Transitioning to a 4-3-3
This summer I spent a good bit of time reading through the U.S. Soccer Federations latest recommendations and coaching curriculum. There really isn’t anything new or ground breaking presented but the one thing that caught my attention was the recommendation that teams playing 11 v 11 should consider playing in a 4-3-3 formation.
I’ve never put too much emphasis on the formation my teams played. I focused on how the team played within the formation which was usually a 4-4-2 or occasionally a 3-4-3. Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the 4-3-3 I realized how much the players could learn from the fluid nature of the system. There are so many decisions for the players to make and every one is an opportunity for them to learn. As a coach of youth teams I believe that my primary responsibility is teach the players as much as possible in my few years of working with them. Wins and loses fad quickly but the technical, tactical lessons learned are carried into every other game that they will ever play. So with this in mind I decided to play the system with my U13 girls team.
Sporting KC also opened their new stadium this summer so I’ve attended more of their games than ever before. Coincidentally, Sporting KC began playing a 4-3-3 system. Being able to watch the system being played by professional players has been a great learning experience for me. I’m not going to expect that my girls will be able to execute the way professional players do but seeing how it should be played will help me point them in the right direction. This will also give us an opportunity to take the team to a game so they can see how it’s done first hand. It’s very hard get the same feel for it when you watch it on television.
We have a number of books and DVDs that discuss the 4-3-3 system of play and I’ve gone through them all. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to learn more about the system.
Our first practice was canceled because of the extreme heat that we’ve been experiencing this summer. This allowed me to get the girls together and show them Randy Waldrum’s Coaching the 4-3-3 Defending. Coach Waldrum does a great job of describing the roles and responsibilities of the players when they are defending. Seeing these ‘pictures’ will help them recognize them on the practice field. Here’s a short clip from this DVD:
I started with the defensive aspects because I see that as the biggest challenge. Who picks up attacking players in the wide areas is something that the players will need to become comfortable with if we are going to play the system successfully. As much as I’d like to focus on technical aspects of they game in our preseason sessions, getting the players comfortable with the new system will have to make up the first few practices. I plan to return to my usual technical development sessions once this foundation is in place. I’ll write more about how this transition is going (for both me and the girls) in the coming weeks.
Please share your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post.
Have a great day!
Tom Mura
I find the 4-3-3 to be the least fluid of the available formations. You have to teach the wide forwards to be constantly moving, and that’s not innate to the formation, so they tend to struggle with it. Plus it asks too much of young center midfielders. They simply don’t have the stamina to cover the ground necessary.
I think the 4-3-3 can be successful with older players who have the fitness and attention span (as well as the weeding out of weaker players over the course of time), but I don’t like it for developing young players. Too much bang and run, not enough possession.
Every formation comes down to the quality of the players involved and the emphasis of the coach.
If you have an athletic team with a decent soccer IQ you can coach the players to move and combine in order to keep possession and build up to attack. Sure, you could just ask them to bang it to the center forward and try to get in behind the defenders with speed. But you can do that with any system.
I’ve found that the 4-3-3 gives your wide defenders a lot of opportunities to join the attack as long as you teach the remaining three defenders to slide and cover the space. I added players to the team that have been used to playing as wide midfielders but I’m asking them to play in the back so this freedom is important for them and makes the team stronger.
The group of girls I’m using this with are U13. They played their first game last weekend and played the system very well for their first try. I’ll discuss the challenges and corrective practices in future posts.
The late, great Malcolm Allison for me the most innovative coach in the English game once said “You adapt systems to suit your players – you do NOT adapt players to suit systems”
Personally I have always favoured a 4 4 2 formation but at the same time I recoognize that for example, I require two players with pace and ability to cross playing in the flank positions of the central fiour players for this to be successful.
At the grass root level and in my opinion far too much time is spent teaching kids about systems rather than – just teaching them how to play.
it could be a succesful system if you have the wide players understanding their roles. if not the 3 mid fielders will be out numbered through out the game. the 3 mid fielders have to be taught to stay tight and compact as well.
YES it could work.
Darren,
When you’re playing the 4-3-3 with your team, are you referring to 1 center mid, or the 3 centrally based midfielders in the system. If you keep them all compact and don’t let them spread out (even at younger ages), it shrinks the midfield spaces. It also helps if one of your outside backs pushes higher into the formation, or a wide forward comes back. In doing so, you should have a pretty fluid moving formation. We actually play a highly possession based game with my U-14 girls out of this formation and they like it. In order to teach it though at younger ages, you really need to be personally invested in learning how to let the formation best help your attacking strategies.
Sure, USA, good plan to recommend 4-3-3 just as the rest of the world moves on to 4-2-3-1
Ok, So I have played in most every system out there and as a player I find the freedom in the attack while playing in a 4-3-3 is the most fun to play as it incourages more players to get involved in the build-up and and final phase to the attack. Now as a coach, I am willing to lose game with a younger team but allowing them to learn to play in a system and develop so that when they are older they can then win games by playing good soccer. I think that we all and myself including forget that our main job as a coach is to develop and teach, winning is the best feeling in the world but if we do not teach them how to play at a young age and allow them to rely on their athletic qualities alone we are not doing our job as a coach.
You can call it a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 but in my opinion it is the same thing. In defense you are going to ask your wingers to drop and tuck in so that they can help with defending and keeping their outside backs out of the play. In the attack they are going to provide width as well is push forward more to try and create a chance on goal. Also, coach I learn the system from would say that when defending we were play a 4-5-1, if the other team was able to hold possession on us. The one thing I like about the 4-3-3 is that you can drop your wingers back into more of a midfield role. There is just so many different options with it from a coaching stand point that I feel you don’t have with with a 4-4-2.
You are 100% correct, teaching a team to defend in this system is very hard. You may want to try playing a 3-4-3 but with a diamond in the midfield. This is not your regular diamond midfield, you play with a defensive mid, who is really the other center-back but you as the coach have decided for them who is goign to step and who is going to drop; 2 holding mids who are responsible for marking the outside midfields of the other team, but they stay tucked-in during build-up and attack so they are already in a position to defend; and an attacking midfielder. In the back you can play a zonal/man marking system. For the youngers this makes it easy to defend and understand their roles.
Just some thoughts, thanks guys I really enjoy these kinds of posts! See you on the pitch
The difference in 4-3-3, and 4-2-3-1??
Is simply in the eye of the beholder.
Depending n your players strengths in a 4-3-3, you play with 1 attacking midfield player and 2 as central like in a 4.4.2/ 4-2-3-1. In this case its the same thing, as the 2 wide forwards will be almost like wingers cutting in and playing off the single forward leading the line
Tom – when you say you will go back to your usual technical practice’s…. I would be interested in these, how much do you still link segments of the field together with combination play and short passing to keep the ball in an area with a directional focus?
I applaud the US and Mr. Reyna for establishing a curriculum and the system of play .. There needs to be a basic foundational structure that we all who coach youth soccer follow. It is a guide that helps coaches and allows for individual expression. Total soccer which Barcelona plays so well was built from the Netherlands and 4-3-3 system. It will help the US play a more stacking style of football. The 4-2-3-1 becomes nothing more then a 4-5-1 for us because we are always defending so deep. We have shown we can defend and create defenders. It is time to go on the offense..
Andy,
Even with the technical sessions I progress them toward a small-sided game that allows the players to use what we worked on in a game situation.
I’m not sure why the video didn’t show up on the post. I’ve correct that so you can see what I was talking about.
Good link.
He does a very good job with the roles, and particularly the midfield 3 with who picks up who when the ball goes wide. However, my concern would be that with an inexperienced group the reactions may not be as quick from the defending team in the middle, which may give the wide attacker more time to get forward and the midfielder chasing.
If this were to happen I would suggest changing the midfield 3′s position from 1 player ‘sitting’ to 1 player in front of 2 (a kind of forward facing triangle instead of backward pointing). This would then allow the player infront to drop back a few yards and pick up a player, and the player closest who would be 4-5 yards further back (who has more time to read the pass, particularly if out of position) can go and close down the ball, positioning themself between the ball and goal – thus slowing up attack and providing the attacker with the ball less of an opportunity to run toward goal.
if there are any more of these links i would love to see them, as it really does help coaches learning as well as players!!
[...] written about my teams transition to playing a 4-3-3 in previous posts. The process has been going really well. I’ve been very pleased with how we [...]
Thanks Tom, nicely said Jay. I too chose the 4-3-3 for my U12 girls team for it’s development aspects but I won’t disagree we struggled at first. The first Tournament we played was a little rough, the girls said they were confused and couldn’t execute the system of play but with each game they got a little better. What we discovered after spending several training session teaching the system both tactically and from a positional perspective we found that it was our players ability to perform the technical skills necessary to perform this system of play.
This is why I love this formation because it leaves my players in 1v1 situations a lot, alone having to solve problems with the ball on there own. Do I pass, shoot, perform a skill move and dribble away from pressure; so we have spent a lot of time learning to master the ball in all aspects of the game which is what we should be coaching at this age.
Along with some Speed/Agility/Conditioning work the girls have progressed very well and won there first Tournament this summer ever. Again thanks for the Blog write-ups and keep them coming as they are very helpful.
The curriculum was long overdue. But the 4x3x3 and it’s variations will enable a much better understanding of the game. Youth players do not decide a system of play like professionals do. Youth players are members of a development community. To that effect players that learn to play the organized, structured game based on a 4x3x3 will become technically and tactically more proficient.
Sporting Portugal (Lisbon) has implemented a similar curriculum back in the 70s. It has produced more adapt world class players than any “small” club in the World, e.g. Futre, Figo, Quaresma, Hugo Viana, Nani, Simao, and the great Cristiano Ronaldo. All those players have gone and played in multiple countries and in multiple styles and systems. La Masia, Barcelona’s school/academy does it the same way and has produced a few names from their youth program including their Coach Pep Guardiola. Xavi, Iniesta, Pique, Busquets, Pujol, Pedro, Fabregas and Messi are a just a few reknown names – many others left Barcelona and excel elsewhere.
Winning in the end is a by-product of palyer development. I can attest that I did not get players because we did not win a lot in the beginning. Everytime we get a new group/team we struggle to win. However, all my teams who were D5/D4 are competing regionally 3 years later! If you can convince your constituency of that you will find the fluidity of the 4x3x3 makes ‘artists’ mesmerize the crowd and the ‘street sweepers’ play like artists. Needless to say, being able to manage the ball at pace under pressure is paramount to every footballer so never skip on the technical side of the game.
Great blog discussion with a lot of great football thinking! Thanks all for sharing your perspectives.
Tony