In our first blog post at ForeFront Football, we want to share one of the shifts that constitute the paradigm change we promote: from the game model to the game idea.
A game model aims to anticipate and coordinate the collective behavior of the team in the most relevant match situations. To achieve this, certain movements and/or decision-making processes are predetermined for each player in each of these game situations.
This raises several problems. The first and most obvious is that, no matter how developed the game model is, there will always be an infinite number of game situations that are not described, meaning the player must act without this theoretical support in such cases. Paradoxically, it is at this moment that the player can play freely without following pre-established rules that may not fit the reality of the game situation. Furthermore, if decision-making has not been practiced during training, the player is likely to perform below their potential.
There is the option of including general instructions in the game model that cover a large part of these undescribed situations. “After three passes in the same lane, you must switch,” or “when the full-back has the ball, the striker must make a run in behind” are examples of instructions that propose an ideal response to the situation. However, it is common for the context to differ from what is described and, therefore, allow for other different actions that are more beneficial for the team. Thus, the instruction is created to guide the player toward certain motor responses, ignoring the real context of the game and, therefore, with a high probability that the action prescribed by the instruction will contribute nothing positive.
The second problem with using a game model is that it does not take into account the state of the player, who is the one making and executing the decision. Are they fatigued? Are they influenced by the minute of the game and the score? Do they lack confidence in the player they might pass the ball to? These questions and many more influence the player’s choice of decision.
The third, and perhaps most decisive, is that the player is expected to perceive various stimuli in tenths of a second—often far from the natural focus of attention (the ball)—and, with this, determine that the context they are experiencing resembles one of those practiced in training to finally execute the response considered correct for said context. The space-time available in most match situations does not allow for this process. Moreover, neuroscience has demonstrated the power of emotions in decision-making. This means that decisions are heavily influenced by the sensations that the context provokes in the player, rather than based on analytical processes of what is perceived in the context. This is what we know as the sensation-action cycle, which explains the constant process of feeling the emotion provoked by the game, leading to the emergence of an action to respond to it. This action modifies the game situation while simultaneously generating a new emotional state in the player as they observe whether the resulting change aligns with what they expected or not.
The player acts within the game context through the sensation-action cycle.
And this leads us to the fourth and final problem. The player cannot act freely according to what the context invites them to do; instead, they are limited by a supposed correct response to perform, which leads them to miss important sources of contextual information and focus only on those that enable them to perform the action the coach expects. This results in a suboptimal response.
For this reason, ForeFront Football advocates for the use of a game idea. Based on game intentions that determine neither the how nor the when (unlike models or instructions), the player’s decision-making is influenced so that the tendency aligns with what the collective game idea promotes.
The player must be autonomous in their decisions, and to achieve this, training tasks are proposed to practice this autonomy rather than to practice pre-established responses. In this way, and only in this way, the player can perform the actions that the context invites, making it more likely that their motor action will be the most appropriate, according to their needs and capabilities, as well as the needs of the team expressed by the game intentions.
Game models are usually based on the search for free spaces and/or obtaining spaces protected by the opposing team. In contrast, a game idea requires being observed and analyzed through its own dynamic references, which in the case of Positional Play (Juego de Ubicación)—the game idea in which ForeFront Football specializes—are the phase spaces defined by Professor Paco Seirul·lo.
Positional Play (Juego de Ubicación) promotes constant communication through short passes to the feet, consequently generating an organization around the ball, as this increases the possibilities of communication with the player in possession.
Instead of the classic lines of a formation where there is a rational occupation of the pitch, in a team that practices Positional Play, one can observe a large number of players near the ball and at 360º around it, prioritizing the establishment of that communication channel over occupying all available spaces on the pitch.
