If I stare at this for too long and try to edit my thoughts, I’ll never share it. So take it as-is… typos, incomplete thoughts, run-on sentences, and stream-of-consciousness moments. It felt coherent in the moment!
I am watching the EHL post-season and championships this week and weekend, and while watching the Gantoise HC vs Club Campo De Madrid Womens match (quarterfinals), a player for Madrid tried to play a ball forward into a 2v5.
The woman announcer said she understand when a defender wins the ball, that they want to go go go, but it’s not going to work in a 2v5 situation.
It got me thinking about quite a few things – from teaching my own players the discipline not to turn the ball over in the midfield in an attempt to win a 1v3 – to the high performance summit last year and Thomas Tichelman’s presentation.
I remember him saying, when we build slowly, the defense comes with us… slowly. The intent behind the message was to encourage us to play quickly so we can leave the defense behind. I cannot recall if he mentioned paying attention to numbers, but one of the primary messages I took away was that speeding up the play creates panic in the defenders. And that is why accelerators are so effective in creating scoring situations and chances (THE BABIES! IYKYK)
Obviously much of this comes down to coaching philosophy, player personnel, coaching and playing style, etc.
But I thought it was interesting that in that moment, she was angling for a chess match more than a risk it to win it type of game. It was even more intriguing that later she lamented that both teams appeared to playing “not to lose” instead of “playing to win”.
I do agree that there needs to be a balance, and the commentators are not on coaching staffs (cue Roy Kent – “We’re not in the locker rooms with them. We’re not on the pitch with them. We can’t look them in the eyes and encourage them to be better than they ever thought they were capable of being. We’re just on the outside looking in. Judging them.”), but it led me to my next question.
In high pressure games like this, where the loser ends their season, what are the triggers for finding an accelerator and pursuing it? How are teams training this aspect? I saw first hand a session with TT and how he encourages players to run, trap, and pass… but that can’t possibly be all the time, can it?
If it is… I suppose that is likely much of the Dutch style of late – they thrive on fast breaks and capitalize on the mistakes of their opponents.
I understand WHAT the game accelerators are, and can identify them, but how do players recognize the moments to create them? How do coaches identify and encourage/coach players through them? This is likely a future topic/convo/presentation.
Later in the day, HC ‘S-Hertogenbosch was playing Watsonians HC, and the announcers mentioned that Watsonians were sitting back defensively, and as such, had no one ahead of them when they won the ball. They were constantly numbers up in their backfield and numbers down in their attacking end. Knowing that ‘S-Hertogenbosch is one of the very most successful programs/clubs in EHL history, and the score at the time being 4-0 in their favor, it makes sense that that was the coaching decision.
I wonder what the mindset is here – obviously you don’t want to get run over, but there has to be a balance between, “we will likely be outclassed and outplayed in every way by this team” aka we are not likely to win, and “let’s play as we usually do and take a ton of risks”. The message it sends the team – I wonder how the coaching staff delivered the plan. When we played Middlebury my first season, we were very talented and hard-working, and the final score was not indicative of our play and scoring opportunities (missed penalty stroke, missed wide, etc). We walked into that game with a half-court press in our back pocket – but I delivered it as a rhythm-disrupter. We were playing a team that had a cadence, and because they were rarely truly challenged, were not comfortable under pressure. So we used it as a way to create different pressure types against them. Maybe that’s simply my love for gamesmanship, but I had done something similar against Worcester State while I was at Westfield.
We knew they would improve across the game, and that whoever scored first would set the tone for the remainder of the game. We scored in the first minute (or first three minutes? I’d have to ask my alumnae), and caught them on their heels. We were able to knock them out of their rhythm and bash their expectations, and came out of the game with a win. I think this was also the year we were tied for first place for a few games.
I don’t know if that is the sport psych background for me, or just years of coaching, but understanding people and how they think, feel, and respond to things has helped me many times. Heck, winning the gold at Nexus Championships happened not only because I had a great group of players, but they were also open to hearing my thoughts on how to play against opponents, and being aware of what they were likely thinking and feeling in different moments of the game, and/or in response to how we were playing/attacking/defending.
It matters.
Anyways, back to the EHL, I found it interesting that where the announcer previously said don’t attack forward in a 2v5… she also then had no solution for the Watsonians who were constantly in those types of situations. I built the attacking end of said half-court press into the game plan. I’ll have to share it with all of you – players knew when to attack hard, even numbers down, what to do if they lost the ball or found themselves in hard pressure, and what their objective was in the first 2-3 restarts before making a switch. All mental, but when executed correctly, dagger effective.
I wonder if I have clips of it working still – I’m sure I have some from Trinity – but without full buy-in I’m not certain it was ever fully followed. At WSU, we definitely had success – teams were not able to read our plan and we were able to create pressure moments where we then won the ball.
Back to my initial thought – the coaching game plan. Some clubs it feels as though they play the way everyone else does. Which is fine, it gets some of them to KO8. And then you see the clubs who do things differently, are harder to read and predict, and create really creative chances. I like to think many of those make it farther than their budget or line-up would predict. Similar to a moneyball moment – where you still can’t replace full buy-in, full discipline (doing what you know you should when a more fun/easier opportunity presents itself), resources (money for recruiting, school profile, money to pay players and coaches, facilities, equipment, etc.)… hard to beat teams with the best players… but they can’t win every game… can they?
Anyways just some ramblings from Thursday’s EHL games. Lots to keep thinking about as the championship weekend continues.
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