth degree, there's an argument that that's, even if you make one substitution, it changes your team and your formation as such, because you don't have two players that play in the same position and do it the same. There's a huge amount of similarities, but everyone's interacting differently. Um, I'm going to name drop him here because I I feel like I'm stealing his work. So, so, aslan odef, who works at palace he, he did a webinar for us recently, um, and he used a great example to talk about this. He, he spoke about right backs and he, he spoke about it.
Speaker 2:If you're t Trent Alexander-Arnold, you're interacting with the game of football in a certain way. So what are you doing? As Trent Alexander-Arnold, you're trying to get on the ball facing forwards in enough space to hurt someone, and that's what he's doing. As a right back, kyle Walker might be looking for opportunities to use power and pace and a different skill set to do it. Kieran Trippier, to go through the English ones, aaron Mambasaka they all do it, interact with the game differently. Now you think about that. Every time you change a player within your team, um, you've got these different interactions ongoing like the whole time. So it actually kind of says this you know, the more fluid we are, the more positionally um like flexible we are. Then you know the more we were able to be successful within all this fluidness and flexibility that's going on, if you understand what I mean yeah I'll give you a better one.
Speaker 2:I'll give you a better one when one of my, when I first started coaching 11 v 11, like I, was firmly welded to a 4-3-3. Like one defensive midffielder, two number eights, two wingers. I couldn't understand why anyone would play anything other than that. And I'm not even joking. I've looked at teams but I don't know why you don't just do it. Maybe it was because a lot of teams were still playing 4-4-2, so you were able to dominate certain parts of that. But but I moved from one club to the next and my why you know what I mean like the defensive midfielder that I had in my first club that, like, played on two touches and kept it nice and simple, turned into a um, like a dribble and driver with it. And then the number eight, the box, the box, number eight turned into, you know, a number eight to just hit one box, and then slowly came to the other, mo Salah right winger turned into a James Ward-Prowse right winger, and so you have the same kind of things going on.
Speaker 2:You could talk about having some similar roles and responsibilities, but the team looked different and I remember slogging through this, going. This doesn't feel like it's my, you know, like I've got the same blueprint here. But why is it different? And it's just, ultimately it comes down to players' interpretation of some of the things that you're going to put out there and interpretation of their position. And, like, if I'm, I played as a centre-half when I was growing up and it was, I was in my element when I was chasing someone running in behind and I saw I was quite happy to defend high because I wanted to get in that chase right. As daft as it might sound, a dribbler will look for a 1v1 situation, a crosser might not, you know, and it's yeah, it changes it. And you can't account for all these changes. You can't have a little black book that says if that type of player comes in there, then it changes. There's too much going on in the game of football.
Speaker 1:We've been working with the younger ones on their super strengths and understanding what their super strengths are. Great, lots of things. Loads of things are very good. What's your super kind of strengths? With the ball, without the ball?
Speaker 1:The other team's got the ball and we've worked the last few weeks, but what's been interesting is is trying to get them not to recognize their own ones but recognize each other's and how you complement that. So, like, if my super strength is receiving the ball out wide, what do I need from Scott then to give that ball out to to you, rachel? I mean, how do what do we do that? And that's been a real struggle for them like to actually think about how I help with, not not in a selfish way, but really. I guess they're still young 12, 13 but they focus a lot on their own game, which is understandable. But how do we then help our teammates to maximize their own game impacts?
Speaker 1:And I guess what you're saying there is you make one little change. Well, you make one change on a team and whatever strengths are bringing on there. If it doesn't complement necessarily each other's or we can't complement super strength, it doesn't really. It doesn't help us, does it? And you know it's again. It's like a machine, isn't it, if you just change one part of it for a, let's say, a better part, but apart, if it doesn't really fit with the others, it's not going to get its maximum like you get most out of it. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2:it is, and and it's like it can be you can have um good synergy in those type of things. You can have ones that don't work together so well, or it might just you make those changes and you just have a different synergy.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean Like just because of a slightly different ingredient that you're putting in, you're putting into a pot Like we spoke earlier about the BBC kind of lineup stuff and how structured and kind of sterile it looks, whereas really we're just we're kind of putting. I'm not a very good cook but I imagine if, if you've got a, you're just trading one ingredient for the other, that the changes how the whole thing interacts. Yeah, and to me that's fascinating in the fact that you just don't know like you know. To me that's fascinating in the fact that you just don't know you don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:We spoke about those different formations, like preparing a game with two or three different formations in the back pocket ready to go, and sometimes you just change because it's you know. We just need to freshen this up. I'll give the opposition a different problem all of a sudden. Sometimes it makes no difference at all, Again, just because of a zillion different reasons that you could possibly pin down.
Speaker 1:Or you do it one week, and it works great, doesn't it? And the next week you do the same thing. The opposition have got an answer for it. You've got to go again, especially at the age group you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean because it's it's naturally up and down, and yeah the pitch is already too big for them, and yeah, yeah, there's so many variables, yeah exactly, and you know there's the lack of familiarity with the whole the whole thing all put together. Um, you know kids, kids that age are self-centered anyway. So yeah, um, are starting to move from a real self-centeredness to maybe the the opportunity to understand his super strength or her super strength. Yeah, with them, but it's a journey Like it does.
Speaker 1:It's not Absolutely yeah, Well, right, I would be wrong Lots to ask this, given where you come from, when you experience stuff like that. We've covered a lot with gallons with regards to formations, you know. But if you're, if you were, a grassroots coach now, if you're out, if you're there with I've got 90 minutes once a week with the, with the players I've got, how would you approach, kind of trying to look at some of this stuff around formations and styles and role, responsibilities, any, any top tips you can suggest? I mean, this could be a podcast in itself I'm sure we could throw out this one but just some top tips about how, as a coach, you might approach some of these things and trying to have our players you know understand it or for us to understand it about ourselves as coaches.
Speaker 2:It's players. Players will surprise you, because players if we're talking about exclusively about formations maybe style, but certainly in formations they are really well-versed because you can almost bet your bottom dollar that certainly in the UK or the Western world they're all playing FIFA.
Speaker 2:They're changing their formation. They are based on the team they have and the team they're playing against and all that sort of stuff. So to say, to a player that's 12 years old or whatever, today you're going to play as a DM, you go, a player that's 12 years old or whatever, today you're going to play as a dm, you know right, I know what that is like immediately. So they have reference point and and I've used the word familiar, I think that quite a lot throughout the the pod and if, if you want something to roll with limited time in order of all that sort of stuff that you described, then then go with what is familiar is is very helpful. Now, that might described. Then going with what is familiar is very helpful. Now, that might be something entirely different for you than it is for me, or should I say for your group of players and mine.
Speaker 2:I mentored a coach, for example, that seems to be talking about 4-4-2 Diamond a lot, but the team he was coaching was an under-18 team who they had to play with a 442 diamond. It was like it was in their whatever their group DNA. That was there. It was kind of unusual and maybe that's why the kids enjoyed it because it was unusual and gave teams problems and all that sort of stuff, and that was probably an hour a week team that played on a Sunday. You know what I mean? It wasn't an academy team or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think your starting point is from a reality. I think your starting point could be either something that you'll know very well that you can bring to the party, and that might be a style rather than a formation, or it might be something from the players, where I always love Scott working in youth development, and you take a bunch of players, metaphorically, taking a bunch of players by the hand and going where can we go with this? You know what I mean? I've got this idea. What do you think?
Speaker 1:How did you play?
Speaker 2:last. Who's your favourite team? What do you like to watch? You know what I mean. If the players turn around to you and say, well, we want to play 4-4 to big man, little man, and stick it in the channels and win second development environment, that's going to get us to where I'd like to teach you the game. But most other answers will probably get some traction. Maybe a USP might be something different. It might be a case of well, how about we be the most flexible team in our division, right? So if we're not going to? I don't know how your standings are most leagues you have two or three teams that will go and win it. The rest of them are just kind of playing every week. So if we're just playing every week, why don't we just roll the dice sometimes? Why don't we just do something different? Why don't we play that formation that's a little bit wacky, just because it might just give us an edge?
Speaker 1:Yeah, try things out. Experiment be brave, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Sorry, that season I was telling you about back in the National League, when we did one part of the game really really well, we changed formation when we were defending opposition goal kicks, so a high block shape. It was kind of like. The idea was to entice the opposition to play certain passes into certain areas and we'd jump all over it and we slugged through it at the start and then it kind of clicked and I remember that we sat down towards the end of the season looking at next year going, oh, will we do that again? And I'm like I don't think we should. I think we could and I'd like to, but I don't think we should. I think we should put something else out there. I think we should fill in the blank like press, like hell, or we should block up a different way, because it gives a freshness to everyone and allows kids to especially kids to um, to experience something different.
Speaker 1:Yes, you've given it meaningful attention well, that keeps the engagement, doesn't it? You know, constantly challenging, constantly kind of keeping things fun and interesting, and you know it's a craft, isn't it? You know, you, you don't want to have just one set of tools, you want a varied set and be able to adapt and and be able to change when you need to. If you don't get the opportunity to practice that, you can't just do it on the fly very easily. So you know, the more time you can give it, the better, right? Thank you so much. Look, just final question for me. That's okay before we talk about you, just to finish off. But final question on the topic future trends. Trends. Well, if you had to guess now, in five years time or 10 years time, you know what formations will we play in and or roles, but it seems like it's just going to get more and more fluid and probably more and more flexible. Would you think? Is that how you see it? Or do you think it might go back to more rigid 4-4-2s and long balls?
Speaker 2:Oh well, if, if teams become more fluid, then the antidote to fluidity is structure, right, so you'll just end up in these face-offs potentially where even within the same team, you have certain structure in certain moments and fluidity in other moments, and I don't want that sounds really jargony and I hope the context of the rest of the conversation kind of backs up that idea. But I think the game is moving at a just like the rest of life, actually technology and stuff like that. It's moving at a faster pace than ever before. People are poised, ready to adapt.
Speaker 2:Like is there a scenario where teams will play 4-4-2 with a right winger, a left winger, a little man and a big man? I think I genuinely think there is all right, but I still think it'll have a slightly different. It will end up like that in the final third potentially, rather than you know, starting like that. But yeah, I think, I think I think there will be more. If I'm talking about 13 teams in the under-19 National League, offering largely 13 different problems everywhere you go, then can you only imagine what the guys at the top, top, top end of the game are doing and the nuance involved in that. You know, substitutions, goalkeepers. We will, I'm certain, certain have teams that will substitute the goalkeeper, because we need a ball player for the last 20 minutes, because we're chasing.
Speaker 2:So I mean yeah, like south style kind of yeah, and I thought we were on the verge with with ramsdale and raya a couple of years ago, yeah, when ramsdale had done ever so well and they bought the new goalkeeper in and the idea felt like it was moving towards this kind of shared thing. Now loads has got to happen budgets and all that sort of stuff has got to happen but maybe one domino falls and a lot more.
Speaker 1:Start to follow it.
Speaker 1:It seems like now, games are kind of games within the game, aren't they? So watching one football match now, you're probably going to see 10 different scenarios play out during that game, because you know who scored, who's winning, who's losing, whatever it might be, who's on the pitch when? I think maybe looking back 20 years ago, you would see Team A versus Team B and they were at it. You know for 90 minutes and you know not an awful lot changed in the 90 minutes. Regardless it, you know for 90 minutes and you know not an awful lot changed in the 90 minutes. It regardless of the score. Really, you know they kind of had their way of playing.
Speaker 1:I think now you see maybe 10 games within the match, depending on what's going on, or you know just getting a recharge, and I like that. I think it's more of a chess game in some ways, but it makes it more interesting to me. I think it's. It's a different way of football and that's maybe how things are heading Totally yeah, look, I think we take it for granted now with it we.
Speaker 2:We studied some footage yesterday here, from a tactical camp to the madrid derby and with a tactical calm, and you watch atletico madrid who who play when they play the bigger teams, they play with a certain amount of inferiority around the result. So, like they, they will quite happily block up their two centre-backs. They had a throw in the final third. Their two centre-backs are 35 yards from goal. Do you know what I mean? Mbappe is sitting on a DM on the edge of the box. You know what I mean? Real Madrid, the best team in the world, the best player in the world, is defending the box altogether and a Simeone team has two centre-backs 30, 35, whatever it was yards from goal. And you think, ok, I didn't see that a few years ago. That would be one ball and we're dead.
Speaker 1:You know all those shots?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll attack corners with all 10 outfield players up around the box, because the trade-off to try to score a goal is better than the probability of conceding one. Yeah, and you know, we haven't even spoke about data.
Speaker 1:No Well, the evolution of the game, ray. That's been brilliant. Thank you so much. As always, I've learned loads from talking to you about these things and I'm sure it will play out in positive ways for my little team. Learned loads talking to you about these things and I'm sure it'll play out in positive ways for my little team, hopefully for the, for the players. We're going to talk about some of this stuff moving forward. Um, just finally on you, ray. What. What's what's happening now? What's what's the future like for you in the next few years? Any projects going on, if the book's going to be out shortly? Anything else you want to shout about? Let us let us know about what was in the air?
Speaker 2:um, the look at that, but I'm certainly still on twitter. I know a lot of people are as well. Um, but the most I am at my most current. If you want to find out what I'm doing on twitter um, running a lot more short courses and coach development stuff online, which is just a legacy from lockdown. I seem to think we were. People have not wanted it to stop, so, um, yeah, so long as that's happening, um, yeah, I'll be the other side of the screen and the other side of coach ed for people to engage with top man.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, ray. Well, we'll put your twitter handle in the show notes. People can find you nice and easily. Like I can't recommend more reaching out to stuff that you do it's. It's superb where you come at it from a wonderful angle, not just the content that you cover in the sense of the subject matter, but the way you put it across. We said at the beginning, like you know, it's just accessible, it's useful. There's so much stuff out there these days and I'm not knocking that it's great. There's lots out there. But actually the challenge is trying to find the good stuff, and I would always look for your stuff first, which is pretty much every week A little help I can get. So keep up the great work. It's been fantastic and I'm not sure it's the third or the fourth time, but whatever it is, can there be another one? Hopefully at some point soon, is that okay?
Speaker 2:I'm all ears, you know what I'm like and, look, I genuinely, really appreciate when you say stuff like that. It means a lot because the version of me in 2013 that started making the ball roll, you know, if you'd have told me I was getting comments like that 10 or 11, 12 years later, I'd be absolutely, absolutely so appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, I won't go on too much, but what I can say too, as I said it before when we spoke about that book, you know that was the one book that probably kept me in coaching and doing it after my first year or so doing it, because it's the bible to me, it's the go-to one. Obviously you build on that as you work through, hopefully, and you grow on and you remove it. But you know, if you're a coach and you've not started with that book at some point, you're missing out on something there. Because you know, and if that's 10 years ago since you wrote it I don't know when it was, but like maybe longer, I don't know but it certainly stood the test of time and the stuff you cover there was years ahead of itself. You know years ahead of itself. And you know, like I say, I'm not the only coach. I know that for a fact, even in our club, but even more out there more broadly, that probably just not only changed the way they coach but also kept them coaching. So we owe you a lot.
Speaker 2:No, I really appreciate that. That's a little bit overwhelming.
Speaker 1:But thanks, ray. Well, I look forward to catching up again soon thanks, mate this episode was brought to you in association with our friends at Soccer Coach Weekly. Established since 2006, soccer Coach Weekly is a leading source of inspiration and advice for all grassroots coaches. Join thousands of youth soccer coaches just like you, saving time and effort in their goal of having the most effective, enjoyable and successful coaching journey for them and their players. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode.