Possession Football

Possession football is a style of play that puts me off more often than not. For a huge fan of the counter-attack style, I hate to admit it. But Possession football has its own huge advantages, most importantly at the School level.

When I used to play at School, ahem, rewind many many years, my school team coach (read PT master :D) was singularly cross with me for not playing possession football even when he compelled me to. I was always looking to attack and run down the left flank, and possibly into the box. I never thought about anything else. Because I got to see so less of the ball. I remember being made to sit on the bench for the rest of the day. And the subsequent match against the Rajalakshmi school kiddos. (Are such matches still held? :))

Now that I think of it, I can blame neither. Every child wants to have the ball for a longer time. That's a natural urge. Whenever I had more of the ball, I was extremely confident with my passes. And whenever I had very few touches of the ball, I used to be shaky and was relieved to send it to someone in the D at the earliest.

I read one blog by BBC's Gavin Strachan recently (find the link a few posts below) questioning if it was really necessary to have long 11 on 11 matches on a full sized pitch for kids. Nail on the head. Not at all necessary. While it gives a realistic feeling, playing on a smaller ground would mean more of the ball. And subsequently more competition. And yes, more confidence.

The tricks that people learn during practice can never be tried on the field most of the time (Am not talking about Club football. This is School football). This is because we find it hard even to play a natural straight-forward game with the pressure of a real game. If only you have a lot of possession, you can even think of playing all those tricks on the opponent defence and check for ourselves if our tricks hold water.

Mindless Attacking and Counter attacking may work out at big leagues and clubs, but I believe possession football and trying your opponents' patience is the best choice for School team coaches in practice sessions. Making the guys more confident. Say, in a 30 minute game, the guys should mandatorily stick to holding the ball (well, maybe except the CF) and attacking only when absolutely necessary. This phase would be called Confidence-building. Defenders should be alerter during this phase. Atleast half of the midfielders should be in a defensive role. The CF and possibly one winger at a time can surge ahead. After this phase, In the next 15 minutes, the game will Evolve, no doubt. People will try their tricks out and start showing flashes of their free-flowing game. Goals will follow.

This is what I think. If there are any school-level football coaches, let me know if this thing can work for you. Of course, I am not that strong with the coaching terminologies.

PS: A lot many of you have asked me in the past why Schweini (Bastian Schweinsteiger) is among my most favorite players. Because he's a winger (and a left winger at that), and is everything I ever wanted to be. The difference is that, though a left winger by choice, I was played on both wings for my ability to drop crosses better than my team mates. (I can see you imagining how badly they'd play :P)