quote:
Being completely honest, I don't know how to coach it either. Not sure if it's just kids at the age I coach but they struggle with the concept of wingbacks, they either stay parked too far back or stay up as wingers. We tried it a couple of times and it just didn't work for me.

Yes this is true, and you need to use it to your advantage when playing against these teams.

In a 4-3-3:

If their wingbacks are too high, leave your wingers high and go over the top with diagonal balls. It’ll stretch their center 3 out, and often you’ll see the center 3 unwilling to defend too far wide because they know they are a center back.

If they leave the wingbacks deep in a back 5, I’d just have your team dominate possession until they come out of it. Instead of going over the top have your wingers check to the ball. Most youth players won’t have the discipline to play well when the other team dominates the ball.

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Posted by joey barton

Member since Feb 2011

11468 posts

Posted on 6/30/21 at 10:13 pm to hendersonshands

quote:
Being completely honest, I don't know how to coach it either. Not sure if it's just kids at the age I coach but they struggle with the concept of wingbacks, they either stay parked too far back or stay up as wingers. We tried it a couple of times and it just didn't work for me.

It seems a little too nuanced for young players to do well. We could barely get the 4-4-2 down growing up, and unless things have changed dramatically in South LA, no one is playing their burgeoning Robin Gosens at left wing-back.

I think the latter scenario you described is easy enough to figure out as you and others have described. There are a few Dortmund games at the end of Lucien Favre’s reign that are good viewing for this.

The former is more of a pain in the arse, and I could also see it being the more likely scenario (and probably closer to a 5-3-2 than anything else). I guess overload out wide. If you’re playing with 3 central midfielders, would be interested to see how well it would work to have them make a few overlapping runs out wide per game. I played as a center mid and always felt like I had a few basically unmarked runs (albeit vertical) per game, especially if they started deep. I also wasn’t the best - so perhaps that played into it.

This post was edited on 6/30/21 at 10:25 pm

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