Introduction

A match report is built from compiling valuable information. Each aspect takes a single mechanism from the opponent’s approach and evidences it.

In Your first match report on The Debrief, we broke down one example: a left-back who steps inside to build. This resource gives you the page and the task to build one of your own.

01

One mechanism, one page

Start small. One mechanism on one page is enough to show you can see a pattern, prove it and do something about it.

A full opposition report covers every phase of the opponent’s game. This task builds one page of it: one mechanism, in one phase.

Every page answers the same four questions: what do they do, how do they do it, why does it work, and what answers can be found. The description, video, data and graphic answer the first three. The solutions answer the last.

03

The task

Choose a match to watch, open the template and work through the six steps. For this task, focus on how one team builds up from the back.

1. 01
   Choose one team and one build-up mechanism

   Watch how the team builds from the back and pick one thing it does repeatedly. Keep it narrow: one movement, one pattern, one problem.

   Cues to look for

   • The goalkeeper joins in as an extra passer
   • A midfielder drops between the centre-backs
   • A full-back steps inside into midfield
   • A centre-back carries the ball forward
   • A forward drops short to receive and lay off
   • Going long when the short options are blocked

   Example: “When their front two press, the left-back steps inside into midfield, which opens a pass down the line to the winger.”

   Done well when: You can say it in one sentence.

2. 02
   Describe it

   Write two or three sentences in plain language: what happens, how the players make it happen and why it works.

   Done well when: A coach could repeat it back to you.

3. 03
   Find three clips

   Note the timestamps. Two clips show the mechanism working; one shows it failing or being stopped.

   Done well when: Each clip starts before the key movement, not on it.

4. 04
   Add three pieces of data

   Use The Football Analysis Guy practice dataset to show how often it happens, where it happens and what it leads to. It is free: a fictional match laid out like professional event data, with build-up patterns hidden in it for you to find.

   Your clips come from a different match? That is fine. Find the same build-up mechanism in the dataset, and say in your report which match the numbers come from.

   Done well when: Do the numbers evidence your finding?

5. 05
   Draw it

   Use the two pitch templates: the starting positions on the first, the movement and the pass on the second. Leave out players who are not involved.

   Done well when: Someone could understand it without your words.

6. 06
   Offer two solutions

   Give two ways your team could stop it, or use it, and the risk each one carries.

   Done well when: Each option is something players could actually do.

04

Check your work

Before you call it finished, read the page as if you were the coach seeing it for the first time.

• Does the page answer what, how and why?
• Would a coach understand it at a glance?
• Does every clip show what the description says?
• Is it clear where the data comes from?
• Do the graphics match the clips?
• Are the solutions realistic, and is each risk honest?

If you can answer yes to all six, you have a report page. Keep it: it is the first piece of your portfolio.