It feels like just yesterday that a certain young Norwegian striker was making waves after his international triple hat-trick against Honduras. Well, that’s because it practically was.
Just over one year ago, at the end of May 2019, Erling Braut Haaland burst onto the scene by netting 9 goals in a 12-0 demolition of one of Central America’s better setups. The feat was impressive, but many were quick to dismiss it–assuming that Honduras’ U-20 team must’ve been truly abysmal, or the somewhat valid notion that “youth national team scorelines more frequently end up in blowouts than in the top flight”. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t one of them.
But fast forward a few months, and the then-Red Bull Salzburg man is on the verge of completing a $22M move to Borussia Dortmund, a club world-renown for their ability to develop young talent.
In his first start for die Schwarzgelben, he was subbed on and grabbed a hattrick. In his first appearance at The Westfalenstadion, he scored a brace. In his first 14 games, he scored 13 goals. Writing his performances off as a fluke wasn’t an option anymore. Haaland was taking the Bundesliga, and the world at large, by storm.
His domestic success was only mirrored by his performances in European competition. For Salzburg, he tallied 4 goals against Genk across two ties, 1 against Liverpool, and 3 over both matches against Napoli. In his UCL debut for Dortmund, he fired home 2 more against PSG. In the span of months, his value climbed to a lofty $88M per Transfermarkt.
His meteoric rise the unstoppable force, only an immovable object would be able to slow it down–and as fate would have it, 2020 would deliver. The arrival of the global COVID-19 pandemic dropped Haaland’s value by a few pegs, now down to $79.2M, but we’d be hard pressed to find a reflection of that reduction in his play. Coronavirus has taken its economic toll on the entire continent, and even at his marginally bumped-down evaluation, Haaland now stands as the third most valuable center forward in the world–behind only Mbappe and Kane. He’s only 20. Amongst those also born in 200, he claims the #2 spot, only behind teammate and potentially-soon-to-be-Manchester-United winger, Jadon Sancho. Across all players, he is valued as the 23rd most expensive on Earth.
A Good Head on his Shoulders
If we remove ourselves from the financial perspective, we find that Haaland possesses many of the traits of a classical number nine: tidy finishing, a large frame, strength, and so on. Athletically, he’s a total freak, once clocking a 6.64 second 60-meter sprint downfield to join an unfolding attack–only 0.3 seconds away from Christian Coleman’s 60m world record. During the dash, he hit 36km/h. There are few players that can do that, and even fewer that come in at 6’4″.
But beyond his physical and technical skillset, Haaland is full of the intangibles that are often even harder to come by.
With most young players, the rapid rise to fame can cloud their progress. Money and notoriety can lead to tattoos, expensive cars, girls, and other things that may not be necessarily “bad”, but can distract from youth development. In a players’ formative years, bandwidth is limited, and the more that’s focused on haircuts and parties, the less that’s channeled effectively on the training ground. Teenagers that get caught up in being celebrities tend to not reach the potential they might’ve otherwise.
The Norwegian looks to be defying those stereotypes. Impressing in the way pre-Neymar Kylian Mbappe did a few years prior, his outward image is one of non-nonsense, and tranquility regarding his emerging image. Even more so, he’s taken on a reputation similar to that of a young, slightly crazy, but more down-to-earth Ibrahimovic, with his goofiness only bolstering his general amiability.
“I have five hat-trick balls in my bed and I sleep well with them. They are my girlfriends.”
–Erling Haaland
When it comes to interviews, Haaland doesn’t say much either. It’s rare, but refreshing, to find a player of his age that’s so adamant about letting his performances do the talking.
Evidenced by his efforts to keep himself from laughing on the mic, his cyborg-esque personality comes with a healthy dose of self-awareness that’s ripe for his age, too.
Joyful play is often attributed to South Americans, and particularly Brazilians, who are taught from a young age to play with a beaming smile on their faces. The pressure of world football is immense, but to soak it all in and score as effortlessly as Haaland has is truly remarkable. His diverse and jovial celebrations keep us wanting to see more. And his grin amidst crowds of feverish fans makes us nostalgic of the smiles we once wore when playing with our childhood friends.
But besides his unique personality, what other hard-to-quantify attributes does the player have? Well, that’s precisely what this series will dive into. But in order to dedicate the proper amount of attention to each component, I’ll split it up into several installments. The first area of focus: his reactions.
Perceiving, Interpreting, and Executing
While reactions might seem like a physical attribute, it’s better defined as a cognitive skill. The way I see it, the ability to respond quickly to stimuli is can be split into three trait categories: perceiving, interpreting, and executing.
Perceiving, for the most part, is a physical element. A player’s pure vision, their eyes’ ability to intake information correctly and with a rapid frame rate is what gives us perception of the field. This is the toughest factor to develop, as literal player vision isn’t something I’ve ever considered working on. Our eyes don’t quite behave like muscles in the sense that they don’t get stronger with use. Rather, eyes tend to deteriorate over time, and based on my minimal knowledge of optometry, that eyesight is hard to get back. If we could train our eyes to perceive with greater depth and clarity by squinting at far-away things, the glasses business would’ve gone under long ago. The sight we have can’t quite be improved upon.
What can be honed is our ability to process that data. The eye is simply a mindless camera capturing photos. Our brain functions much more like a traditional muscle, and serves as the computer that pieces pictures together.
Execution is the final stage. Here, the data and its processing serves to suggest a course of action, and that movement is carried out. While focusing on refining the interpretive abilities of our players, in subsequent sections, they’ll also acquire a good repertoire of chances to practice this final “definition” phase. In our case, this refers to learning how to read situations with greater clarity and improved timing, and then capitalize on them. We’ll get back to this shortly. But first, in order to begin designing drills for our players to improve these qualities, we must have an understanding of how exactly our brain catalogs all the data it receives. Let’s briefly discuss memory and neural nets.
Neural Nets and The Cabin Analogy: A Momentary Albeit Important Sidestep
A neural network, in the field of psychology or computer science, is an interwoven collection of connected information. The brain is a neural net. By perceiving information, we begin to collect the materials that’ll allow us to pave pathways from point A to point B in our heads. The forest analogy is often invoked here.
Imagine that you are in a cabin in the woods. You know that there’s a beautiful stream with a fishing dock a mile away, but you’ve never been here before. You don’t have a map, and so you begin to try different routes to get to your destination. After some initial stumbling, you find your way to the dock and cast a few lines. In the process, your muddy footprints have created the slightest of Hansel and Gretel traces between the two locales.
At this initial stage, you are a total beginner. If we consider a typical ballskill soccer youths are encouraged to work on, like juggling, the first trip to the stream is like your first attempt at keepie-uppies. It took some trial and error, and even if you got there eventually, it wasn’t elegant, nor simple to do. You’ll need more practice.
After a few more reps, you begin to develop a dirt road between your cognitive cabin and dock. Now you’ve juggled a bit before, so the obscure novelty’s worn off and you’ve begun to interpret patterns. You know that your left foot isn’t particularly skillful, so you’ll either have to train it extra (as I’d recommend), or (as I wouldn’t recommend) avoid it altogether. You can roll the ball up from the pitch now too. A few skills are emerging.
As you build up your personal record, you take in even more info. Now you know that the “best way to juggle” is without using the insides of your feet, close to your midsection. Instead, your laces are much easier to control and much more game-realistic. You start to develop greater control over the spin of the ball, its height becoming more and more consistent, too, while you grow in confidence. The dirt road has now become a paved one.
Now you’re practicing every day. Your PR shoots up from 20 to 200 as you’ve developed abilities with your chest, thighs, head, and even the occasional backheel. Juggling becomes more mindless than it ever was before, meaning that you’ve started to develop the colloquial “muscle memory”. Each sequence pushes you further, while the mistakes also allow your brain to course-correct any bad habits. The road has now widened and permits two-way traffic.
Finally, you’ve become a juggling expert. You can comfortably hit 1000 juggles if you have the patience, adding new tricks and flicks into your arsenal. The cabin now has a highspeed highway to the fishing station, and you know it like the back of your hand. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion that 10,000 hours of practice is all it takes to reach a professional level of proficiency at any task. It’s known as the “magic number of greatness”. Despite the genetics-based arguments against his claim, we know the adage in much simpler and less quantifiable terms: “practice makes perfect”–and we’ve proven it with our keepie-uppie example.
When we examine the case of juggling, the eyes, as mentioned, remain fairly constant throughout the learning process. The brain, however, is able to create synapses–an area in which two neurons come close enough to one another that they can exchange chemical signals. These are the pathways from point A to point B, and what eventually form an experiential map outlining our various roads. This is our neural network.
Thus, the input feed from our eyes is an unchangeable starting point, but what we choose to do with the info they transmit is largely up to us. The most straightforward approach to strengthening a neural net is to continue to feed the brain relevant example circumstances, allowing it to build up a catalog of experiences as data points. Over time, we will begin to draw connections between them, identify patterns, and transition from pigeon-holed learning to application and usability of the knowledge. If you’ve only ever seen 3 specific examples of combination play, you’re likely to mold your image of the concept based on the tiny sample size you’ve been exposed to. The more you see, the more generalizations you’ll be able to make about combinatoric sequences, the better comprehension of context you’ll develop, and the more room for intelligent creativity will emerge. Soon enough, you’ll be able to cleverly think outside the box.
Alongside repetition, the other route for building our net is to improve its ability to retain things or grasp them quickly. These items are often discussed on various psuedo-inspirational YouTube psychology hack blogs, mentioning ways by which people can learn better and faster via methods like the Feynman Technique–but typically these videos only further crease slow-learner inadequacy. Instead of suggesting classroom note-taking alternatives, my proposal is that this sector is largely in the hands of an effective or poor coach. If the first thing along the chain of reaction processes that we can impact is the players’ ability to interpret, we must not only provide examples situations in abundance for them to accrue data and catalyze pattern building, but we must do so in a way that is memorable.
Unique drills are a fundamental way to pursue this. Many Twitter-analysts promote activities with irregular shapes, for instance, to challenge players’ abilities to “figure out” diverse spaces. I think it’s a strong idea.
Another suggestion is to create gamelike situations that don’t stray too far from the actual flow of soccer–a notion that is pushed by every coaching educational body in the world. The more you diverge from the actual game, the more abstract any concept becomes, and the further it is from connecting to the actual field of play. If your drills have no continuity, aren’t challenging, don’t have scoring incentives, etc. your players will inevitably have more trouble translating the learned ideals onto the matchday pitch. In order to smoothen that conversion, you must coach as much as possible within gamelike circumstances. I think this is pretty reasonable, for the most part, as well.
The challenge, when it comes to training a very specific set of attributes, and for a specific functional group within the team, is how exactly to make the training relevant for everyone. When given a small stretch of time each week to make an impact on your players, it’s tough to find ways to improve skills like striker reactions while ensuring that midfielders, defenders, and keepers are getting something out of the session, too; this is one of the many beautiful balancing acts of coaching. At collegiate levels in The States, there are almost invariably multiple coaches within a staff, so I’ll angle the following drill concepts to a team that has the personnel/facilities to combine some more functional or even individualized practice with integrated full-team play. The objective is to develop the neural nets of our squad members through creative and memorable sessions that flow directly into an 11 v 11 context.
Calculating Rebounds & Ricochets
The first element of Haaland’s strong interpretation abilities is the myriad of irregular scoring environments he’s been able to finish in. Many of Haaland’s goals come to his feet for a shot, something that’s bread and butter for most out and out strikers, but a significant number are from rebounds and ricochets. When a player shows an uncanny ability to score these types of goals, they can’t be discounted as being in the “right place at the right time”. There is a skillful consistency about that poacher “luckiness”.
Thus, we’ll begin with the first attribute of intrigue: following-up shots and scoring deflections/parries.
In his first home match, Haaland netted a brace against Koln. Below you can watch (and I’d encourage you to re-watch) the first of his two goals. Past the initial near-post run, we observe several sharp movements from the Norwegian striker than show his eagerness to collect any potential rebounds.
The first, when the ball is parried by the keeper and lofted into Sancho, Reus, and Guerreiro. There is uncertainty regarding who might shoot it at goal, but Haaland is quick to take a step backwards to ensure that he’s onside at the moment the ball is hit. This will be a huge element of what we’re looking to teach our players.
Right when Reus touches the ball, Haaland then begins to dart towards the goal, but has the control to stop himself when the shot isn’t actually taken. His readiness is totally apparent. When Sancho proceeds to receive the ball, the defensive line begins to shift up to compact Dortmund’s space inside the box. Noting this, and likely assuming it’d happen, Haaland pulls back yet again to stay onside. When Guerreiro inevitably pulls the trigger, he is already locked, loaded, and perfectly positioned to charge the keeper and arrive ahead of the nearby defenders moving in the opposite direction. He gives himself the best chance to collect the rebound and executes with perfection. Check out the clip, below.
The first element I wanted to introduce to our theoretical players was the ability to calculate the trajectory of a ball that suddenly changes direction. This is a fundamental skill for what’s to come. In the clip above, Haaland is able to predict where the keeper would deflect Guerreiro’s shot, so we must begin by training that largely instinctual component. For the most part, balls played into feet can be set up nicely for a finish, but when the ball is bouncing in the box, it takes a particularly agile and prepared player to scramble it into the back of the net. Given that this type of situation is hard to reproduce, the intention of the first two individualized sessions is to create some random variations that will train the response time required to react to a ball rapidly changing course.
As a disclaimer, WordPress tends to reduce the quality of the drill diagrams–feel free to open the images in a new tab to zoom in on specifics.
Benchwarmers V1 starts us off with individualized training. The aim is that this will prepare the players most effected by these skills to apply general technical knowledge in increasingly game-like situations later on. Here, we treat the player as the camper who hasn’t yet fished.
Setup is fairly simple and resourceful. Nearly every pitch has 2 benches on the sidelines, with many possessing 4 (2 end-to-end sets of 2), or with neighboring fields that have extra. This drill requires 3, positioned as shown, but tilted onto their sides so that the seat is the surface the ball pings against. A striker begins at the penalty spot in V1, with his back turned to goal. Two other strikers who rotate in with him are positioned behind and wide of the goalposts. Each one possesses a collected pile of balls.
The two distributors coordinate and randomly take turns passing balls off of the benches. Each point along each bench will create some unique angle of incidence for the ball’s initial trajectory, and thus generate a unique angle of reflection when they bounce off of it. The more irregular the sequence of “who passes it” it, the more unpredictable the drill will become (ie left, left, left, right, left, right–instead of left, right, left, right…).
The shooter will be encouraged to stay on their toes and look forward, anticipating a ball that will enter their peripheral view from one side or another; each side ought to be equally likely, so peek cheating won’t be of much service to them. The ball will become visible, and the player will have an urge to react to it, but they must first calculate the impending bounce, turn, and spring onto it to fire home. This is ideally performed with one touch, as multiple are seldom granted in tight quarters like a dense box.
Don’t forget to have a keeper in goal, too. They can react as quickly as they’d like, to keep it realistic. The symmetry of the drill ought to train players to pragmatically use both feet, while the nearly infinite bounce variations should start to supply the strikers with a data baseline of “failed clearance moments”, in which a ball is attempted to play out of the box, but it is deflected back in. Capitalizing on these errors can sometimes come down to serendipity, but learning to stay vigilant in case of an opponent mistake, and having the neural net that supports muscle memory for scoring those chances, will be important.
One element to challenge players with is the skill of looking up at the keeper before shooting. Sometimes this is feasible, while other times, less so, but the players that can calculate the bounce, start running towards it, glance up to see where the GK has set his feet, and shoot, will score much more frequently than those that blindly hit the ball without the extra information.
Reps will likely be determined by how many balls are available. 2 attacking groups of 3 will allow teams that play 3 up top, like mine, to have easy group creation.
But ricochets from balls originally travelling negative aren’t the only types we’ll see. Arguably more importantly, yet, will be those that are fired at goal and end up bouncing off the keeper. Thus, we adjust the drill for V2 to emulate those circumstances.
Reposition the benches to have two, inwardly tilted, on either side of the goal as shown, and one deep and behind the keeper, in goal. Ensure that the bench is sufficiently deep in net such that any dives won’t be impacted–the last thing we’d need is a concussion, but this drill should require much more goalkeeping outside of the goalmouth, than falling back into it. I’d be extremely surprised if there were an issue with its placement.
The striker starts centrally at the PK spot, again, facing away from goal. The two distributors will ping a ball off any part of the three benches, with the keeper allowing any passes that are near him to hit the bleacher, instead of saving them from “scoring” (ie the red arrow).
Here, we simulate a striker who is turned to watch a ball that’s, say, bounced out from a corner or cross, shot at goal, parried, and then is available for the finish. In such a play, the striker would inevitably be facing the ball and have to react by turning and shooting. The possible variations that will arise here will continue to build the network of “rebound goal” experiences for the striker.
In order to add more realism, the keeper may be instructed to start on the ground, as if a save has just been made to either side. This way, they practice getting up quickly after a rebound, and the strikers get a more authentic finishing picture.
Once the technical concepts of “responding to changes in trajectory-direction near the goal” have been broken into, we move into a small-sided activity that will further develop these skills. I call this one Ring Racers.
To setup, assemble 2 sets of 3 mini-goals at the corners of the top and bottom ends of a decagon, as shown. The age and level of your players will dictate the size of the area, but allow the diagram to provide a rough, relative estimate of my intentions, with the players used for comparison. The midsection is defined by the two “offside lines”, in blue and yellow. Teams of 8 are required, with each side placing two of their compatriots on the “endlines” between the three goals they’re attacking. These are “bumpers”, and are out of the playing field, but will be critical to the game. Since rebounds are counter intuitive to generate via encouraging “poor keeping” in training, rebounding players will generate “return balls” that have similar directions and trajectories as one that might come off the posts or deflect off the keeper’s outstretched hand.
One element observed in Haaland’s goal vs. Koln is his brilliant ability to briefly track back to get onside, and then leap forward for a finish. This drill will evolve the more isolated technical training in benchwarmers to add more players, but also the offside phenomenon that is so crucial to observe in these scenarios. If you watch any top level match, the elite attacking players often tussle with the line more than anything. Timing is critical to arriving ahead of your opponent. As you’ll soon come to understand, the Ring Racers gameflow will require plenty of offside awareness to maximize scoring potential.
A quick aside: when it comes to the art of session design, I very much take after my engineering education. In school and throughout my various technical internships, the most valuable thing I’ve learned is the importance of having reasoning behind every decision. When I design a drill, I seek to maintain the same ideals. Subject to expert review, one ought to be able to outline a decision making process for every element of the activity–be it numbers, timing, sizing, and other logistics, or more intangible things like opportunities for self-discovery or embedded fitness. One of such things that simply cannot be arbitrary is the deconstruction of a formation into small-sided games (I previously alluded to the notion of continuity towards 11 v 11). If a team plays a 4-3-3 and trains a 6 v 6 session in a 3-2-1, the coach has failed to make the progression intuitive for his soldiers. Here, the 3-back in practice won’t have the same elements that a 4-back will in games, nor will 2 central midfielders when they seek to transition to 3. Symmetry is important here.
Instead, our example team might look to play a 2-3-1, for instance. Here, the 2 center halves will be represented by the 2 in defense, the midfielder perfectly mirrored in the 3, while the lone striker plays his usual role, just without accompanying wingers. This formational breakdown methodology is precisely what we’ll use with Ring Racers.
There are additional considerations that the choice of 2-3-1 leads to, as well. With only 2 defenders, 3 goals are chosen, such that each of them can’t simply be “man-marked” simultaneously. The 3 nets will force defensive decisions, increase possibilities for attacking deception/creativity, and bring about tight, realistic gaps to finish rebounds. Back to the progression of the drill itself.
To start, a baseline rule: shots can only be taken within the “attacking zone”–that is, when players are past the opposing offside line. This encourages dynamic attack, taking advantage of spaces when they’re provided, and interesting opportunities for the 3 midfielders to overload and create in the “final third”.
Scoring works as follows: 3 points are scored for a team that plays one of their 2 bumpers from within the attacking zone (simulating a shot on goal), the bumper passes the ball first-time back in, and it’s finished first-time within the attacking zone (scoring the “rebound”). The only caveat is that the finisher must have been behind the offside line when the ball was played to the rebounder, as per offside rules.
This “high-scoring opportunity” will begin to condition players to follow up “shots”. The midfielders have large personnel, and little room to work with, so they’ll be encouraged to exchange and combine cleverly until an opening arises. Once it does, a “shot” is taken, and those that seek to score the rebound will pounce from behind. At the same time, we’ll find loads of pseudo-3-man runs opening up with the run of play (imagine a player finding his fellow MF out wide, the MF steps into the attacking third and “shoots”, and the rebound falls to the original passer; he was the third man). This mechanism is another added benefit of the activity, but not the emphasis, so we won’t lose focus.
But such a format could lead to defenders “cheating”. A smart CB, here, would simply mark the bumper behind him, with his fellow defender doing the same. This would be unrealistic. If defenders drop back and only mark… their own “keeper” (represented by the rebounders)… we’ve failed to make the session game-like. Therefore, I added another condition: 1 point can also be scored from any standard shot within the attacking zone. These “low-scoring opportunities” will incentivize defenders to mark 5 regions, now–the 3 goal mouths, and the 2 rebounders–nearly always leaving room for one or two to be open. A team that consistently finds the easier low scoring options might win the game, so these can’t be neglected by the defense. Hopefully, however, the triple point advantage of scoring a rebound will have enough appeal that the attack looks to create these chances, and begin to practice the true objectives of the activity.
Of course, feel free to adjust point values in any of the drills I’m walking through. Incentivization and assigning point-values to actions is an incredibly complex procedure within game design. I’ve proposed what I think is best, but it may certainly not be.
As a final note, as I seek to elucidate all my decisions in this blueprint, the goals are positioned as such to create a large diversity of rebound angles for attackers to practice with. Their small nature will encourage precision over power, as well–something many players fail to produce when given a bouncing or otherwise erratic ball. Furthermore, with 3 goals and only 2 defenders, now the attacker will be forced to pick their head up and find the most-open goal–similar to glancing at the keeper’s position. This state of observation and split-second decision-making will be good to continue developing. Lastly, the decagon shape is deliberately unfamiliar and will force players to adapt to a new playing area, as inspired by some of the aforementioned architects I follow on Twitter. The orientation of the shape is such that players are funneled in towards the 3-goal region, and not out wide where our wingers are “missing”.
Soon, we find the need to evolve this once again. Ring Racers builds up several levels of cognition, awareness, and technique, but now we must translate to the actual field. Here in Pounce on the Bounce, we trap a 4 v 4 with bumpers and face them with the challenge of scoring rebounds on a full-sized net. They line up in a 3-1, with the 3 midfielders likely finding themselves in this type of advanced territory, while defenders are unlikely to be so deep into enemy lines. Just like before, we have two bumpers on the endline for either team that allow us to receive “rebounded shots”.
To arrange everything, four cones are placed at the junction of the 6-yard box and the endline, as well as their projections onto the 18-yard box. An additional goal will need to be transported to mirror the standard one, as depicted.
Scoring, this time, evolves, too. Now, 2 points are awarded for a goal from anywhere. The game is played in a tight space, so these opportunities will arise often. To punish teams that look to sit back and cover the goal mouth, a team that connects 10 consecutive passes will earn 1 point for each successful sequence. This will draw the defense out. For those that are able to find a bumper and score with a first-time shot after a first-time delivery, they’ll take home 5. The even larger point-value will ensure that the rebound chances keep coming.
The concept behind this setup is to shift the environment without changing too much else. We started with players practicing on their individual technique, moved to an team-based abstraction, and now bring a very similar concept to the field, albeit with slightly reduced numbers to minimize complexity as we transition.
Up next we step into the octagon for Fateful Eight. To begin laying things out, push the goal at the top of the 18 out of the way, and arrange the sides of the playing area as indicated, below. The width remains the 18-yard box, as rebounds are rarely scored from the channels. Here, the corners of the field are tapered off, so as to guide play inwards and towards goal. Again, without wingers, we’re focused on getting ricochets off of bumpers and being mindful of offsides when we look to finish them. No need to incorporate crossing elements in this one.
Teams play 6 v 6 in the middle, again, with two rebounding players rotating on the endlines. The offside lines are positioned at the PK spot, with a midfield creation-phase between them and of identical height. This creates more even “thirds” than before, and will reward careful build-up at the top of the box, while keeping the depth of play more realistic.
Teams line up, once more, in a 2-3-1, but fluidity is also, once more, encouraged. I’ve added a defensive build-up phase to the activity, to simulate a team in possession that might have centerbacks on the ball looking for opportunities to break the first line of pressure and overload the midfield. To allow teams with a safe-haven of sorts, as well as a chance to reset and build patience in what’ll be a comparatively less high-tempo drill than the previous one, I’ve restricted defending teams to only one pressing player in the opponents’ defensive third. However, teams with the ball can drop players back into it, if need be, as shown by the orange 6 dropping between the CBs, above.
In defensive phases, I’ve limited the defending teams to have a maximum of 2 players in their defensive zone at once. The hope here is to prevent teams from packing their box unrealistically, and maintain a certain interspacing that represents what we might find in 11 v 11.
These two limitations to the run of play may feel too constraining to some, and they’re totally free to hold that opinion. As I’ve said before, with all of these ideas, treat them as a starting point–you may tweak them accordingly, if you so desire. Though restrictions tend to detract from a drill’s game-realistic qualities, I sought to make adjustments to actually increase transitionability to full-field. If the whole team is allowed to press, for instance, we don’t have flanks to escape high central pressure–so the solutions we uncover to those issues, within Fateful Eight, might not be representative of what we’d seek out in a real game. We must find a balance. Similarly, if a team simply packs all their players in the defensive zone, we’ll see a more firmly parked bus than Simeone’s Atletico–this defeats the purpose of the activity, so we must create stipulations that combat it.
Scoring is still similar to the previous activities, to build continuity. 1 point is given to a team that connects 10 consecutive passes inside the neutral zone. We might think that the defensive zone should be included, but with the 1-presser restriction, this would make it too easy to rack up passes against a hopelessly chasing striker. As before, this will force teams to be clever about their ball movement at the top of the box, an area of the field that’s often considered the pitch’s most crucial (“Zone 14”). It’s good to practice drawing the defending team out.
1 point may now also be given for any goal that is scored outside of the attacking third. This will promote some comparatively longer-range efforts that will serve the same effect as patient build-up–pulling the opposition out of position by forcing commitment to the prevention of these shots. These hits will likely require more power, and may generate unique ricochets, too.
5 points can be scored via a rebound sequence with a bumper, exactly identical to those in Ring Racers–except now the original pass must come from outside the attacking zone, instead of inside. This builds some variation. In exactly the same fashion as the decagon drill, the eventual finisher of the rebound must not be across the offside line when the original pass is played.
Now, to incorporate yet another element of rebound scoring, the finisher is not restricted to one touch. In a real match, there are no limitations in this sense. However, in our drill, once they receive the ball, they can’t pass to anyone else inside the attacking region. If they choose to recycle possession, they may play backwards, but these moments will squander the careful build-up, and won’t be conducive to winning the game. That being said, if a rebound is simply too hard to redirect on-target, this may be a better course of action than giving up possession with a wayward attempt.
This element now adds a level of decision-making and composure. Players that leap at the opportunity to take needless touches post-ricochet will find themselves closed down by 2 hungry defenders, while those that hastily take shots that could’ve been settled and finished with greater calm, will be penalized.
Another method of scoring 5 points is if an actual rebound situation occurs, where either the keeper parries a ball, or it strikes the woodwork. Here, we arrive at our most game-like scenario so far, and we’ve built up to it gradually. With this 5X point advantage, more shots will inevitably be taken (though these effects won’t be blown out of proportion by the comparatively low 1/5X incentive to actually scoring long-distance strikes), and players will find themselves ravenously looking to calculate bounces. Once this drill is executed, the attacking members of the squad will be primed to spring on such chances, or even half-chances. Simultaneously, defenders will finally reap some benefits with the in-possession build-up practice and newly built-up incentive to effectively clear the play amidst uncertainty. No-nonsense defending is a great additional skill to be extracted, here.
Finally, we’re ready to move to 11 v 11. Fateful Eight brings us close to gamelike play, but now we truly arrive. The sole adjustment here, is to ensure that the rebounding mentality and eagerness isn’t lost. To reward poachers who follow up shots, 3 points are awarded for any type of rebound goal off the GK or woodwork. The other rules remain the same as a traditional match. Here, we finally bring our training to a full 4-3-3, adding width to the centralized concepts we previously developed.
I must note, there are undoubtedly gray areas in each of these team-focused drills. Questions like “what happens when the ball goes out of play” are largely decided based on your individual team culture, or how you deem fit. It’s good to have a deliberate reasoning for these decisions, and to plan ahead, but I haven’t dwelled on them too much in these descriptions to avoid being too long-winded.
For this particular question that I always get a lot in training, many of these drills will become somewhat muddied if we enable throw-ins or kick-ins, especially from attacking regions. After all, the point was to neglect crossing, and focus on deflected shots, right? I’d suggest that if a ball goes out in an attacking or defensive zone, it returns to the keeper to start up a new play. Perhaps the middle third can have standard, wide out-of-bounds rules. Corners are tough because we’re not looking to train them, though one might argue that following up shots on set pieces is an important element of this skill, too. There are little things like this that you might just have to test and feel out for yourself.
Before embarking on the second portion of our Haaland-esque reactions building, I wish to add that I’m a huge proponent of verbal affirmation in sessions like this. If the overarching goal is to get players to seek out scrappy scoring opportunities, then it’s my job as a coach to express excitement when those things happen. Be vocal, encourage good moves that “didn’t quite turn out”, and motivate.
Assume they’ll Make Mistakes: Optimistic Cross-Finishing
The other commendable component of Haaland’s reactions are his commitment to attacking crosses, assuming everyone else in front of him will miss them. This is a opportunistic mentality that is often taught to young players, but is very commonly forgotten in the run of play. Sometimes, with things like this, we must refresh our squad’s memory.
In the clip below, Haaland is positioned behind one of the world’s most aerially-dominant centerbacks, Kalidou Koulibaly. The likelihood of the Napoli defender mistiming a header–his bread and butter–is slim, and yet the then-Salzburg attacker assumes the worst of his opponent. The gamble is ultimately pays off. While others might’ve relaxed and taken the outcome of Koulibaly winning the free header as a given, Haaland made no such guesses. In the case that an error was made, he was prepared to react to it.
It is for this reason that so many players can be seen following through on “mimed” shots from crosses that never actually arrive at their head or feet–if you always are ready for the ball to reach you, it someday will. This attitude of self-optimism and simultaneous pessimism towards the defender’s technical ability can make the difference between a far post finish after several missed clearances, or a blown sitter with a gaping net. If Haaland hadn’t timed his jump and header with the hope that Koulibaly would miss, he certainly would’ve regretted it.
This concept may be a little nuanced, but we must figure out how to isolate and target it with training. We’ll start similarly to last time, by getting down to basics. Cue, Dummies for Dummies.
To set up, 2 cones are placed at the top of the 18, goal-width apart. Players line up at these cones, while a select few go out wide to deliver crosses. The drill is very much a warm-up that will begin to prime players to be optimistic on crosses. Teams are created by splitting the group in half, and then dividing into duos within the teams. The players line up at the top of the box in pairs of duos, allowing each team to receive a left-sided and right-sided cross in direct succession. They start with a ball at either cone, play wide, and drive into the box for a finish.
The crossers leave the cones positioned in the flanks to meet the ball for a one or two-touch cross. Ideally, the drill moves quickest when the ball pings around with little nonsense, but if need be, they may settle it to find an option.
The team scores 2 points if they are able to score with the first man (i.e. front post). They can score 3 points if the ball ends up going to the other player, and finds the back of the net. In this case, there must be some element of deception, like a dummied shot at the front post, to create a scenario in which the far post player must react quickly to score. If the cross is simply nowhere near the first player, it is hard to say that the second one has had to be all too optimistic, even if they do score. As such, a play that goes to the second man, but is free of a confusing-element at the first, will only count for the standard 2. The aim is to keep the farthest man from the ball hungry, but challenged by diversions.
These 2 and 3-point rewards are quite close to one another, so we don’t see all too much cheating. I don’t want the first player dummying on every single cross, nor do I want the keeper being unrealistic with his positioning. 2 and 3 points, respectively, will mean that a keeper needs to cover his near post if the first man runs towards a ball played there, and it is the striker’s choice whether he’ll finish or gamble on letting it roll for the triple.
To further incentivize the creation of optimism-requiring scoring chances, if a pair of duos scores two consecutive second-man goals, they’ll win an extra bonus point. Be sure that players rotate duo members and starting positions as the drill cycles, such that they have diversity of practice, as well as alternation between being the first or second duo to go in each turn.
Dummies for Dummies, starts off by giving the lads plenty of crosses and working on the mechanics of finishing, while incentivizing behavior that’ll keep those at the far post vigilant (a la Haaland in the video).
An additional stipulation I’d recommend is evolving the drill halfway through the session by adding the “aerial double points” factor. If the cross is played above knee-height, the point values jump to 4 for a first-man goal, and 6 for a second-man one. Flighted balls are that much harder to calculate due to their motion in 3 dimensions, instead of being confined to only x and y axes, in the ground plane. If players can now pretend to leap up for headers, imitate lining up for a volley, etc. they will create new situations for the far post player to be distracted by. As such, the second man will have to work hard to concentrate on the ball’s trajectory and follow through on his finishing motion, regardless. Again, this is exactly what we saw against Napoli.
Next, we add defenders and a healthy dose of self-discovery.
The above drill is one of my favorites I’ve ever designed. It was also the first fully thought-out exercise I ever ran with my team during an off-season training. There are a lot of details listed on the image that handle logistics, so I’ll emphasize the coaching side a bit more, here.
Players learn by doing things, we’ve established that. You can tell the man in the woods where to go, but until he does it himself, he won’t truly know the route; our world is full of maps and GPS, but people still get lost.
The goal of this activity is to throw players into the deep end and allow them to arrive at conclusions themselves. This will get them thinking about the reasoning behind their movements and anticipation. It’s also a collaborative exercise that develops the ability to communicate without being overtly obvious–another skill that’s worth practicing. This telekinesis that Haaland often displays with Julian Brandt, in particular, makes both players’ lives easier in real games. In standard soccer speak, we tend to call this magical phenomenon of “understanding without verbal command”, “chemistry”.
The design may look intricate, but the drill is ultimately very simple. There are attacking players in yellow and defensive ones in red. We start off by combining in the flanks and producing a crossing opportunity, into a 2 v 1 in the box.
There is plenty of creativity and diversity that we can introduce via new patterns down the wing, and I’ve only mentioned 2 examples on the image–a 3rd-man-run, and a standard overlap. I’ve also had the CM underlap the wide player, as well as play a wall pass in behind the agility pole that gets either the winger or the CM into the deep flank. These ideas are simply to provide your players with a starting point–if they wish to be clever and come up with new ones, encourage it.
As the combination occurs, the attackers in the middle will have to communicate and figure out their approach into the box. A defender will track back and do their best to clear the play, though he will be outnumbered. Ideally, in any numerical superiority like this, we expect to score.
After you run through the exercise for a few minutes, bring all the players inward for a quick discussion. Instead of planting any ideas, ask each functional group two questions about the drill:
- What things made your life easier?
- What things made your life harder?
It is likely that the defenders will bring up the difficulty of marking two distinct paths–especially if they are spread out well. They’ll say it’s simple if the coordination is poor. Wingers might express frustration with the attackers’ feints in the box to get into open space; these can fake out defenders, but also make it hard for them to know where to play the ball. Attackers may demand that wingers pick their heads up earlier. Whatever revelations are made, applaud contributions to the discussion and return to the activity. You are sure to see an immediate improvement, without even much instruction.
As attackers realize what makes the defenders’ lives difficult, they will begin to toy with these things. They’ll also learn how to help their crossing teammates know what to do. Everyone learns together when we share experiences.
Once the group begins to develop a certain proficiency, you may evolve the drill to a 3 v 2 situation. Here, add another red cone to the middle for another defender, but tell the winger that they may attack the goal once they’re played in. You can also add a defensive fullback in place of the agility pole, or where the attacking fullback starts to apply pressure from behind. It may even be an option to let weakside wingers join in the box for impending crosses.
CCSD will unravel loads of variation in crossing situations. Here, with added defenders, players will develop skills like positioning and timing, but will continue to hone their optimistic mentality. If a ball is played front post, the player may have developed the confidence to let it run by, if they’re under high pressure from a sliding CB. This might leave the second man with an open shot at the PK spot, and with a scrambling keeper. Continue to cheer on moments like these.
Once this exercise has been executed with several potential variations, it’s time to move to something more fluid. Let’s level up to see whether our players can stay ready-to-pounce in a half-field session.
5F splits a half into 9 regions: three central zones, defined by the 18 yard box, a roughly identical middle area, and an 18-yard box for the opposing goal. The flanks are split into three zones each, based on the heights of the central ones. Game flow takes the form of 6+4 v 6+4 with keepers, a full 11 v 11 with a couple constraints.
Each team starts in a 4-3-3, as is the formation I utilize at my club. Adjust as you deem necessary. This arrangement leaves 2 CBs, 3 CMs, and 1 ST in the middle spaces, with a RB, LB, RW, and LW in the channels, hence “6+4”. The 2-3-1 decomposition ought to feel familiar. The 7 central players (including the goalie, though this is likely unnecessary with so many bodies) are not permitted to enter the flanks. Likewise, the wide players are not permitted in the middle. Wide and central players may rotate as the drill goes on.
Each team’s attacking crossing zones (ACZ) are intuitively defined as the 2 channel thirds closest to the goal they hope to score on. These regions, for the attacking team, begin “locked”. To unlock these zones, a ball must be played into them for maximum 1 attacker and 1 competing defender to run onto. Wide players may also receive a pass and dribble over the line and into an attacking crossing zone. Once the ball departs an ACZ, it becomes “locked” once again, so no balls can be played directly back inside, unless it is immediately vacated and the adjusted offside line is obeyed.
Offside in the center strip functions as normal, with the last non-keeper defensive player defining it. As was in some of the ricochet activities, a shot from anywhere is worth 1 point. A 2 point goal can be tallied if the shot is the product of a wide-region cross. 3 points are won if the goal is scored at the far post. This added bonus exists to encourage players to play lofted passes that will see several players trying to attack and defend them. A man who scores at the far post almost inevitably will have to concentrate on the ball’s trajectory instead of any of these leaping distractions. If they do so, they’ve shown the skill we’re hoping to unravel, and deserve the extra point.
The 1 and 2 point low and medium-scoring options will keep players honest, and prevent game flow from becoming too unrealistic by forcing services deep. I.e. if a defense begins to overload the farside, find a nearpost player quick and score 2; they’ll soon adjust.
Much like the first half of our reactions training, this second component should also conclude with a full-field 11 v 11. Skills and habits are only worth something if they can occur in a standard setting. Pick up the cones and play.
To incentivize organic opportunities for optimistic cross finishing, double point values are available for a far post crossed-goal. The rest remains the same.
As one final bonus drill, I’ll make a slight adaptation to the player-favorite World Cup, to suit our motives. Sometimes, a fun and more care-free option is good to have up your coaching sleeve, especially if it subtly touches upon the concepts being developed. Consider this to be a like one of those brownies moms secretly put spinach inside of; they still taste good and the kids unknowingly get their nutrients.
Begin by setting up 4 cones as shown. The ambiguity of when balls are out vs. still in-play has always bugged me about World Cup, so let’s nip that in the bud from the get-go. As always, teams are simply partnerships. For entertainment’s sake, have each pair select a team that they’ll use as their collective alias. Instead of having a keeper start with the ball and punt it, one or two players will serve balls in from the flanks, either as standard crosses, corners, or even throw-ins.
The annoying “last-touch” rule in World Cup is exactly what makes this so perfect to round out our ricochet and optimistic finishing sessions. Instead of being frustrated by a poacher that slightly redirects a shot entirely engineered by a different team (thereby earning advancement into the next round), this drill will make everyone eager for rebounds and further cultivate a culture of assuming opponents will make mistakes. Everyone will delightedly pounce on bounces and hope they’ve developed the necessary clinicality to clinch the World Cup trophy. Regional culture may dictate how the eliminations work, but typically, the last team standing in each round is knocked out. Towards the beginning, this may be the last 2 or 3 teams, in order to expedite the “tournament”. Those eliminated may assist in serving balls in.
Key Points
As I conclude the first installment of the ambitiously titled “How to Make Your Strikers Play Like Erling Haaland”, I wish to recap a handful of key points. There are plenty of specifics that I hope you’ve been able to benefit from, or be inspired by, in the paragraphs above, but here are 5 distilled elements from the first installment of this series:
- Players learn and build neural nets by experiencing many repetitions. They learn faster and more effectively if those circumstances are unique, but also have close ties to how a true match might unfold.
- Reactions can be split into perception, interpretation, and execution. Haaland excels on all three, but it is most feasible to train the latter two categories. We’ve placed an emphasis on the second.
- The two scenarios of focus, here, pertained to following up rebounds and staying hopeful on crosses. Strikers that train these instincts will be widely known for their “reactions”.
- Always have a rationale behind your decisions. If you feel yourself making an arbitrary declaration, it may be time to reevaluate.
- Be creative and encourage your players to do the same.
Till next time.
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