Modern Soccer Tactics Volume 1

Hello, and firstly, thank you for taking the time to open the cover of this book. It is a great honour for me
as a young coach to be able to have the chance to write a book. Not many coaches have a fantastic
opportunity like this and thanks must go to Mike Saif at World Class Coaching for allowing me to have
such an opportunity.
I was asked by World Class Coaching to write this book on the back of my 1st published book: ‘Sergio
Busquets – Barcelona’s Unsung Hero?’ I gladly accepted the challenge, and my criterion for using specific
parts of matches was:

Can a goal be scored?

How was it scored?

How was it defended if not?

How was space created to retain possession?

Defensive shape to stop attacks effectively
Within this book, you will find tactical observations from some of the world’s best teams, and how it
affected the outcome of the match. Most of the observations and analysis come from attacking
scenarios, and how the attack was developed; which runs were made, possible decisions and defensive
shape against the attack, and how to dismantle the defensive shape. One of the articles includes the role
of Angel Di Maria within the Real Madrid team, and the type of creativity he brings to it, with speculation
of regular patterns of play that Real Madrid uses. Another article includes Decision making around the
goal from Arsenal v AC Milan, players dropping off into spaces between the midfield and defensive lines
to create attacks, and defending in numbers.
I wanted to give my opinion on how I saw the footage develop – runs, attacking and defensive
positioning, marking schemes, decision making and possible patterns of play. I hope that when you read
the different articles you will see why the play has been successful, and how you could possibly
implement what you have just read into your own training sessions.
The training sessions should be viewed as a way to help develop the tactical abilities of your players, but I
would also like it to help coaches develop different ideas from the practice drills – Can you change this to
make it better for your own team? Can it be used to develop a different aspect of the play? If from this
book it helps coaches develop their player to become tactically better, and to find different ideas from a
simple exercise, then for me, that is fantastic. The sessions are mainly practices I have used with my own
teams, from recreational level, to travel team and professional youth academy teams, and found success
after refining the initial practise I had tried. Some of the practices are training sessions I have thought up
from watching a specific piece of play, and looked to make a session which fits the article preceding it.
Again, you can alter these to suit the needs of your team.
I really hope that you enjoy reading this book, and can find some tactical insight into the world’s best
teams, and use the training sessions to develop your players to become more intelligent, tactically aware
players.