Total Football is Totally Beautiful

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I wear glasses because I can't see.

Good morning! I want to talk about Total Football. It’s an important idea to me and how I coach players.

Before we start, please check that The Weekly Rondo is marked as “important” in your inbox. Each week just under 50% of The Weekly Rondo readers open the newsletter from their inbox - that means you aren’t being shown the latest issue easily.

Neat Reads

Neat Reads is a segment where I share an article or podcast that interests me and relates to our weekly theme.

I’m plugging my own work because everything I write is objectively the best and you’re wrong if you think otherwise. The articles aren’t 100% related to Total Football per se, but they certainly play a part in creating footballers who can play in a Total Football system.

The first article is “Who Do We Coach For?” where I talk about the existential crisis all coaches have when working with a group of players and how we manage it.

Who else can better explain “How to Develop Creative Players” than a below average goalkeeper from the famous soccer country of Canada?

I’m sharing these links while I can. They will soon go behind a paywall on this Substack that readers can access for $8 a month.

Don’t worry, The Weekly Rondo as you know it will always be free. The paid section is available for those who want to support me beyond sharing and liking my content.

Total Football is Totally Beautiful

I loathe the term “philosophy” when describing what I want to see in a football team, but the closest I can get to that is referencing Total Football.

Simply put, it is the culmination of complete football understanding that gives players freedom to roam anywhere on the pitch knowing that they are not creating numerical weaknesses by doing so.

My mentor Darryl Hellam helped me reinforce this Total Football idea by using “triangles” as the reference for everything.

Everything.

From U8 to U23 youth international players, I use the “triangle” for everything. Some may know it as creating supports for the ball carrier, specifically on the left and the right of the ball carrier. 

This is Total Football. If the ball carrier has left and right supports and can still not progress, they can go backwards and try again. The idea that positions are nothing but constraints is an interesting one that I think about often. 

By calling a player a left-back they may only do “left-back” things. The issue is that one coach’s idea of left-back things and mine can, and usually are, different. 

When we give players limitations such as “you need to stay here” we remove an element of creativity. 

This isn’t to suggest that players abandon defensive duties. Instead, all players who are not involved with the ball via left/right supports, back pass and switch option, remain in a rest-defense shape. 

To me, it is the most exciting brand of football because it encourages players from all positions to take risks and exploit their potential qualitative superiority. 

The issues arise when we don’t give young players the chance to develop their qualitative superiorities because we put them into positions in their youth based on their physiological abilities. 

Coach’s Corner

Coach’s Corner is a segment where I ramble about training this week and answer some questions I get from Substack or Twitter.

Ramblings

I’m constantly torn between coaching what I want to see versus what is best practice. What I view as “best” is not the same as an academy or your head coach’s “best.”

Best to me is entertaining football created by individual flair and creativity. I like watching players perform tricks to beat defenders. I like seeing individual technical brilliance beat teams rather than systematically breaking a team down. 

I don’t want to put these two things in their own categories - systematic and individual, because football isn’t as binary as that.

There’s certainly less demand for the kind of individual brilliance like we had ten or more years ago - now we have a different idea of individual brilliance. One that means a player has to be two footed or  have a strong passing range for example. Less importance is on the traditional idea of “flair” and for good reason - the modern game doesn’t need it like it used to.

Q&A 

Nothing this week! I’ll try not to take it personally.

Questions can be asked anonymously if you’d prefer your name not to be included in the email. Just remember to  mention that in your Twitter DM to me or in the comments below.

Questions can be asked directly through Substack (see the button below) or via Twitter DMs!

Exercise of the Week

No exercise this week because I ran out of time and couldn’t share one. 

I’m not perfect, sorry to disappoint.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this week!

Do you have a preferred style of play? If it isn’t Total Football then you’re wrong and I’d love to hear you explain yourself.

I’m always interested to hear your thoughts and ideas so please feel free to send me a message on Twitter or leave a comment above in the Q&A section.

Share this newsletter with a friend or every single person you have ever met.

See you next week! 

Where to find me:

Medium: https://medium.com/@cameron-herbert

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CamH___

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-herbert-football-coach/