UEFA technical instructor and observer Romeo Jozak is scheduled to present at the 2014 NSCAA Convention in Philadelphia. He teamed up with Ivan Kepcija for a two-part article series on the "Basic Stereotypes of Cooperation." Part 1 is featured below and part 2 will be posted next week.

In addition to his work as a UEFA technical instructor, Jozak is also the Academy Director for GNK Dinamo Zagreb, a Croatian football club in Zagreb.

For more information on how to see Jozak present in person at the Convention, registration and housing is open now. You can also see other clinicians scheduled to present here.

By Romeo Jozak, Ph.D. and Ivan Kepcija, M.A.

Often, we (coaches) talk about combination play in terms of attacking play and strive for our teams to play in such a manner. Many enjoy the combination and passing game that highly successful teams exhibit, even a term like "tika-taka" has been coined for the recognizable Barcelona’s style of play. But, telling our team to combine like Barcelona won’t help us get there if we don’t know what cooperation exists within the game, and more importantly, how to train it.

A scientific approach can help in analyzing the game and establishing cooperation patterns in the attack. By employing observational research in analyzing cooperation of players emerging in the game of soccer, it becomes apparent that such cooperation mostly manifests itself in some common forms. Such structures of cooperation between players are present in almost all forms of player cooperation that can be performed in the game. These basic structures of player cooperation are referred to as basic stereotypes of cooperation. They transform their basic form to innumerable variations and forms depending on the specifics of the playing system, tactics plan, as well as individual characteristics of players participating in cooperation. Although, real soccer game situations sometimes overlap in one or more stereotypes, careful analysis of technique and tactics in cooperation, as well as its logic, always single out one stereotype predominating in cooperation. 

Basic stereotypes of cooperation between players are:

Wall pass, which can be defined as cooperation of two players, where one player passes the ball to his teammate and receives it back immediately, developing cooperation around one or more players of the opposing team.

Crossings of players can be considered as exchanging places or positions of players with the aim of developing the game.

Play to the third player is defined as the cooperation amongst three or more players where every subsequent pass is to the player who didn’t pass the previous ball.

Creating space is a stereotype of cooperation of two or more players where players move to create space for themselves that is meant to be used.

Return passes refer to passing the ball primarily in the direction from where it came whether to the same or to the third player.

Creating player surplus is a stereotype of cooperation where player that doesn’t have the ball, by moving in front of or behind the player that does have it, creates a surplus of players in front.

Positional cooperation refers to the collective receiving and passing of the ball that maintains space parameters of players in the field before and after the cooperation.

Nowadays, soccer requires training with the inevitable precondition that receiving and passing the ball in all given segments must be of the highest speed and intensity.  This intensity refers to the physical (running and turning quickly), technical-tactical (speed and direction of the pass) and intellectual (reading and deciding quickly) domain. 

Their automatic execution places them in the sphere of subconscious operation and as such they are ready to be acted out and employed in any given situation, even in urgent circumstances of the match.  They can be developed almost to perfection by training many repeated modalities of a given type correctly. 

A very efficient method for learning these stereotypes is the method of circular situational training.  Circular training method ensures a large number od repetitions, a more accurate insight of the desired intesitiy of the drill and better presence of the coach in the acomplishment of demands.

The learning process and memorizing the stereotypes of cooperation goes as follows:

“Basic Stereotypes of Cooperation” is a DVD that contains methodically systemized review of situational exercises for “older” age groups (high school and college years, U17-U23/adult teams). Exercises that the authors present refer precisely to the development of the set stereotypes of player cooperation, enabling precise control over the volume of their strain (in terms of aerobic and anaerobic endurance), just as well ensuring a very big number of repetitions within specific demand.

The DVD also showcases some very effective examples of training forms for creating the best possible automatization of player cooperation that can occur during the course of the game. They can also serve coaches and soccer instructors as a basis for upgrade in all other segments of soccer training, such as playing with different number of players, playing corridor, transition phase, finishing, etc. A few examples of these are below.

Related Links

Purchase "Basic Stereotypes of Cooperation"

Purchase "Soccer FUNdamentals" for developing younger age groups (U6, U8 and U10)

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