Why patterns and context are so essential to analysis in football

If you're reading this article, chances are you love to analyze football. So allow me to help with your love for analysis with this call to action. Stop taking information from single-match occurrences, or single-match statistics, even statistics over time on their own, as a mechanism for making inferences about the wider context at hand. Recognizing patterns over time, and the wider context behind those patterns, are the essentials behind analysis in football, allowing you to more accurately assess performance, and improve upon performance problems.

Advertisement

Analyzing Barcelona’s attacking brilliance vs. Atletico

past weekend, securing an easy 4-2 win against arch-rivals Atletico Madrid. With the likes of Dani Alves, yes Dani Alves, and a younger version of Xavi himself in the form of 17-year-old Gavi, Barca have a mix of incredible experience and youthful verve to propel them into the top four moving forward. Here is our match analysis of Barca's 4-2 win over Atletico, and Barcelona's attacking variety and balance throughout the match.

Home Training Session – First Touch & Quick Finishing

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Not able to go out to the park and train? Fear not, because TheMastermindSite.com will be delivering several home training sessions over the next few weeks. Session twelve focuses primarily on first touch and finishing quickly. Coach Rhys will lead you through a series of exercises around this fun topic, a skills challenge and a brutal fitness challenge to end off. Now, enjoy this session all about first touch and finishing.

Home Training Session – Colour Control & Shuttle Run Fitness Challenge

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Not able to go out to the park and train? Fear not, because TheMastermindSite.com will be delivering several home training sessions over the next few weeks. Session eleven is a four colour session, with some ball control, dribbling and turning. Coach Rhys will lead you through a series of exercises around this fun topic, two skills challenges and a shuttle run fitness challenge to end off. Now, enjoy this session all about receiving, turning and finishing.

Home Training Session – Receiving, Turning & Finishing

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Not able to go out to the park and train? Fear not, because TheMastermindSite.com will be delivering several home training sessions over the next few weeks. Session ten is a ball and a wall session, all about receiving, turning and finishing. Coach Rhys will lead you through a series of exercises around this fun topic, and a juggling skills challenge. Now, enjoy this session all about receiving, turning and finishing.

Home Training Session – Ball Control Mixed Bag of Fun

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Not able to go out to the park and train? Fear not, because TheMastermindSite.com will be delivering several home training sessions over the next few weeks. Session nine is all a mixed bag of fun, centered mostly around ball control. The session also includes some passing and turning, skills moves and a fitness challenge as always to end off.

Home Training Session – Receiving under Pressure

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Not able to go out to the park and train? Fear not, because TheMastermindSite.com will be delivering several home training sessions over the next few weeks. Session seven is a four colour session, working on a variety of touches, fakes, rolls and turns. Coach Rhys will lead you through a series of exercises, a skills challenge and two fitness challenges this week to end off. Now, enjoy this four colour session!

Passing & Moving – Session Plan and Key Coaching Points

Although they should be considered completely different topics, coaches often link passing and moving together as items that need to be improved together. As every youth coach of ages 4-10 has found out, players in the initial stages of their soccer development often have trouble "spreading out" and understanding basic concepts of passing and moving. So with that, here is a session plan from The Mastermind Site all about passing and moving for ages 6-10!