Breaking Down The Opposition Defence

We've all suffered those extremely frustrating matches, where you just can't break down the opposition defence. Sometimes it's because the opposition defence are well organised, such as Arsenal and Manchester United tend to have. Their defences work very well as a unit, and tend to get support from at least one midfielder. This tends to be top quality defending, but because these teams will try to attack, you will usually get opportunities at some point.

Far more frustrating is when the opposition have "Parked the Bus." What this really means is, they defend very deep, which pulls their midfield back, making it very hard to find space. Some of these teams show little ambition of trying to go forward, and are just waiting to try and catch you on the break. Some teams will be trying to claim a draw from the outset, which is very annoying. There are also those teams who if they manage to score, then just "Park the Bus" quite often making a substitution to bolster the defence even more. Often any shots you do get are half chances, under pressure, or long shots.

What Can We Do To Create More Chances Against An Organised Defence?

When faced with a well organised defence, you're largely at the mercy of the quality of your attacking players. This is largely aimed at the situations where you feel confident that your team can take on a side of similar or better quality than your own. If you feel the need to set up for counter attacking, most of your opportunities are likely to come on the break, but the following may still apply. All these little ideas can still apply to playing any weaker team as well.

There is no sure-fire way of breaking them down, but you're hoping that your strikers and wingers are causing problems for the defence, which will hopefully open gaps up. What you're trying to do is actually open up one of those gaps, we were trying to close in my previous post about defending tactics. Having a midfielder, either central or attacking, who likes to move forward into the area to act as an extra man can help to open up opportunities. Wingers that like to cut inside can also help to cause problems.

Teams like Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool tend to allow you some time and space on the ball, which gives your players more chance of spotting good options. It can be worth looking at the defenders to see if there are any weaknesses you might be able to exploit. It's rare with good teams to find something like this, but if you spot a central defender who's slow or low concentration, it could be worth attacking through the centre.

If the opposition full backs are slow, or you have exceptionally good wingers, you can try attacking down the flanks. Sometimes this can draw the defence out of position. Another option if you're coping well at the back, is to look for the overlap, which basically means your full backs look to move forward and help out on the wings. This can cause huge chaos in the defence, and might allow your wingers to get in behind the defence. Anything that can create panic in the defence has a good chance of creating opportunities. Looking for the overlap works especially well against teams with any weakness in their full back positions.

Pumping the ball into the box, is one option you can try if you have a good targetman to seek out. This might not be as pretty as playing silky football, but if that isn't working, it's well worth giving it a try. If that target man can play with their back to goal, it can be even better, because they have the option of holding the ball up and laying it off to teammates, or even turning their marker and trying a shot of their own. Asking the players to get the ball forward is a similar option. It pretty much does what it says on the tin, so the speak, in that the ball is moved forward quickly, which can be good way to put more pressure on the opposition defence. Just bear in mind that these increase the passing length, so can reduce the accuracy of passes. This is pretty much route one football, and much derided, but sometimes needs must.

If it's wet and or windy and you have players with decent long shot attributes, it might be worth asking them to shoot on sight, but to be honest I don't like this option much at all. If your long shots are getting nowhere near the target, asking the players to work the ball into the box will tend to cut down the number of long shots your team will try.

If your passing is looking good, but those gaps still aren't opening up, asking the players to pass into space can sometimes work wonders. Your team needs to be tactically good and be able to pass well to really take advantage of this though. If you have a speed advantage over the opposition this has even better chance of working, because it's not a nice prospect for a defender to have to try and tackle a player who is dribbling at speed towards them, or trying to track players who are running into space.

Playing wider or narrower can also change the game. Going wider could give you more space on the wings, or narrower will put more pressure in the centre. If you can see gaps in the centre of the opposition defence, but you're not taking advantage of them, then playing narrower could be just the thing you need. Remember this will have an effect on your own defending.

The main thing is, keep mixing things up and hopefully the chances will come. Whether the players who get the chances will put them away is another thing, but if you aren't creating shots you can't score. Watch for players who are struggling in key positions, such as the wings or the strikers. You might want to make some change, either through a substitution or a slight change in role or duty. If you have an AMC they can sometimes become isolated, and if they're your main playermaker, it can cut down your attacking options a lot. Try to be aware of what's happening with different players, because it's easy to sit their totally oblivious until the end that one of your players hardly had any impact in the match.

I can give you a case where I was playing Chelsea, with Hogan Ephraim on the left wing, who even with good pace and dribbling was doing okay, but not really managing to create many opportunities. I replaced him with Balazs Dzsudzsak, and within 10 minutes he managed to get to the byeline and produced a cross allowing my target man, Oscar Cardozo to head us into the lead, late in the match, grabbing us a winner.

If you have two strikers and they're being marked consistently well, try setting them up to swap positions with each other. They will swap regularly throughout the match, and this may cause enough confusion to allow them to get space. If you have a pair of wingers that can play well on both sides, it can also be worth having them swap regularly for much the same reason.

Sometimes you get really lucky, where your players look inspired, and you hardly have to do anything at all and goals are flying in all over the place. If you're creating lots of chances, there is a lot less you have to do, but if those shots seem to always be under pressure, and saved with ease or fired wide, you probably do need to think about a change.

The Opposition Have "Parked The Bus"

We've all suffered this, where a team comes to just defend and take a bore draw, or if they get really lucky, snatch an undeserved win. I'm not even going to mention the infamous teams that do this, as most people already know exactly who they are. Teams that also like to try and counter attack can pose many of the same problems, especially if they are very hard working and try to close down you players a lot. They will usually present opportunities though, because eventually they are sure to tire, or commit fouls that might give a free kick in a useful position, or even have a player sent off.

A lot of what's been mentioned in the previous section can be used, but the biggest problem here is the lack of space available, due to players defending deep and largely getting everyone behind the ball. A awful 0-0 draw or even worse a narrow defeat in these matches are infuriating. It might be annoying to lose 1-0 to a team like Arsenal in a tight match, but at least you know they always look to try and win the match.

The major problem when playing a team that has "Parked the Bus" is that there is a lot less space to work with, so you can find your team are moving the ball around in the opposition half, but not actually getting anywhere, and showing little sign of penetrating the defence. This lack of space tends to cause the match to slow down, which makes it a lot easy for defenders to sit tight on your strikers, or position themselves so they don't have shooting opportunities. That also makes it harder for players with good dribbling skills to get through as well.

What you're looking to try and do is to open some space up. The only way to open more space up, is to try and draw the opposition out further. Setting an attacking strategy can look really inviting, but it could be playing right into the hands of the opposition. There will be even less space to work in, and they will most likely have more counter attacking chances. Sometimes this will work, but usually requires strikers who are tall and strong who can challenge for balls in the area, but even that doesn't always work.

There are ways to try and draw the opposition out though. One is to set the control strategy, which sets your team up to try and control possession and frustrate the opposition. There seems to be nothing worse than seeing the other team stroking the ball about with esae, which can lead to frustration. They will often start to try and close you down, trying to win the ball back, which can lead to gaps opening up, or fouls conceded.

Shoot on Sight is a call that is suggested in these situations, but it rarely seems to achieve the desired effect. It may be worth trying for a while though, and if you're firing off enough long shots, it might draw their players out to try and stifle the opportunities.

Asking your team to drop deeper is a useful thing to try as it will hopefully open a few more spaces up for you to work the ball into. Stand-off opponents is another call that will hopefully create more space to work with, by decreasing the closing down your players do, and decreasing the tempo of the game.

Hopefully some space will be created, through one of these options, that your players can exploit. If you get space to use, then some of the stuff from the previous section can come into play, and hopefully you can avoid one of those hideously boring matches, where you control the ball, but can never achieve anything, and the crowd dies of boredom.

Conclusion

I think the overriding theme here is that if you're struggling to create any chances, is to start mixing things up to see if anything will work. By making changes when you struggling to create chances, will usually allow spaces to open up. By presenting different problems to the opposition you will hopefully find a weakness. The backroom staff and scout report might actually highlight something, such as slow defenders, or you have a height advantage. If there's a height advantage, it can be good to go with pump ball into box, and attack down the flanks, or even look for the overlap, to try and get the ball to your strikers as much as possible. I'm lucky in having Oscar Cardozo and Alberto Gilardino, both tall and good at heading, who can terrorise most defenders.

It has to be remembered there are pros and cons to everything you do. Calls like pass into space, will tend to see more passes go astray, so it's only sensible if your passing is looking good. Hopefully at some point you'll work a chance leading to a goal, which tends to open the game up more, especially if you've taken the lead.

Don't be afraid to substitute a player if they are not managing to contribute to the attack, by either getting isolated, even just playing poorly. That's more of an observation thing, because sometimes a player can be doing lots of hard work, but their rating can still be getting steadily lower. The ratings don't necessarilly tell the full story of a player's match.