by Chris Summersell
There are few better sights in football than slick one or two touch combination play, with the ball being zipped along the grass at speed leaving defences exposed and fans off their seats. When you examine these moves further, they are nearly all characterised by the use of the ‘third player’.
This is a concept that is certainly not a secret, or in itself an edge, but it is something I often notice many teams struggling to consistently put on the field of play. Often commentators and pundits will diagnose the problem of a team failing to break down an opponent as ‘not moving the ball quickly enough’, but this is often the symptom and not the cause.
On many occasions the problem is the lack of third player movement that is executed with precision and good timing; when applied well, it is one of the best mechanisms for opening up defensive structures and arriving in advantageous positions.
It is far from just a concept for coaches looking to break down defences, but rather one that can occur in any possession phase anywhere on the pitch, and in every style of football. The best counter-attacking teams use the third player effectively as much as the best possession dominant teams. Without it, you will be one dimensional in your play.
In my work I will rarely deliver a session where the third player isn’t referenced, and this piece will explore just some of the ways in which I deliver practices that seek to embed the principle of third player movement. I do not seek to be complete in how I cover the concept, but simply cover some of the practices and coaching details I look for to develop this idea with players. (for those who may be familiar with my work you may remember I have written about the third player before, but I hope to elaborate a bit further in this piece).
The ‘why?’
An important aspect for coaches to consider and one that can be easily forgotten is the simple question, ‘why?’.
Third player movement is so effective because when considering the key reference points in the game; the ball, space, teammates, opponents - a well executed third player movement acts as an overload on those reference points.
As a pass is made the opponents attention will be drawn towards the ball and the receiving player and the spaces around them. By adding third player movement into the equation and accessing them with combinations this rapidly changes the picture and shifts these reference points. In other words, it creates more information for opponents to process and leads to mistakes and lapses in concentration. By adding coaching detail to add the how and when, we can develop the third man concept to be a major attacking weapon to utilise.
In practical terms, the ideas I will communicate to players are the following when coaching the third player principle;
Recognition of ‘the pass after next’
Movement - timing and arriving
Third player as the ‘free’ player
Detail on the pass
I will cover these points as we work through the following practices which I have designed in order to implicitly and explicitly develop the concept of the third player.
There are few better sights in football than slick one or two touch combination play, with the ball being zipped along the grass at speed leaving defences exposed and fans off their seats. When you examine these moves further, they are nearly all characterised by the use of the ‘third player’.
This is a concept that is certainly not a secret, or in itself an edge, but it is something I often notice many teams struggling to consistently put on the field of play. Often commentators and pundits will diagnose the problem of a team failing to break down an opponent as ‘not moving the ball quickly enough’, but this is often the symptom and not the cause.
On many occasions the problem is the lack of third player movement that is executed with precision and good timing; when applied well, it is one of the best mechanisms for opening up defensive structures and arriving in advantageous positions.
It is far from just a concept for coaches looking to break down defences, but rather one that can occur in any possession phase anywhere on the pitch, and in every style of football. The best counter-attacking teams use the third player effectively as much as the best possession dominant teams. Without it, you will be one dimensional in your play.
In my work I will rarely deliver a session where the third player isn’t referenced, and this piece will explore just some of the ways in which I deliver practices that seek to embed the principle of third player movement. I do not seek to be complete in how I cover the concept, but simply cover some of the practices and coaching details I look for to develop this idea with players. (for those who may be familiar with my work you may remember I have written about the third player before, but I hope to elaborate a bit further in this piece).
The ‘why?’
An important aspect for coaches to consider and one that can be easily forgotten is the simple question, ‘why?’.
Third player movement is so effective because when considering the key reference points in the game; the ball, space, teammates, opponents - a well executed third player movement acts as an overload on those reference points.
As a pass is made the opponents attention will be drawn towards the ball and the receiving player and the spaces around them. By adding third player movement into the equation and accessing them with combinations this rapidly changes the picture and shifts these reference points. In other words, it creates more information for opponents to process and leads to mistakes and lapses in concentration. By adding coaching detail to add the how and when, we can develop the third man concept to be a major attacking weapon to utilise.
In practical terms, the ideas I will communicate to players are the following when coaching the third player principle:
Recognition of ‘the pass after next’
Movement - timing and arriving
Third player as the ‘free’ player
Detail on the pass
I will cover these points as we work through the following practices which I have designed in order to implicitly and explicitly develop the concept of the third player.
Practice no. 1 - Conditioned SSG
This is a very simple but useful practice I use which implicitly demands the use of third player movement to achieve success. In this instance I am using 4v4 as this aligns nicely with the 442 diamond model of my own team where we can use the midfield unit together, but in reality this can work with more players over a variety of different spaces.
The condition is simple, in order to score in either of the mini-goals, you must use the bounce player (locked in the zone at the end) to use a lay-off back to a runner before they can pass the ball into the net. In this, I will allow for simple 1-2 combinations to score resulting in 1 goal, however if the lay-off is to a third player who then scores I award 2 goals. To incentivise further I will award 3 goals if the lay-off and pass into the mini-goal are done with 1 touch to encourage good timing and speed of play.
This motion of using the third player replicates nicely the up-back-through combination, and is one reason why I have set the goals back off the line. When I first delivered the practice I would place the goals and the bounce player both on the end-line but this led to the finishing touches being made from too close to the goal. With the goals set back off the line we can ask players to drive the final pass cleanly into the mini-goal to get that little bit more realism to the play.
Practice 2 - Zoned SSG
Again, this is a simple practice with 2 teams of 8 (inc. GKs) and one joker (yellow) who plays for the team in possession to create a 4v3 overload in the middle zone. In this 2 way game the premise is simple, in order to progress to score the ball has to be played directly into either of the centre-forwards who will lay the ball off to a third player joining the end-zone to create a 3v2 (I usually limit the attack to 5 seconds to score).
This is a game that tends to flow nicely once the players understand the objective, and through the design of the practice, third player movement is implicit as it is integral to players gaining success. I am not looking for players to ‘cheat’ and move into the end-zone to then receive the ball, but rather time their movement well and use untracked, blindsided movement (more on this below) to arrive to receive the lay-off in one touch. I will also reference the defensive transition, whereby players who seek to move too early may leave a gap in case of a turnover in possession. It is all about timing your run to arrive as the third (and free) player at the right moment.
Practice 3 - Position Specific Phase of Play
Whilst the previous practices were ‘position specific’ to some degree, in this practice I look to bring that realism a step closer whilst training the idea of third player movement and combinations. Do not be alarmed by the amount of lines here, this is very straightforward.
The set-up is 7v7 with 1 GK and one neutral player who always begins with the ball. The idea is simple, the orange team (442 Diamond) are looking to score, the blue team (442 defensive organisation) are defending compactly and will look to score in either mini-goal should they recover possession.
The constraints are as follows:
- In order to penetrate the penalty area, we have to release a third player on the run in behind.
- The corner of the pitch is sectioned off so that if we can release a full-back they must attack the box and get to a cutback/low cross zone.
- The players are not fixed within the vertical lanes, though are encouraged to occupy all 5 lanes.
- The neutral player stays fixed in the end-zone and for the oranges acts a supporting midfielder behind the ball (DM).
- For the blue team, if they recover the ball and score in either of the small goals it is worth one goal, if they play a ball into the neutral (hitting the furthest player forward) who then lays the ball off to a third player this equals 2 goals.
We can use this practice for a specific tactical purpose should we be facing an opponent who sits deep and compact, but also more generally to train the third player principle in breaking down opponents with runs into depth. There are also situations that arise in this practice where the third player may not be running into depth but simply has positioned themselves in a advantageous space where they can be accessed to continue progressing the play, an example of which may be using a switch of play from one halfspace to the opposite as a third player has moved against the direction of the ball to become free.
The design and constraints of the practice also incentivise the use of third player combinations on the attacking transition as 2 goals are awarded if the blue team play a direct pass into the neutral who then lays the ball off to a third player. This builds nicely into the game model where we seek to find the furthest reachable player as soon as possible on turnovers and use combinations with layoffs to switch the point of attack and disorientate recovering defenders. The mini-goals are placed in the halfspaces as we seek to transition centrally using the quickest route to goal.
In terms of coaching points in the above exercises I will emphasise the following:
Recognise the ‘pass after next’
Player in possession - which teammate is best positioned to make the third player movement, and how this affects the forward pass into the bounce player
Bounce player - which teammate is best positioned to arrive as the third player in a scoring position and how does this affect the body orientation to play a one touch lay-offThird player - recognising they are the best positioned player to make the third player run before it’s too late
Detail on the pass
A simple, but important point is to ensure the players recognise the need to put detail on the pass to create smooth combinations. In these exercises if we want to use the player on the left as the third player, then the driven pass forward must be to the right foot of the receiving bounce player so they can lay the ball off in one touch. The pass must be punched firmly so that the bounce player is able to cushion the ball back using the speed on the ball.
Movement - timing and arriving
This is arguably the most important aspect of mastering the concept and will separate those who can use the third player to those who excel using it.
When - this is open to interpretation but the key aspect is if you are the third player, it is preferable to arrive in the position to receive the ball untracked as the ‘free player’. This could be moving off the back of the defenders blindside, moving against the grain of the direction of the ball, and making these movements when your marker has their eyes fixed on the ball.
These movements may leave the third player untracked for only a moment, meaning the time window for accessing this player is limited, so one aspect I will reference constantly is the timing of the movements made. Often this will be using the trigger movement of the player who has the ball looking to play forward - as soon as the pass is made that is when the player moves forward to support as the third player. If you move too early you risk being marked or in certain scenarios (e.g. a full-back making a forward run) the ball may be turned over and you are now caught out of position. Move too late on the other hand, and the opportunity to combine quickly may be lost as the opponent can reorganise.
Final thoughts
In terms of coverage of the third player, this piece barely scratches the surface of how we can train this principle with our players, with much of the focus on the above practices looking at using it in quick combination play to release forward runners. The potential of designing practices to train this concept is huge in all phases of play with the ball, across all areas of the pitch.
The above practices are simply how I interpret training the principle in players, and in the case of the first 2 examples even younger players are able to grasp the idea easily and use the third player to their advantage.
I hope these ideas are useful and provoke some interesting ideas from those who read this piece.