In this post we are going to talk about the defense in soccer trying to describe the game in a general and understandable way. We must take into account that soccer has an infinite number of micro details that can change the result of the next action. In the previous post (here) I talked about the attack.
The most important thing to understand the defense is to have clear what is the fundamental objective of this phase of the game: To avoid the goal in our goal. To do this we must avoid or minimize the number of times that the opponent takes the ball to the end zone or Zone 3.
Once we are clear about the objective, we have to be able to analyze the defense in its different phases and the possibilities it offers us. To do so, let’s look at the following image:
In defense, we can also speak of 3 phases. These phases are:
- Defending the Build, in which the objective is to prevent the opponent from advancing with the ball with an advantage to the zone of progression and/or completion.
- Defending the Creation, in which the objective is to prevent the opponent from taking the ball with advantage to the finishing zone.
- Defense of Score, in which the objective is to prevent the opponent from finishing the play with a shot on goal and, therefore, from scoring a goal.
Once we are clear about the 3 phases, the first big question comes:
What is the structure that I can adopt to achieve success in the actions?
The answer to this question is complex and should be answered mainly according to two factors:
a) My team’s model of play or what guidelines does my team have when it does NOT have the ball?
b) My opponent’s game model or what guidelines does the other team have when they have the ball?
After this short introduction, let’s get down to business.
Defend the Build
If we remember when we were talking about attack, we said that we could divide the ball out situation between the goal kick with the set piece and the ball in play. It will be important to make a previous analysis to see what strengths or strong points (SF) and what weaknesses or weak points (WP) the opponent has and how we can counteract them.
In general, the off-ball defense can include up to 6 players of our own (usually the forward and midfield lines), but it will be up to each coach to choose how many players we involve and what types of trajectories we will make for it.
I. The opponent’s goal kick:
As the ball is planted, the opponent has time to look and observe which situation he is more interested in being able to play depending on his strengths. For example, let’s imagine that our opponent has a tall and strong 9 who is used to win all the actions, the rival may be interested in playing directly on his reference. In this case, we are more interested in protecting ourselves and going to pick up the 2nd move reducing the spaces to make it difficult for them to reach the area. So we will REPLACE and invite the opponent to play short to prevent them from playing direct.
The other option is that the opponent is very good in associative play, a dominant team with the ball, who likes to have the ball and subdue you as the minutes go by. The goal kick can be an option to reduce the time in which the opponent is going to be in possession of the ball and we can decide to match them to force them to play direct and thus try to take control of the ball.
The questions to ask ourselves here are:
Where have I left free spaces that my opponent can occupy with the ball?
What moves do they make to create/occupy these free spaces?
Where is it easier for the opponent to make progress?
II. Ball in play by the opponent:
When the ball is in play, we can choose whether or not to shorten the opponent’s time and space. In this case it will be important to decide from which structure we will start from the dead ball and decide which structure we will adopt with the ball in play. The structure will be to equalize by jumping into possession, to wait or to position ourselves in between.
Defending in between means placing a defending player between two attacking players looking to optimize the space and thus be able to defend on all sides. The jump will be made to the player who is going to receive the ball. It is important not to anticipate this jump to prevent them from overtaking and connecting with a player at the back.
The options we have here will be whether we jump or wait:
In case of jumping: we will have to decide if we will jump to goalkeeper to finish closing the pressure or, in case of playing with him, we will wait for them to play forward again. In case we choose to jump the runs are usually much longer than if we decide to wait.
In case of waiting: We will wait until they play and we will have to decide when and to which player we will start jumping. It is inevitable that, in case we want to have the ball, the jumps will have to be made at some point although the distance of these jumps is much shorter.
Defend the Creation
When it comes to defending the progression, we will have to divide the priorities depending on whether the ball is in the central lane or inside, or in the side lane or outside. Here we involve, as a general rule, the midfield line, and we can involve the line of defenders with some jumping of a player coming out of the zone and we will also have to involve the forward line to close the pressures.
Defending progression on the inside
When defending inside progression we have to ask ourselves 2 very important questions:
How many players are accumulating?
What spaces are they looking to generate / occupy?
Once we are clear about the players that the opponent accumulates, through the process of counting players, we will be clear about how many players we have to include. Here we will see if they can generate some kind of advantage.
Through the opponent’s trajectories we will also have to be able to discover what spaces they are looking to create and occupy. They may try to lure us and then play behind our back to gain space.
General patterns of behavior for this area of the field:
Avoiding progression
One of the premises is to avoid progression, that is, to prevent the opponent from advancing with the ball. As a general rule, to avoid this behavior we will have to perform frontal or curved trajectories, normally covering what we leave behind us. So we will look for the opponent to play horizontally or backwards.
Avoiding inside passes
It will be important here that the opponent cannot make inside passes, as these are the ones that pass over a whole line. Thus, the trajectories we decide to take to press the ball will be the ones that allow us to prevent the opponent from making any inside passes. Normally, these trajectories are frontal, curved or diagonal, always covering what we leave behind.
Ball always under pressure
It is important that the ball is always under pressure, so that the opponent will not have time or space to think and make the most successful option to continue advancing towards our goal. Usually the ball is always pressured by our closest player, so that sometimes, miscalculating the jumps can make us jump to the odd one, instead of our pair, and end up generating an imbalance that the opponent can take advantage of in case of success.
Orienting to the non-dominant leg
As a premise, we must always try with our trajectories to orient the ball towards the non-dominant leg of the ball. In addition, we must try to orient the ball towards the touchline, but, being in the center lane it is more difficult to achieve this. Therefore, by using curved trajectories it will be easier to direct the opponent towards his non-dominant leg so that he continues to play and thus make it easier for us to lose the ball and be able to recover it.
Defending the progression on the outside
When defending the progression on the outside, we must answer the following question:
- How is its width and depth?
Here we will have to count how many players the opponent accumulates in the lateral lane, if one, two or three. The usual is to accumulate two, fullback + wing/winger; although they can accumulate 1 in the form of a fullback or 3 in the form of an inside player who drops to fullback + fullback + wing/winger. Once the players are counted, we will have to pay special attention to how wide (width) they are, i.e., what body location they have with respect to the sidelines and how long (depth) they are, i.e., what body location they have with respect to the midfield line. Based on this we will adopt our positioning, bearing in mind that we have the option of offside which always plays in our favor to try to make the space smaller.
General patterns of behavior for this area of the field:
Orienting towards the sideline
It will always be important to try to orient towards the sideline, as it is an ally when it comes to recovering the ball. To do this, we will have to take into account the laterality of the opponent (dominant leg right-handed – left-handed) to make a trajectory according to our goal. It is important to keep in mind that if the player plays with a different leg, i.e. a left-handed player playing on the right or a right-handed player playing on the left, we will have to stop earlier and leave him a little more space, since his natural movement will be to go “inwards” – center lane.
It is normal to make a front jump with a small curve to continue offering him the outside lane or inside-out lane, so that the opponent will always be facing outwards.
Avoid being outplayed
In side or outside lane, having less density of players, it will be important to perform well the defensive fundamentals. The priority here will be that the opponent does not overtake us, which usually can be done by dribbling, or through a partnership with another player (either wall or doubled).
Therefore, when approaching the opponent, we will slow down and give him a prudent distance to prevent him from overtaking us with a touch and we will be eliminated from the play.
Wall defense
The wall is one of the most common resources to get past a defender, both in the center lane and in the side lanes. It is therefore important to perform a good wall defense:
The defender who is in charge of the player who has made the pass and is unmarked has to be quick to turn and defend the next pass. Here it is important to try to cut off the opponent’s run, contact the opponent and try to get between the ball and the opponent.
The defender who was in support of the first defender, will arrive on the pass and there he must try to cover the possible future passing zone and avoid being overtaken.
Doubling defense
The double is a type of clearance that is used to try to generate an advantage either numerical superiority 2 vs 1 and / or spatial advantage, as the location on the field of play and its environment will be better than the current one. The bend can occur on the outside (typical situation where a winger has the ball and the fullback bends the player on the outside) or on the inside (same situation but bent on the inside or winger’s ball and a center lane player ‘breaks’ behind the defender’s back).
The solution for defending here usually has two options:
- Change of opponent: The first defender waits for the arrival of a second defender and switches from the mark, so that the first defender will follow the player doing the bending and the second defender will stay with the ball holder.
- Keeping opponents: The first defender waits for the arrival of a second defender but will not change the mark, so he will continue to defend the ball holder. It will be interesting that with his trajectory and location he will make the pass of the ball holder difficult and thus help his teammate to arrive in the best possible situation.
Here there is a third option and that is that the defending player does not receive help from a teammate because they do not arrive in time. It is for this reason that he will have to defend the situation with inferior numbers.
Defending the score
In this area of the field it is very likely that the opponent will end up with a ball in our area and/or with a shot at our goal, as they are already very close to achieving their goal: the goal.
In this area is perhaps where the players have more performance because they can achieve more success and avoid the final disaster, the opponent’s goal.
It is important that in this area of the field the ball is always under pressure, because having the ball uncovered can be synonymous with catastrophe, as we allow space and time to the opponent to perform the most beneficial action for their interests.
As a general rule, in this zone we can defend with up to 9 players: the goalkeeper, the defensive line, the midfield line and maybe a player from the attacking line is also involved.
Defending the score on the inside
Keep in mind that on the inside, the goal is always on the horizon, because every time an opponent raises his head and looks forward, he sees the goal.
Here it will be important to ask the following question:
What kind of unmarked runs do the opposing strikers usually make?
It is through analysis that we will be able to get an overview of what characteristics the opposing strikers have. We will have to decide how we defend the opponents, i.e., do we follow the whole of the opponent’s movement or do we follow the start of their movement and abandon it when the holder makes a pass and thus leave him offside? The answer to these two questions will be key in this area of the field.
Covering the shot
The premise here will be to always try to place ourselves between the ball and our goal to prevent the opponent from shooting at goal, in this way, it will be more difficult for the shot to be successful or, at least, to bother the opponent so that he does not shoot comfortably.
Avoiding inside passes and Orienting to a non-dominant leg.
Here it will be the same as in the defense of progression.
Close rejections
It will be important not to disconnect from the action once there has been a shot and to be able to be aware of going for the rebound to finish the play and remove the danger. It often happens that the attacking team is the one that ends up taking advantage of a rebound from the goalkeeper and ends up succeeding in the action.
Defending the score on the outside
If we are to generalize, the actions on the outside usually end with a cross into the box or with a back pass in most of the actions.
Therefore, we must ask ourselves the following questions:
- How do we defend the area?
- How many players accumulate the opponent?
- What finishing areas do they occupy?
Here it will be important to be clear whether we defend the area in zone or man-to-man. This will depend on the characteristics of our players and what they dominate more. To decide this, it will also be important to count opposing players to know how many players reach the area and which finishing zones they occupy.
Reducing distances
It will be important to reduce all distances with our opponents in order to always have the ball under pressure in case of a pass and always have our threats referenced to try to win the action and prevent them from gaining a positional advantage.
Do not go to the floor
Going to the floor must be a resource that must be very clear and with a very high probability of success because otherwise the defending player will be annulled from the action allowing high time and space and a numerical superiority in the opponent.
And you, what do you think is important when defending?
I read you,
Goal hug.