Offensive organization
How to define it?
The key factor in the offensive organization is having ball possession to start the attacking strategy. The main purpose of this moment is to disturb the opponent’s defensive structure in order to progress over the field and create goal-scoring opportunities (as shown in the video below).
The offensive organization consists of four phases:
Build up
It is the beginning of the offensive process. The action takes place on the defensive field and must be maintained until the team manages to progress the ball into the consolidation phase.
Consolidation
At this stage, the possession is kept around the central part of the field where the players must constantly seek opportunities to enter into the penetration zone or to reorganize the game returning the ball back to the build up area.
Penetration
It is a zone where opportunities to break through the last “barrier” in the opponent’s defensive system are created, either by a collective or an individual play, in order to generate goal-scoring situations.
Finish
It is the final stage, where the entire offensive process might be completed by finishing in goal.
It is important to highlight that a key factor in football is to “take over” field. Thus, considering the 4 stages cited, we believe that keeping the ball from the consolidation area on would be the ideal scenario because it gives constant danger to the opponent.
We all know that this attitude sometimes cannot be put into practice, however, it is very common to see teams which, mistakenly, have ball possession for a long period in the build-up zone, and as a result, they end up exposing unnecessarily their defense as well as “giving away” field to the opponent .
To these two behaviors, we call active and passive possession. Knowing the difference between one and another approach is what makes great teams stand out.
There are still the teams that prefer a more direct game, skipping phases by using long balls and hoping to take advantage out of it. Although, having always the ball “in the air” makes the game much more unpredictable.
So, which approach would you choose?
Have good training sessions!