Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2025

34 35 11TH ASPIRE ACADEMY GLOBAL SUMMIT ASPIRE IN THE WORLD FELLOWS And again, decision making. You need to know where you are. Know the people around you, move off the ball, so you have to go away to create the spaces. And then again, the ability to play one by one, two versus two or three versus three in attack or in defence. This is where we have to try to teach and how to coach our young players. Now we go to the creation. What are they trying to do? A lot of teams use a box midfield, so how they organize in the middle and progressing between the lines. You see this shape. So normally if you play four at the back, you move one of the fullbacks to the middle of the pitch with the holding midfielder, and then you play the other two inside and wingers wide. So you create this structure that is very common now for teams, they have more shots and a strong correlation between the number of receptions in the middle third and number of shots. So you see Germany at the top, so when you play through the lines, when you receive ball in these areas, you have more shots. That is the Euro stats, so it’s quite clear and we will see Italy. They were doing a lot of good things in terms of this kind of movements. You see the structure is very clear. The system and the movements should you go away and now you come to the space. And again, I would say very common when you play three at the back with two wingbacks or we play four at the back and you move one of the fullbacks higher with penetrating passes, and then if you receive the ball between the lines, try to go forward. Italy again, they tried to find their positions between the lines. So you have a winger but the fullback is worried about the winger, and at the same time he can see a player in between, the striker. So it’s just the commitment, the two players, now you have to deal with that. The teams that are better than the others, they have to deal with. This situation then crosses, maybe penetrating passes or runs in behind. Now, the same if you receive between the lines. You see the correction, number of line breaks per game. Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, they have higher numbers and then they have more shots. It’s quite simple, the correlation, but it’s clear that it’s the teams are compact, and you need to find the angles. Don’t give the ball away. it’s really important the position of these players in the pockets, in the squares and now the fullback has a problem or the wing back has a problem. Spain were doing well to have some players running but also holding midfielders looking for positions. And you will see players all the time watching, trying to see what is going on around them. Pedro, that is very clever player that is looking for movements. And then Rodri, he knows that he will try to find the right angle. that is his vision is going behind the holding midfielder. That is the good thing about having good staff and good people helping you, that you don’t need to talk too much. You have that and then you will see everything. Now we link with the youth, a space and position of awareness. So you need to know where you are because you have smaller spaces, so you have to be aware of what is going on. (Speaking) Rafa Benitez: MASTERCLASS Bravery, penetration, and decision making. You cannot be scared all the time. You have to go forward. You have to try. To create something and it is physically demanding, because you have to be in movement all the time, or you have to run with a defender at full pace to see who is faster. So all the time, you have to improve physically your players and their understanding of the game. For me, the most important thing is the tactical intelligence. Players that understand the game. We were talking before about numbers, we have an idea. The way that we approach the game is experience, knowledge, understanding of the game and numbers. We put them together. If we do the opposite, if we put the numbers first, we’ll losewhat is going on with the players, the feeling, the understanding, the relationship with the teammates. So we can see these things and thenwe put the data together.