How building structure unlocked creativity that helped us win the league

Structure and creativity go hand in hand. These are some of my key learnings on how you can unlock the best from your players, while still ensuring a strong structural foundation for the team.

One of the toughest things to master as a coach is the balance between structure and creativity.

I was recently reading a piece about the club Tokyo Verdy Beleza in Japan’s WE League. This team has been the starting point for so many top Japanese players including Yui Hasegawa and Riko Ueki in the WSL.

The article from Alex Bishop in The Guardian, examined the rigorous methods of the club and the secret to their success. There was one particular quote that stood out to me:

“An overemphasis on rigorous training and teamwork leaves one wondering whether there is room for individual expressions of creativity. In collectivist societies such as Japan, priority is placed on the good of the group over the individual. While this allows for a high degree of cohesion, players often appear at a loss when forced to choose between playing in a teammate or taking the decidedly selfish option of going for goal”.

As a head coach, you can often find yourself caught between searching for that attacking spark - which can be unlocked by the freedom you give a creative player - and the safety of a solid team structure.

The best teams and the best coaches can deliver both, but maintaining that is a huge challenge. There are always things you need to adapt, whether it's because of the opposition you’re facing, a new signing or an injury to a key player. The journey never stops and that is part of both the joy and the challenge of being a coach.

I wanted to share some of the best practices that I’ve developed over my career when it comes to blending creativity and structure. These aren’t quick fixes but they are learnings that I’ve gathered from the last 18 years in coaching.

Structure encourages creativity

To some, building structure in order to culture creativity may sound counterintuitive, but I’ve always found, as both player and coach, that to get the best out of creative players, you need a solid foundation and structure. I am not a proponent of the school of thought that says: ‘there are no systems in football, only spaces to attack’. Instead, I’m a firm believer that structure in a team can encourage fluidity and creativity. But first, you definitely need to get the foundations and right.

Structure is crucial as it gives players reference points. These act as a guide for players in and out of possession. It allows them to know which spaces they need to fill and what opponents they need to occupy.

This graphic that I created from my time with FC Nordsj?lland in Denmark is a great example of how I defined all the spaces on the pitch in order to explain the structure to my players; like a map. As you can see, I’ve broken the pitch down into zones and channels.

This is all about identifying the valued spaces that a team needs to understand, breaking it down by position and section on the pitch. The players can easily see the spaces and areas that they need to protect out of possession, and attack in possession. When it comes to progressing the ball and being creative in attack, the areas to target are signposted so the players can go and express themselves knowing this is the right position to deliver in.

Repetition is key

Football is a game of patterns and attentional cues. The faster a player can identify these, the quicker decision making and creativity come into play. Once you build the structure, it’s all about repeating sequences and being attuned to vulnerabilities in opposition defensive structure so that players are operating within that framework intuitively, without needing to spend valuable time thinking or even worse, overthinking causing a rash decision or a moment of freeze.

Of course, for repetition we need a good acronym! I use the Four Bs - Behind, Beside, Between and Beyond.

In practice, this principle is about reminding players that in a build-up phase, the ball carrier must have teammates that work hard to provide passing options & angles behind, beside, between and beyond.

I like to encourage freedom with those options too - dribbling, passing, clinical runs and crosses. That is where players can express themselves and collaborate on the pitch.

The Four Bs principle provides the structure and repetition, the players unlock the creativity through what they do on the ball.

Bringing it to life

The best example of this in action right now is Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, no surprises there. A player like Erling Haaland who acts as a true number 9, who is drilled to occupy center backs and to always be in the frame of the goal, no matter what. That is the structure. But the creativity comes from the movements and actions around him.

My “Erling Haaland” when I was head coach of Tigres in Liga MX was Mia Fishel, now playing at Chelsea in the WSL. At Tigres, I had the strongest roster in the competition but my job was to take a team that hadn’t connected or managed to win a final in three years, despite a hugely talented squad.

Mia was a huge part of that talent. I was so lucky to have a 9 who could play off the front and overload midfields, turn, link up play and was very clean technically. We knew she was going to be a big player, so our challenge was to get her to stretch and go beyond, and be disciplined, to occupy center backs for longer.

A lot of my game plans were about blending Mia with the players around her. I had created a very fluid attack, we had two 10s and players were regularly dropping in and out between defensive lines. The structure had to be precise and Mia had to make sure she was in great positions to be creative and threatening.

Mia had to adjust but she quickly became a versatile threat. Whenever we found ourselves in the final third, there were times she would shoot, then on some occasions she would dribble or she would distribute to a teammate. She was so dynamic and almost impossible to defend.

We ended up winning a championship with Tigres and it was one of the most rewarding moments of my coaching career so far.

Enhancing player development

Mia is a great example of how having a strong structure can also provide a great framework for reviewing and analyzing play with your squad.

I know my players built trust with each other on the pitch because of a clear structure. The understanding of roles and duties allows players to have confidence in each other, which in turn gives them confidence in their own play, too.

Let’s not forget, part of your role as a coach is to develop players. If they understand structure, they will be able to improve their individual performance because they have a strong grasp of their role within it. Improved individual performance also leads to better team results.