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Playing Principles: What Are They and How to Coach Them?

The best of the just kickin' it podcast | series 01 episode 02
In this episode, Adin talks about what playing principles are and how to coach them.

Discussion Points Include:

  • Playing principles
  • Manchester United Case Study
  • Freedom vs Restriction

About Guest

  • UEFA A License
  • MSc in Soccer Coaching
  • Career highlights include: Assistant Coach and video analyst Atlanta United FC Academy,First-Team Performance Analyst for Columbus Crew SC

Podcast Notes

Introduction

Principles are guidelines, if-then statements for general situations.

He isn’t a fan of highly specific movements, or patterns, because the opponent you will face at the weekend is unpredictable.

“Even though it sounds detailed and it seems like really good information, it doesn’t apply to the game.”

Principles prepare your team better for the wide variety of situations they will face in the match."Your pattern may not always fit the opponent”.

Principles

He has principles as a coach that he brings with him to each new team, but he also analyses his team to determine which principles might fit best.

He warns against being too specific in your principles when coming in to a team because the players will always be different.

“You can have principles based on how you think soccer should be played (as a coach), but then you also have principles you create with your own team.”

“I view principles as simply guidance. Guiding rules, guiding ideas.”

He defines principles as a phrase, statement, or guiding rule.

Anything can be a principle, but there are good ones and bad ones. For example, your principle could be to dribble towards the corner flag, but that wouldn’t be very effective.

A Word of Caution

“Any principle, any guide, any rule is a limitation you are placing on how the players freely play.”
“Any principle, any guide, any rule is a limitation you are placing on how the players freely play.”

He compares principles to cutting the fat off of meat. Your principles should restrict inefficiencies in their natural behavior, but make sure you don’t cut out any of the good stuff.

He cautions coaches to be very careful with their choice of principles and how they introduce them. Too strict of a principle conditions the players to only look for the principle, missing the nuance of the game itself.

“Always make sure your main principle of play is to try and progress into the opponent’s half to score a goal.” Without this guiding principle, your players may stick to a principle without recognising the objective of the game.

Detail’s don’t make you a good coach. He sees a lot of coaches with a ton of detailed principles concerning where they will keep possession, who’s going to do it, how their going to do it, player movements, body positions, etc. “And that seems very good — like look how detailed this coach is, but we have to take a view where we ask, ‘is the principle he is adding making this team more efficient?’”

Implicit vs Explicit

He believes both should be used. Ideally, you create games where the principle is being taught through the games.

Some players need explicit instruction in order to make the principle ‘click’; others will learn it through the game itself.

He has experimented with extremes on both ends of the spectrum (fully implicit, and fully explicit).

Fully implicit wasn’t as effective in developing them as compared to when he gave them some verbal support/instruction.

Fully explicit made them a lot worse because there was too much information

Game Models

Game models are not your formations.

Formations should not be the curriculum itself. He doesn’t understand the idea of ‘teaching’ a formation.

Game model is the overarching system of how the game is played for that team. “It’s all of your principles of play placed together; what forms you game? How do you play? What principles guide your play?”

He chooses his formation based on the question, “How can I get my best players in the best position for them and then how should I position the players around them to best support the best players?”

Manchester United Case Study

He thinks Mourinho’s game plan was too restrictive.

It was effective in the 2000’s, but with the improvement of tactics, his principles are more prone to manipulation by the opponent’s improved ability to control space better when building up.

Mourinho likes to have his wingers man-mark opponent fullbacks, but this didn’t necessarily fit Martial and Rashford, who were used to being strikers.

Mourinho is an example of principles that are too restrictive and also not a good fit for the players he had.

Solsjkaer is an example of how effective more general principles can be. “He gave the players a lot more freedom. [He basically told them] Go back to playing how you naturally do — forget about all your rules — and the players became a lot more free and expressive to do what they wanted to do with some simple rules.”

He thinks that eventually more structure will be needed as Tottenham exposed their lack of rules in the most recent game.

Your main job when you have really good players is to not screw it up. Don’t go insane with too many restrictions unless you know for sure that it will improve their play. This is the difference between Guardiola’s restrictions and other coaches. He knows that his restrictions will make the team more effective. His rules will benefit the team to play better.

Freedom vs Restriction

Too much freedom reduces communication between players, which leads them to play in a way where “their not on the same page.”

Organisation helps you play together and become more efficient as a team.

Too much restriction creates robots that can’t do anything other than the principles.

Lots of freedom = lots of complexity, which can be good for disorganising the opponent, but also bad for disorganising yourself.

Lot of restrictions = lots of simplicity, which can be bad for disorganising the opponent, but also good for organizing yourself.

“The more complex the rules, the more simple the game. The more simple the rules, the more complex the game.”

Freedom is a more successful approach when you have very good players.

Restriction is a more successful approach when you have very bad players.

Wrapping Up

“The main thing that determines player ability to trust in the coach and follow the principles that the coach sets out is if you find success with it.”

Players create narratives around results.

If you place a lot of restrictions on players, but you don’t get results, then you will be criticised for being too strict. If you do get results, then you will be commended for how organised and detailed you are.

If you give players a lot of freedom, but don’t get results, then people will say you are too free and not strict enough. If you do get results, then you will be applauded for how free and unstructured you are.
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