Principles of Invasion Games

Football’s Principles of Play
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Consider the proceedings that we call “games”. What is common to them all? If you look at them, you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them.

Look, for example, at board games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball games, much which is common is retained, but much is lost.

Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than “family resemblances” and I shall say: games form a family Ludwig Wittgenstein

Football is indeed a part of a family of games; but, more specifically, it is a part of a family of invasion games – games constructed around the concepts of attack, defence, and scoring. In order to be most successful, we need to invade our opponent’s territory.

The core objective of invasion games is to move the ball into an opponent’s territory in order to score. To achieve this objective, the players must maintain possession of the ball, create and use space, and attack a goal. Werner, Thorpe, and Bunker

Werner, Thorpe, and Bunker were key protagonists in the development of the ‘teaching games for understanding’ methodology, a widely utilised approach in coaching. Their summary of invasion games further illustrates that football is not isolated; the game has a great many cousins that share important properties with football. Before embracing the principles of football, it would be prudent to examine the principles of other family members, for surely no truth could be more universal than if it transcends multiple sports?

There are two possible barriers to this idea. The rules of the game may disqualify certain principles, or the rules of the game may mean that certain principles emerge in a unique manner in certain games. The second barrier, in turn, may be the language used to describe the principles, requiring us to draw conclusions with regard to how the principles transfer between sports, if they transfer at all.

Hockey is a good example here. It’s a sport that has sought to simplify its principles, stripping the game back to a bare few.

Away from Hockey, Rugby might (at first) appear more complex, due to the players’ inability to pass the ball forward with the hands. However, if we consider that Hockey uses the phrase “Take the best option to go forward”, that will also apply to rugby, with those options being to carry the ball or kick.

Netball has a similar issue to Rugby, in that dribbling or carrying the ball is not allowed. This means that the “Best option to go forward” is always going to be a pass.

Basketball is possibly more like Football than Rugby and Netball as it has more variations on progressing forward, with both dribbling and forward passing allowed. The principles are more in-depth and more numerous.

We can see that certain principles have striking similarities. The principles of going forward or penetration exists in all games, even if the method is different.

Conversely, delaying or stopping the forward movement is also evident. Applying pressure seems to permeate across the games. Supporting and helping teammates in attack and defence crosses over the games. In effect, there is a need to utilise and protect spaces. No matter what the scoring system or laws of the game, these principles seem to apply.

At this point, it is important to note that it was through Allen Wade’s 1968 book – The FA Guide to Training and Coaching – that the idea of principles of play became concrete. Within this book, Wade outlined five principles of attack and defence; other sports have taken from these original principles.

Over time, the principles have had slight modifications in football, as well as other sports, with the element of transition gaining prominence. However, it is these core principles that have been taught to coaches by the English Football Association across the decades.

For many years, these principles of play have been largely unchallenged. However, although these are the principles of play taught by the English Football Association, they do not represent the entirety of principles being taught by other national governing bodies. Therefore, we cannot surmise that these principles are exhaustive, though we might consider them to be a good starting point.

If we review the common threads between sports, the principle of penetration or “go forward” is prominent. Werner, Thorpe, and Bunker allude to this with their closing sentiment of “attack a goal”. Connecting this to the laws of most invasion games – with regards to deciding the outcome – it is plausible to make a case that the only true principle is to score. For higher-scoring sports (e.g., Basketball), expressing scoring as a principle could be realistic, but for lower-scoring sports (e.g., Football), setting scoring as a principle in itself may be too unrealistic.

Football is the lowest-scoring of mainstream invasion games, which may explain why scoring was not included in Allen Wade’s original principles of play. A more realistic principle might be to look for the chance to score. In Netball, that has to be close to the scoring circle; the laws dictate this. In Rugby, the scoring of a try must be beyond the try line. In Rugby, it is theoretically possible to kick points from anywhere on the field, but the reality is the closer we are to the posts, the more chance we have of scoring. The same is true of Basketball, Hockey and Football. Hence, the idea of invading territory makes it easier to score, and the principle of penetration or “go forward” is the key principle when in-possession. Inversely, preventing the opposition from going forward becomes the key out-of-possession principle. How these things are achieved will link to the other principles of play.

In-possession, principles of support, width, mobility, and improvisation/creativity may help a team to score, but it cannot be definitely said that all of these principles are absolutely necessary in any given moment in order to score.

The defending principles generally exist in closer unison, but can be more open to interpretation. For instance, there are various ways in which teams can choose to set up their defensive depth – with lines of engagement and defensive lines closer or further from the goal, depending on strategy. No method is right, but in Football, this principle is impacted by the offside law, which creates a natural reference point for defensive depth. Principles can be applied in differing and inventive ways.

Coaching methodologies have also developed the principles of play into a cycle.

While the cycle has not been widely used for as long as the principles of play, it has also gone largely unchallenged until recently.

The idea of a game cycle is useful for coaches (and perhaps players) with regards to building a mental model of the game. Within the cycle, exists a possible flaw, though, which is the assumption that the game will always follow the same cycle; that the game is far more ordered and less chaotic than reality sometimes demonstrates.

Here is where we acknowledge that “all models are wrong, but some are useful” (George Box). To help understand the relationship between principles of play, a game cycle is certainly useful, while we should acknowledge the potential for it to be incorrect in a given moment.

Away from these traditional principles of play, there are other concepts to consider, a few of which might be considered universal enough to be principles. The traditional principles brush upon these, without mentioning them specifically.