Find the Space

It is important to find the space to receive a pass, to help your pressed teammate or to run on a given go pass to take a long-range shot. It seems like a simple thing to do but many amateur soccer players fail to understand where they belong on a given moment in the pitch.

 When you understand your space and when you and your teammate can see the play before it happens, that’s when you are prospering and getting better at this game. Receiving a short or long pass and being able to control the ball right away is a skill that can define a match result sometimes. The ball can bounce off to your opponent; and your team could be at risk of a counterattack, but that doesn’t happen when you make the right moves on the pitch and find the needed space to receive the pass and control that ball.

Some teams like to attack and press their opponents in order to recapture the ball and control the game at their pace. For that reason it is important to play the beautiful game with the mind and visualizing your teammates’ moves a few seconds earlier. Some defenders are really good at this; that when pressed they pass the ball (to the back) to that teammate who is in a better space to get out of trouble. The ball then circulates a triangular path towards the midfield creating a play of attack that sometimes puts the ball in the net.

Finding the space is an essential part of the game that needs to be learned and practiced in order to find better match results. As a spectator or simply watching your favorite team on television you usually find a player in a better position to receive a long pass across the pitch and attack. That’s when you agree with the narrator when he says, “he should have passed to the guy in the left”.

Teams with the mindset of vertical attacks are really good at long balls and counterattacks. They are usually dangerous not only because of their speed but also their ability to spot opportunities to strike their opponents who get caught off guard by players that know exactly how to move on the pitch to find that desired space.

However, often times it is said that teams that control the midfield control the results of the match. While that statement sometimes it’s true depends much on the possession of the ball rather than controlling the mid. Possession is the result of players that know how to sync and are capable of connecting impossible passes.

A lot can be accomplished on the pitch just by being a player able to find the space. Whether you will help your pressed teammate get out of trouble; whether you will make a triangulation and then counterattack, or whether you go for the long-range pass or shot. All are great plays that simply depend on movements created by those that know how to find the space.