Introduction

The 4-4-2 is STILL the dominant worldwide set up, formation, system, whatever you want to call it.  Although formations are undergoing some changes today, and these changes may be leading up to a new dominant formation, the current manifestations mostly appear to be derivative of the traditional 4-4-2 in one way or another.

Every coach in this country must make the leap to 4-4-2 at some point in their career.  Some coaches are making this leap growing up themselves as I did in a more literate soccer population, while others are making the leap as part of their involvement in their child’s young career.  Many coaches in today’s US youth soccer climate are now starting out in 4-4-2 immediately upon entering the 11v11 realm.  I would say fairly confidently that the 4-4-2 may in fact be the dominant formation in this country now as well.

Most coaches are still not quite capable of working within a 4-4-2, yet.  That is because while we have collectively decided to work within a system more like what is being utilized throughout the world, our understanding of the place of a formation in a team’s broader system or style has not evolved as quickly.  Our understanding of positions within a formation seems more correctly suited for baseball, football, or smaller sided team sports like hockey and basketball.  We are hardly to be blamed, as these are the sports that dominate our culture.

Now that we understand the problem, however, it is easy to see why the transition to 4-4-2 is indeed significant enough to describe it as a “leap.”  Previous to the “adoption” of the 4-4-2 as our “national” system, you were much more likely to see a 4-3-3 lined up as you see in figure one.
 
 

Figure 1

With this 4-3-3, everything is very simply laid out, and all roles are clearly identified.  For a society weaned on football and baseball, you can see where this set-up satisfies the need for strict positional responsibilities.  There is a center forward responsible for central attacks, wing forwards responsible for wing attacks, and the same is seen in midfield.

 

Figure two lays out a typical 4-4-2.  Perhaps it is best to compare the two systems to one another, as in the scenario confronted by the coaches that first tried the 4-4-2. The immediate problem arises, how can a team with two forwards generate the attack of a team with three forwards?  Given what we have spelled out so far, it doesn’t make sense to play with two forwards compared to three.  Conclusions then become based on this fact and the fact that there are so many players in the midfield and defensive thirds.  The 4-4-2 must be a defensive system, and the 4-3-3 must be an attacking system.  Which was not necessarily a bad thing for coaches in this country.  They now had two systems for decidedly different situations.  More people began to use the 4-4-2, and these coaches fell into three categories:  coaches that used the 4-4-2 because it was a defensive system and “defense wins championships,” coaches that used the 4-4-2 even though it wasn’t working because “that is the way they do it everywhere else,” and coaches that understood everything and chose the 4-4-2 because it best fit the needs of their team (the smallest group).

Figure 2

Today, many of our youth soccer coaches are stuck in this manner of thinking.  One reason that you see so many coaches using some of the more complex systems in recent years, such as a 3-5-2 or a 4-5-1, or even 3-4-3 or 4-2-4, are doing so based on their inability to get the 4-4-2 to work.

Stubborn coaches still stick to the 4-4-2 because it is the name of that English magazine and they know they “should” be playing it.  There is nothing worse than watching two of these teams face one another in competition.  Neither team generates any attack apart from the occasional brilliant individual effort of a forward or a midfielder in the last third.  The majority of successful teams using a 4-4-2 in this country, though we have come a long way in the last ten years, still rely on brilliant individual play to make up for the fact that they can do little as a team.

Others start out in that 4-4-2, and stay that way until halftime to make adjustments.  Not scoring goals?  Change to a 4-3-3.  Losing midfield?  Change to a 3-5-2.  Need to protect a lead?  Stay with the 4-4-2 or change to a 4-5-1 or 5-4-1. 

In so many ways we have come light years in our knowledge of the game.  In other ways it does not seem we have come very far at all.  On the surface it seems we have become accepting of advanced concepts while in reality we use these concepts to cover for deficiencies in the most basic areas.

Actually, there are many more coaches now that truly do understand formations, but many of these coaches have either studied loads to get to that point, or grew up in the game playing for good coaches.  The purpose of this chalktalk session is to fill in the gaps for those coaches without the luxury of a soccer background or time to gain that understanding.  The 4-4-2 was chosen because it is still regarded as the world’s dominant system, and I am a 4-4-2 guy at heart.  Many new coaches ask me why I have chosen the 4-4-2, here is why…

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