Tactical culture and communication via game interactions
In my last blog on the “A complex definition of technique” covered the skill of invasion team sports focusing on the individual perspective. The main message was, skill is not just technical but technical-tactical. This blog attempts to widen the perspective into the team context, where action becomes interaction and the relationships between teammates are honoured. The game is not about just individial skill and adaptation. Instead of just individuals learning to play, it is also the team as a social system that learns to coordinate and co-adapt their actions in the environment. An important point in this blog is that tactics should be seen as the whole tactical culture of a team. This culture is a language of game interactions. Tactics are ost just patterns that the coach has taught according to her playbook.
In the floorball language, the concept of tactics generally comprise of coach-led, consciously designed set-play patterns and defensive formations. The word has a negative and boring feeling associated to it because of how team play is often organized – especially in the lower leagues. The current practice in training is to organize only certain moments of the game deliberately. The defensive phases are relatively strictly organized and there might exist some set plays for the defensive zone build up play. The rest of the offensive moments are often unorganized. This is because the coaches do not have the knowledge on how to do it without “killing the creativity” and leaving options and the decision-making for the players.
Figure 1. When the game is running, one of the four moments is always happening. Understanding the game through this concept will help classify game events.
It is absurd to compare the culture of tactical coaching in a more developed invasion team sports such as basketball and soccer (in terms of offensive organization especially). In the top level teams, the offensive play is promptly organized with a huge amount of effort in these sports. Still it doesn’t seem to miss any “creativity”. The whole concept of creativity is a very problematic one in a team sport like floorball. Creativity does not stem from freedom, but constraints. It is supposed to produce something valuable for the team, not just express individual freedom as the end point.
Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom
-Michaelangelo
Tactics is how a team plays, not just the deliberately organized patterns
When a spectator watches a team playing without any knowledge of their training process, he might observe routines in their patterns of play. Some of them might be trained on purpose, but even if others are not deliberately coached, aren’t they just as much a part of the tactics of the team? If a team constantly plays a dysfunctional pattern in the offensive zone while attacking, isn’t it the job of the coach to try fix this and re-organize the offense?
Team tactics consist of all the concrete means used to gain (or lose) an objective in the game. These may be coach-led, player-led or tacitly self-organized patterns – or the lack of organization in specific moments repeatedly leading to a disadvantage. If it is the mission of the team to play as well as they can, they need a good tactical culture (whole way of playing) as well as skillful adaptive individuals. The coach needs to be critical and analyze the emerging patterns of play, not just what was taught actively. She should suit her game model for the current team – be the expert of the game and critically analyze what needs to be improved. Only organizing the traditional set plays and defensive formations is not a job well done, if there are challenges during the other game moments. The problem of dysfunctional playing patterns is not about the innate game intelligence of the players – rather the skills of the coach to improve and reorganize them.
Even the unconsciously (self-)organized patterns are part of the team tactics – the way of playing of that team manifests. Crucil weakness might lie in how the team self-organizes their playing in repeatedly emerging situations that are not in the existing playbook of the coach. The coach is also learning. She doesn’t just bring her playbook and set it up on a team after a meeting or a summer camp. A modern coach will want all the four moments of the game organized well, continuously improving the tactical culture and nonverbal as well as verbal communication of the team. She wants the team not only understand the tactics but also execute the principles with quality.
Team organization is qualitative and topological
Best teamwork is possible with an organized playing structure that is not rigid, but organic and flexible. It is about topology that creates options for the players. The structure is flexible. Such a complex game model will maintain the creative, intuitive and spontaneous action. The team is able adapt to the opponents actions and not force play or get lost. Also the individuals may play using their strengths for the best of the team.
📝 The next tactical evolution is on its way: positional fluidity. Develop players to take role that the game demands, and not by position. pic.twitter.com/0pSgMMbLPX
— Rondos (@rondosfutbol) 29. elokuuta 2017
About the tweet: In soccer, positional play has gained a lot of attention recently. Traditionally the formations and positions are more static than in basketball. In floorball, it is much easier to organize fluid play than in soccer.
A clear but adaptive game model makes it easier for the players to recognize patterns and concepts and act accordingly. This yields unpredictability and collective intelligence. Organizing the team in a complex way creates a language for the team, by which the teammates may communicate to each other through game interactions. In the game, the players still get to make their own decisions according to the team tactical culture. This the best way in a constantly changing and random environment. The game is organized but fluid. It makes playing proactive and helps teammates to understand the intentions behind actions and anticipate the game. The opponent however is suprised, because they do not understand the nonverbal language of the opposing team.
Figure 2. Topology is the same, but the actual shape changes. Disclaimer: I do not mean that the structure should be the same always or that the players cannot switch roles. But there are topological patterns that emerge time and time again in the game – either deliberately or via self-organization. Analyzing these structures will help a coach understand and improve the team tactics.
Topology is branch of mathematical sciences that is concerned with the qualitative properties of objects and shapes that are invariant under certain kinds of transformations. Network topology is the arrangement of the various elements (links, nodes, players etc.) of a communication network.
In team sports, it is important to have good connections between the teammates. Instead of collecting statistics out of the individual actions (passes, shots, blocks, losses of possession etc), floorball coaches should focus a lot more on the topological structure of our team. This means watching the game and videos with a critical eye, searching and classifying patterns that need to be organized better or with different tactical principles.
Antti Hänninen (@AjHanninen)
Further reading: