Already in Euro 2012 there have been clear differences in playing styles evident. Poland started with a high pressing, high tempo and quite direct style in the first 45 minutes, and as usual, Spain stayed faithfully to their passing philosophy.

This would be a continuation of Spain’s previous style noted in the Official UEFA Technical Report of the 2008 Euros which noted:

“Spain tried to use their passing patterns to progress and they achieved the highest average of forward passes, including an extremely high efficiency in the final match with more than 35% of their constructed attacks (i.e. involving more than eight passes) leading to a shot, and one of them resulting in the winning goal.”

Coaches may want to view the Official UEFA Technical Report of the 2008 Euros http://www.uefa.com/multimediafiles/download/publications/uefa/uefamedia/75/74/69/757469_download.pdf

As a coach, have you decided on your team’s playing style and considered the factors involved in developing a style of play for your team?

Factors that most coaches consider when deciding how they want their team to play would be as follows:

• Players’ relative strengths and weaknesses
• Their own philosophy and that of the club or Association for which they are working
• Required Objectives in the coaching role e.g.  Win competition, be in top six, qualify for next round of competition, avoid relegation, etc.

The English League Managers Association (LMA) at the beginning of 2012 launched the online education course in conjunction with Prozone Sports on ‘Performance Evaluation’.

To assist you in deciding how you wish to play, you may want to use the format of analysis recommended in this LMA School of Football Management Course. This analysis involves the following questions:

1.    On Turnovers – On the majority of occasions

-          Where do you want to win the ball back?

-          Where do you want to avoid losing possession?

2.    How do you want to attack in open play?

-          How would you expect to score the majority of goals in open play (i.e. from long range shots, combination play, crosses, through passes, dribbling & turns?)

3.    How do you want to defend in open play?

-          How would you expect NOT to concede the majority of goals in open play?

4.    How important will set plays be in avoiding conceding and scoring goals?

You may also like to include a question on discipline. Discipline is a key trait in playing style – avoiding giving away needless free kicks to the opposition and players subsequently being shown yellow and red cards.

It is worth noting that no side has ever won a game at the European Championships having had a player sent off in the first-half!

Having decided upon a playing style – how do you embed your preferred style of play into Key Performance Indicators?

From the LMA Course you can see here the 15 KPI’s chosen by FC Lille, who won the French League and Cup double in 2011 and also further explanation from Lille’s Analyst, Chris Carling here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc0Fl2bP8VU&list=HL1339520954&feature=mh_lolz

As Soccer America noted this week http://www.socceramerica.com/article/47000/tourney-tactics-chain-euro-while-soccer-sparkles-i.html

“There have been four Euro championships since it adopted the 3-points-for-a-win system in 1996. They have featured 23 teams that have lost their first game; of these, 15 failed to advance to the next (quarterfinal) round. A 64 percent failure rate. In fact, of those 23 teams, 12 ended up in last place in their opening round group. Of the 22 teams that won their first games, 16 advanced -- a 73 percent success rate”

It will be interesting to see the styles of play used by teams after their first game. You can be sure the analysts for each team will have a list of KPI’s - Key Performance Indicators – developed in conjunction with the coaching staff as to how they will judge performance. They will also be able to reference these KPI’s against Bench Marks for previous performances, against Bench Marks for each position an even Bench for EURO 2012, World Cup 2010 and EURO 2008.

To learn more about ‘ Key Performance Indicators ‘ and ‘ Bench Marks’  why not view further details and some of the 300 videos from the LMA School of Football Management Course on ‘ Performance Evaluation ‘ here.  

Since this course was launched at the beginning of 2012, over 200 coaches and managers from across the world have enrolled. Focusing on improving how coaches evaluate players and teams, the course highlights good practice in English, French, Dutch and Turkish clubs with over 300 Video Interview clips from 15 respected experts, including LMA Managers, Youth Academies Directors and respected Performance Analysts.

For details of the discount available to NSCAA members click here. 

John Pascarella, Coach of Sporting Kansas City, recently completed the course and wrote the following:

  "The course information is outstanding.  It gives coaches some ideas on how to take your own style of play and then create KPI's that apply to that given style.  The benchmarks/statistics give us an idea of what to shoot for in relation to high level teams.

It has created some thought and ideas about what we want to do here in KC with the help of our IT/analysis people and the first step is generating some league-wide statistics to use as our benchmarks”

To read what other coaches felt about this course, please click here.

Following last week’s article on the importance of the first goal, coaches may like to note the following features from First Goals in the first 8 Group games:

• Team scoring first had a 87.5 % chance of not losing (only one comeback – Ukraine)
• One direct set play ‘ First Goal ‘ (England) without the opposition touching the ball
• 80 % of goals scored within 12 seconds of regaining the ball
• 75% of all ‘First Goals’ have involved either a Cross or a Header (or both!)
• All goals scored from strikes within the penalty area

In Next Week’s article, we will examine the importance of developing the winning culture as EURO 2012 enters the Knock Out Phase.

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