Playing to the Strengths of Your Team
Whatever football team you play for, there will be areas of relative strength and areas of relative weakness. This often depends on what position the best players in your team play. For example, if you have a brilliant striker then obviously, he or she will score lots of goals, and the objective then of the team should be to get the ball to the striker as often as possible in and around your oppositions box. If your star player is a very fast winger, then you will try and set them free with through balls, to make use of their speed and athletic ability.
Very often in a school team the best player will be either at 10 or a central midfielder. In that case the objective of the back four should not necessarily be to pass the ball to each other in an attempt to build from the back, but to pass the ball to your best player as quickly and as often as possible. The importance of this can be seen on any football pitch every Saturday. So often now in trying to pass the ball around the back four, technique or ball mastery skills let a back four player player down, and the ball is lost in the final third due to a high press, and an opposition goal results.
Common sense dictates that getting the ball as often as possible to your best player is a sound tactic. He or she will then be able to control the tempo of the game, exploit opponent’s weaknesses and put your team on the front foot.
Very often, getting the ball to your best players happens in a team instinctively. But it helps if a discussion about these sorts of tactical tweaks takes place within a team, both formally and informally. It makes sure everyone has a sense of understanding of a common goal and being part of a tactical system that will become increasingly sophisticated and complicated as a footballer advances through the year groups.