Playing Principles
What is a philosophy?
Philosophy has become a bit of a buzzword in football and I use it all the time, but I am trying to use it less. But within this, I’m trying to think about how I use it and being more purposeful with it. In this newsletter, I want to discuss what I believe a playing philosophy is and then outline my own principles.
A playing philosophy is essentially how you see football and how you want your team to play. A coaching philosophy is different, I’d say that’s more about your coaching methods and how you manage your team. There is definitely overlap but I’m trying to focus on playing principles here.
In my opinion, playing principles don’t necessarily need to be detailed. It doesn’t need to be about the style of football, pressing intensity, defensive line height, type of wingers you want, etc. It comes down to principles about what you want from your team.
The way I view it, and others can interpret it completely differently, you should be able to summarise it very briefly in a few principles. Coaches could probably write 10,000 words on their ideal play style and all the intricacies within it. And this is something I’d like to do one day. But I also want to be adaptable as a coach. I want to be adaptable to the situation and my players. I want to be able to play different systems and styles and not be stuck in one system that I like.
But it doesn’t matter how I play, I think that my principles are always a constant and wouldn’t change if I was playing route one or high possession, patient buildup.
Quick in possession and transition
Difficult to play against
Limit and control the opposition
Control the chaos
Adjust to the opponent
Five points that describe how I want any team of mine to play. They apply to any system or to any set of players. And they might seem simple but these are the things I’m focusing my planning towards and the applicable ones are the main messages to players. They’ll also be how I measure performance outside of the result. These will change over time, as will my overall view of the game. The game itself will also probably change quite a lot.
Football is a simple game though. There is complexity to it and you can spend a lifetime studying the game and how to coach and scout. At times being in-depth is great and needed, but it’s also necessary to be able to simplify it. There’s that saying that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Your footballing philosophy is how you see the game. Some people think there’s a right and wrong way to see football. I disagree. There are different interpretations and styles but if they work then they work. I have my preferred way to play but it’s not set in stone and I want to work with different systems and types of coach and my view and philosophy will only change over time.
