The Difficulty of Possession

Possession football is not, as some would have it, possession for possession's sake. Possession of the ball has many notable advantages, the most obvious being that with the ball you can score and without it, barring a catastrophic error, the opponents cannot score. The main benefit of possession football over a more direct style is that it allows you to work and create opportunities even when the opponents defence is organised.

A direct style of football has a time and place. It is essential in a counter-attack. The counter-attack should be a weapon in the armoury of every team. Ideally from a set piece, players can burst forward and exchange quick passes to create an opportunity whilst the opponents defence is disorganised. The counter-attack should allow you to create 2v1 situations against a defender, thus avoiding the need to attempt to defeat a defender in a 1v1 situation. 

However, many teams will look to play direct football when the opposition defence is organised. They will often play it long to an attacker who will look to header the ball into the path of a team-mate. This, again, leaves a great amount to chance and to 1v1 battles. If this fails, which it can often do, then the team must win the ball back. This will cause them to expend energy and will waste time that could have been spent attacking.

A style of football based on keeping the ball in this situation seems far more effective. It does not have to be played like Spain or Barcelona, where the ball will be kept around thirty yards from goal for an extended period of time, until a lightning fast succession of passes/dribbles leads to a shooting opportunity in the box. It can simply be a case of looking for opportunities as and when they arise, waiting until a forward has found a half yard of space and then playing him in, or trying to build 2v1 situations against defenders. It can involve attempting to drag the play to one side of the pitch, thus creating space on the other side, then quickly switching the play to that side and exploiting that play. This style of football can also recognise where there is not an opportunity or where it may be more expedient to pass to back to defence or square to a midfielder and start again. 

What this style doesn't do is leave things to chance by hitting the ball long and hoping for an error. This style of football leads to playing intelligently creating opportunities. The high line this style would produce should also lead to the ball being recovered more easily.

This is a style that I have found incredibly difficult to implement at youth level. It comes in patches, wonderful patches, but when the pressure is on, players often resort to playing quick, direct football. It is a complete project as it encompasses an entire philosophy. It seems entirely worthwhile. Players must understand that this style should be the ultimate goal. Success at youth level is fleeting and can often be something of an impediment to development if trophies are the only goal. I hope to report in six months that the players have begun to understood this.