Well in general you do. You always want to be the side dictating the

tactics and forcing the others to adjust. But sometimes you will just come up against a team who have a lot in one area and not in another: maybe pace, height, strength, crossing ability - whatever - and think that a particular system may get the best out of your team, or even get the opponents into the shape to allow you to adjust back to your preferred system.

An example would be playing against a team playing on the counter. You can either attack them and play the game in their half, hoping to stop their counter attack, or you can play the counter yourselves if you think you can tempt them out if you sit back, thereby giving you space to counter yourselves, get a goal or two up and force them to go to a system they didn't want to play in order to chase the game.

I'm not a football tactician but the general idea of tactics works the same in most sports including the one I coach - American Football. Many coaches want to be the ones in control of the tactics, so you are forever trying to get the opponent into the shape you want to force him to adjust to you and not the other way around.

Posted By: Steve in Holland on August 9th 2006 at 11:17:02


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