St Mike's - phase of play 4-4-2 - basic

I ended up attending St Mike's Jr Boy's training a bit late as I was at another school.

Coach Lucchetta ran them through a few exercises to keep a ball on their foot and moving.  His plan for the day was a phase-of-play to work on the front 6 in their 4-4-2.  He actually started them off with the front 6 playing again 2 opposing defenders, so it was borderline shadow-play for the first bit.

The main goal was just to get the boys more familiar with their shape and basic movements in 4-4-2.

Introduced to the players was:

• Striker combining with wide midfielders
• Different runs for strikers
• Central midfielders supporting strikers and wide midfielders

Once some movement was established, the defending team had 4 defenders and a midfielder while the attacking team had the front 6 and Coach Lucchetta supporting from behind.  4 players were absent.

As the play kept moving more and more towards the goal on each restart, I started to coach the back 4 a bit to push up and make the space available more realistic.

If all players were there I would have suggested  6 players on the defending team and add 3 supporting defenders to the attacking team.  That's something we can progress to.

The boys worked hard for 35 minutes at this and I would have to say they showed improvement.

Playing and coaching a 4-4-2 properly is not as easy as people think.  I watch teams at tournaments throw their players on as 4-4-2 and I scratch my head.  4 players line up straight across the midfield, each striker assumes their side of the field and off they go!  it's like playing with 3 forwards and the centre striker got a red card.

Because a lot of the boys are not overly experienced players, the coach's delivery was clear and not overwhelming.  Once they feel more comfortable he can introduce some more ideas for them to consider during a game situation.