Intro
Ciao and welcome back! This is Handball Talking, I am Sergio, and I was so curious about how PSG defeated Magdeburg, so I analysed the Match of the Week and inspired by the defensive approach seen in the match I will talk about principles of play and defensive system in An Idea section.
Enjoy your read! And if you like what you read, please send it to some friends.
The Game
Magdeburg, 28/09/2022 | Machineseeker Champions League – Group A – 3rd round
Magdeburg – Paris Saint-Germain 22-29
Jannick Green has found a great way to thank his former supporters for the reception at his comeback at Getec Arena: to save pretty much everything, at least for 30 minutes. His impact on the match was impressive and decisive because frustrated a Magdeburg side that seemed a little bit tired in its top players.
However, Paris Saint-Germain defended very well and forced Magdeburg to play not-Magdeburg-way.
French committed 36 fouls: it means to break the chain of passes and micro-advantages that Germans create with every action, to impede Magdeburg to play the way that made them impress and win in the last two seasons.
Fouls were decisive: 13 of these 36 went from the player that started the attack, i.e., one third of the attack has to restart again…after they have just started! Not only: 11 of these 36 went from counterattack. And do you know how many possessions Magdeburg played in counterattack? 11! It means it could be doubled and we all know how counterattack counts. Of course, if you get fouled don’t lose possession, but you can start with a positional attack. However, think about PSG’s defence: a defensive specialist, centre back defend nr6, left wing as forward or nr5 or on the bench to give room to defensive specialist, an attack with a lot of movement of player. There were chances to counterattack with advantages to exploit.
I want now to explain the stat that you read in the image above: efficacy (in percentage) of Magdeburg’s attack with 2 or more passes after the “real” start of the attack (it is not counted all the passes of the possession, but only the ones that happen after the first very attack) was 20%, while PSG made 47%. I add some more numbers to better understand this: only 26% of Magdeburg’s positional attack have 2 or more passes (PSG have 41% in this stat) and this is ok if you are effective in the start, but if you suffer 13 fouls there is neither start or continuity.
Magdeburg has very skilful players in 1v1 and passing and has ability, understanding, patience to keep moving the ball, keep it alive, moving without the ball and play domino-effect with opponent defence. On Wednesday this happened too few times to be successful. During his second timeout, Bennet Wiegert asked his guys to play zusammen, to be a Mannschaft. Subsequent mistake from Michael Damgaard proved that was not the day.
Credit to PSG, coming from the defeat in Liquy Moly Starligue at Toulouse. They were short in backs with Raul Gonzalez asking Steins and Kristopans to work overtime to compensate for Karabatic and Mathe’s absence. They were effective with crossing game, scoring 7 goals from this playtype.
An Idea
Today, this section begins as a continuation of the game analysis between Magdeburg and PSG. I want to show you how much is important for us as coaches to coach principles of play, to prefer them to system and how system influenced positions, decisions, actions.
PSG mainly defended 5:1, while Magdeburg played its usual 6:0 defence. You can be proactive as far as you want and try to delay or destroy attack, but I think attack has two tools to set the defence in the way it wants: the ball and the movement of players. There is only need to attack with a purpose, asking “what I want to create?”
Look at the video below. What’s the difference between the two defences in terms of height on the court and positioning?
There is no difference. Maybe the forward in PSG just slows down the start the attack. Ok, “just” could be enough, especially against Magdeburg and numbers proved that. Weber scored one time from 1v1 on defender nr3, Magnusson scored with a standing shot and then after cross. Too few against an open defence.
Starting position of the third who is attacked is the same. It's the helping defender's position different and it's the different where you can help and where the attackers can pass the ball.
A lot of teams now attack 5:1 defence in this way. But also a lot of teams attack 6:0 defence putting a pivot between first and second defender.
Before watching next video. Problem: I want to attack the centre of the court, but I want to attack defender nr2 and not the forward or the centre (or one of the third in 6:0 defence), as before.
Handbook says the 5:1 defence helps to protect the centre. Are we sure? Is it not about principles and mismatch? If everyone wants to avoid mismatch pivot-nr2 defender, it’s just delaying pivot’s slide to create the same constellation of players with different positions: nr2 or nr5 is in the middle against the left or right back, nr3 or nr4 is wide following pivot.
Last argument: attack by the back (video above). Again, you want to protect the centre, to be compact on the ball, to not allow the ball to come from one side to the other. It’s incredible that this happens in a 6:0 defence with indirect pressure from nr2 defender and not in 5:1 defence that has in its definition a forward defender. Magdeburg scored 5 goals starting with attack of the back and 9m shot or breakthroughs by the player in central position.
This last one shows us how it’s not the system. It’s the principle: if you want your forward sinking when there is a 1v1 of the back, you are not protecting anymore the centre.
There are discussions about this thing in every team sports: positionless play in basketball, anti-role player in football. We coaches should think about positioning and posture, to be ball-oriented or man-oriented, to accept something and deny something else and train this, also considering our players’ characteristics.
This is not a Drill
I like a lot and I use a lot of Constraints-led approach principles in my trainings. I like this methodology because gives freedom to explore to players. It eliminates some actions, without prescribing one, allowing players to look for new ones or to change actions based on the information gathered from the situation.
Thus, if I want to protect the centre, I draw the rectangle you see in the picture, I let them play (3v3, 4v4, 6v6, whatever…) and I say them there will always be a player in the rectangle. Who? It doesn’t care, particularly if you are training a youth team.
It allows to train “never two on the same line” principle, to train indirect pressure from second defenders, 1v1 and help from the thirds and probably much more. Just few metres of tape and you can set principles inside your defence.
Outro
Last Wednesday I attended EHF webinar about Hand the Ball. It’s a very interesting project. Click here to visit the site. It’s in Swedish, sadly.
I ask you to give me suggestions and advice. And spread the word, forwarding this email to somebody that could be interested in this topic.
Read you soon,
Sergio
If you have questions or suggestions, please reply to this email or leave a comment on the website.