Hi Reese, excellent video's that also made me buy your books. I'll be playing a 4-2-3-1 with my team, but many other videos on the high press in this system suggest that you should bring your nr. 10 up and form a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1. What do you think about that? I actually like the idea of the pressing diamond, but I never found this tactical solution elsewhere?
The move to a 4-4-2 is a more recent change that outdates this video really. The switch to a 4-4-2 has happened due to more team's focusing on a hybrid pressing strategy. In the book I've used the 4-4-2 approach!
Im not very experienced with such tactical build ups from the opposing sides back. I think of the entire season, we might not have played even 3 teams who didn’t rely on booting the ball up towards their strikers. Usually if someone builds up from the back, they risk losing it in the back, which is scary and common in high school soccer. I’ve never really considered too many threats too much like for example red gk to lb, lb to cm, cm through ball to lw. That lw is behind and all that space with a potential cross or shot is way too scary. I love to play with my whole team up. Back like at the 50 mentality lol, but good attacking teams are really something. As a striker, I mostly intercept balls from lacking cms or cbs, saying “my defenders just need to defend more” sounds bad, but idk what else I can do
Sometimes it's very easy to overcomplicate football and it's something I've been guilty of. It's important to recognise the strengths of your team and how you can generate success with the players. And if that means getting the ball forward quickly then there isn't anything wrong with it! It's important to organise your team to maximise that. The team I coach played a stronger team in the league yesterday with an excellent press and we wouldn't necessarily generate much success in playing through it (Which is our normal approach). We played long, but moved our wingers and two CAMs (1-4-3-3) very narrow to support our striker in holding the ball up.
When the ball is near their goal, why do we want to force them wide? It is much scarier to allow them to switch or play through balls near our fbs, than to have the cbs be stuck with each other. The cam would ideally assist in defeating any longer passes, the lam would take away the lb (and a cb), and the ram would take away the rb (and a cb), then the striker would harrass the gk and cb. If the attacking diamond is too high up, then usually as the ball builds up they harass more and more of the opposing cms. that’s how my high school does it, if I can get a cb to make a lazy pass to the other cb and intercept that for a 1v1 with the keeper, that’d be amazing. I’d love to preserve that opportunity and keep the cbs pressured about that too, that’d be a silly mistake to lose a game over. In jv, we tell our cbs to never play the ball to each other, not because it’s always a bad idea, but they definitely are not good enough to not lose it to a striker lol
It's around recognising which areas present the best opportunity to regain the ball. Ideally, you'd like to win the ball centrally, but the opposition can have multiple routes through your press and more players will naturally be needed to protect central areas and regain the ball. If the opposition are forced wide the pressing team can use the touchlines to limit the amount of directions a player can use. The LB for example, in possession of the ball against a touchline can only play forwards, backwards or in-field. Compared to a CM in central areas who is able to play in all directions. This means less players are needed to press the LB compared to the CM. Which allows the defending team to maintain a balanced structure behind the press. So if the press is beaten, there is enough protection to allow teammates to recover and remove the defensive underload!
