Connecting Training to the Game

...or should it be the other way around?

When searching out ways to create exercises that stretch, challenge, prepare, and guide a group of athletes to solving the complexity of the game - where do you start?

Attend the majority of coach education courses and the instructors will advise the candidates to start with his or her end game and work back from that. I believe that by working from the game and stripping away the layers of complexity be it through space, numbers of players, time - we can emulate the game that meets the players where they are at. That is what makes coaches educators and not just session facilitators.

Below my objective is to provide a handful examples of how we are able to recreate the game situations in training that provides players a high level of repetition without patterns or choreography. Solutions can be driven by team intentions that are aligned through a common lens in which to view the game.

Common Exercise - 4v4+3

This is a fan favorite. Between social media outlets and any video of Pep training Barca, Bayern Munich, City, and all the imposters (me included) since - there is enough evidence to support how common this is. It was all over my recent FA Wales UEFA B course and even the counter-pressing kings in Liverpool modeled this exercise.

The value in exercises like the one above is the many layers and game situations that can presented to players. A coach that is rich in game knowledge (not tied to experience by the way) can continue to pull out new challenges and new situations from this exercise.

Progressions can includes goals and different targets, conditions that drive specific actions that are all rooted in the game.

So given all the above - does it really exist in the game? Positional games by natures have direction and are more than possession for the sake of possession (there are different exercises for that). We all can do a quick Google search and fill a folder of possible positional exercises - but can the practitioner see these moments in the game? That is why using the game as a starting point is vital vs starting with the exercise and working to the game.

In my younger coaching days - I would draw my team's chosen structure and put in different opposition structures (i.e. 1-4-3-3 vs 1-4-4-2) and use this to guide the type of positional games my team needed. If I played with a single holding midfield player - the 4v4+3 was a favorite. What if we shifted to playing with two holding midfield players? Here comes the 4v4+4 (more to come below). What if we played an opponent that wants to defend man to man? We asked the players out of possession to mirror this challenge. You get where I am heading - but the key thing was the game on the weekend or the larger 11v11 setting drove the exercise.

Less Common (to me) Exercise - 4v4+4

I titled this one "less common" not because I don't see it being used or that I do not use it - but merely because for the past two seasons my teams have played with two holding midfielders and I was still asking them to perform a 4v4+3 in warm-up.

Why? Most likely it was due to comfort and laziness from the coach (me). In reality - I didn't take the time to make sure we were efficient, functional, and purposeful in every touch of the ball.

I have long believed that in the college or high school setting where players and coaches are asked to jam a long season into a small window - efficiency is king. All that we do has to be able to be tied back to our game idea and what will be expected of the individuals and collective come game day. It is my responsibility to make that happen through purposeful training design.

Back to this coach missing the boat - our team's warm-up is another session. It is 40 minutes where we can drive home habits, concepts, and intentions that make our team who we are. Not using a position game that challenged our two holding midfield players to communicate and execute intentions was a miss on my part.

So..in 2025...out went 4v4+3 and in came 4v4+4. Warm-up groups were organized by the staff and we made sure that players that would be working most often in close proximity in the game were playing together.

Players were asked to perceive and solve the challenges set forth by the exercise priming them for the challenges that could lay ahead. Every game and every moment is different - but perceiving the moment through a shared lens is vital to finding a solution.

I challenge you...

..to link the "how" you train to the game. This is a massive shortfall of the coaches I observe in my given environments.

Many of these same exercises are used daily - but without the "why" and given game contexts. Coaches do not consider player groupings, next game preparation, fidelity to the game, etc. They are just another part of a disconnected training session pull together by the latest YouTube algorithm.

Spend the time and make sure the game is your starting point. If you admire a specific team, player, or coach - deconstruct their game idea and start to build a "how" that fits your context (location, club, coach strength, level of players).

You will be amazed the growth in your players and team when they know the "why" behind the work they are doing. You will be amazed how much better you become as a coach when the game drives your methods vs your methods driving the game.