How team-tactical philosophy leans into training periodization and didactics
Insight into two contrasting footballing philosophies, ten Hag's placement on that spectrum, and its correlation to the structure of training.
Erik ten Hag is a man of many worlds. The years under the tutelage of his now neighboring rival Pep Guardiola, the years as a first-team head coach in Utrecht and Amsterdam, and the thirteen base-laying years as a center-back in the Dutch Eredivisie etch a sharp and cloudless philosophy on football, and in a broader sense, the game model he wants to strive towards.
Below are my thoughts on football’s philosophy behind the game models, ten Hag’s fitment on that spectrum, and what it means for his didactic approach at Carrington.
An introduction to the philosophical landscapes
Erik’s philosophy of football strikes a balance between the two antipodes of team-tactical interpretations. On one side, there is positionism, Europe’s dominant football philosophy which has most notably taken the Premier League’s team-tactical landscape by storm since the ’00s, on an exponential level. The start of its peak arrived in 2016, after Leicester City’s title victory prompted England’s big-timers into action, and Josep Guardiola, Antonio Conte, and José Mourinho were hired in order to avoid a repeat of such embarrassing league campaigns.
Both coaches are heavy proponents of positionalism, though in their own *very* distinct manner. Guardiola is considered the think tank behind “positional play”, an approach to team-tactics that divides and occupies zonal spaces of the football pitch in order to maximize a team’s ability to control the flow of a game. These zones or positions on the field minimize the opposition’s influence on the sequences of play and are therefore not part of an “offensive” or “defensive” philosophy on the game - only a winning one.
Crucially, the partition between positionalists is the breathing space the coach leaves for individual decision-making by the player. Both Antonio Conte and his successor in the West of London, Maurizio Sarri, prefer to be the “brains” of their players. The practical implementation of this ideology is called circuits.
Circuits are repeated and recited patterns of play in possession, which simplify possessional play to progress the ball towards the opposition goal. The implications of this team-tactical approach are that its methodological process is, to put it in Sarri’s assistant Gianfranco Zola’s words, boring.
In spite of Zola’s or Eden Hazard’s words, these unopposed session designs, where players repeat two-touch combinations against cones and plastic mannequins, contribute greatly to the speed of progress and fundamentals of team-tactical performance. That much was evident in the 2016/17 Premier League season, the first “modern-era” PL season which was won by Conte’s Chelsea, whose repetitive circuits were used as building stones for effective possessional play. In combination with Antonio’s active and vocal in-game coaching style, which directed players like puppets on strings through live touchline management and feedback, it was of little surprise that Conte was quicker than Guardiola in building a Premier League winning side.
The discrepancy between two positionalists, yet again, is found in their degree of suffocating the decision-making process.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, or metaphorically, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, is the reborn relationism. This ideology is the heart of football, the closest professional football has ever been to street football - its core is the relationship between footballers.
Relationism does not divide the pitch into zones. Relationism aims to strengthen the chemistry between a team’s best players, to maximize its chances of scoring more goals. In contradiction to positional play’s school of thought, relationism moves together with the ball - Guardiola’s teams have always moved the ball from zone to zone in order to move the opposition.
The European take on relationism
The importance of relations has not evaporated in Europe’s colder climate. Its role, however, has just shrunk in importance. Still, despite football’s evolution from a relationist game to a game of positions and creativity within those constraints, relationships are the bedrock of composing a football team.
This is what we call dynamics, where the coaching staff creates the conditions, such as the formation, the main tactical principles, and the social environment for players to excel. The interpersonal dynamics are what’s left of relationism in Europe: think of the relationship between Jordi Alba’s run and Messi’s passing technique from that particular space, think Kevin De Bruyne’s passing variability and Erling Haaland’s box movement to match, think of that false #9 so good at creating space for his #10, think of Luciano Spalletti’s 2022/23 Napoli side, think of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United.
Together with Spalletti’s Napoli and recent Real Madrid teams, which have always signed “problem solvers” instead of tactics-devouring players as Sarri would enjoy coaching, the United side coached by Solskjær was a unique European side in its positional freedom - coaches like the Norwegian and the current Galactico manager Carlo Ancelotti separate themselves from others in their search for a balance of dynamics as the main pillar of their game model.
Laying the offensive burden mainly on the shoulders of the attackers in order to let their creative qualities come to the forefront, is a relationist game. It is why Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford excelled under this philosophy.
Relationism’s physical handicap at the professional level is not its reliance on a handful of players’ moments of brilliance, it’s the availability of those, which in turn allow for chemistry to brew up, for those dynamics to settle.
Placing ten Hag’s philosophy and its influence on periodization
That need for chemistry, essential to the performance of a relationist team, is what loops us back to the topic of Erik ten Hag. Much like Solskjær’s proclivity to starting Rashford, Fernandes, and Maguire to maintain the same core dynamics, ten Hag too has the quirk of not rotating his XIs on a game-to-game basis.
This brings to light the relationist component of ten Hag’s football philosophy. As mentioned in the opening of this article, the Dutchman’s ideology “strikes a balance” between a positional and a relationist style
Erik ten Hag’s game model encompasses the positional principles of zone occupation, of moving the opposition by means of the ball. His teams build their attacks in set positional structures - at Manchester United, this has been mainly in a 3-1-6 formation, with the fluidity of a 3-2-5 a usual fluctuation depending on the ease of ball progression in the second phase.
In the second phase, United uses a 3+2 or 3+1 building structure, with 3 players occupying the central lanes and two wingers taking up the wide zones. The positions are not always occupied by the same players. This means either full-back can drop in to create the back three, or even a midfielder can do so.
Within this positional structure that is actively coached by the training staff, United’s players solve the football problems themselves. This means that much like the relationists’ view on football, ten Hag allows his creative players to play to their strengths, but within the principles that are laid out.
To better understand this complex structure of the game model, we must first understand the differences in tactical principles:
In ten Hag’s philosophy, the main principles are crystal clear. His players are aware of the team-tactical goals and invest in this style. The sub-principles, are the team-tactical habits on which coaches design their sessions. These sub-principles play a role in most exercises, even when they are not the main topic. For example, the warm-up module involves a positional rondo near the end: the main goal is to activate the body for heavier physical workloads but the sub-principles of “up, back and through” or the third man concept is still present in the exercise.
The exercise above drip feeds sub-principles of United’s game model: (1) switch play quickly after regaining possession, (2) third man concept. Through building consistency and coherence between session designs and the game model, team-tactical progress is made.
These sub-principles, such as United’s positional structure, and their eagerness to switch play quickly after winning possession, et cetera are the “constraints” United’s players work in. The sub-principles must be conformed to, but the players’ creative abilities are encouraged to flourish within this structure. This is exactly what ten Hag describes here:
This positional structure gives the team a stable foundation to play from - something a team like Manchester United lacked under their previous permanent coach as they could not burst through their glass ceiling.
Keys to coaching sub-principles in a progressing team
The long-term team-tactical trends, namely the sub-principles, are consistent throughout the season as mentioned, and appear in as many sessions as possible. In order to inspire maximum creative brilliance, a positive culture in the club must be formed - a broader process that I will not delve into today.
As the sub-principles appear on as many days of the training week as possible, naturally the training periodization adapts to this philosophy too. The weekly structure complies with the importance of sub-principles and therefore allows more specific training on acquisition and recovery days throughout the week.
How does this link to ten Hag’s lack of rotation?
For a football philosophy like ten Hag’s, which stimulates creativity within the positional structure and the sub-principles coached by the staff, it is key to have (1) greatly inventive and creative players in the final third and (2) forging chemistry between those players. Notice me quoting ten Hag on “automatisms” - that being the chemistry that is forged.
This, of course, takes us back to the relationist side of ten Hag’s ideology. A team that works on creativity within sub-principles is a team that needs chemistry - which is built by playing the same groups consistently. In comparison to teams that train in a different periodization structure, with for example a pure positional style, the drop-off between a rotation side and the first XI will not be as vast due to their similar tactical levels.
A solution to a big drop-off between a rotation side and a starting side on a tactical level is… circuits. Ten Hag’s game model uses circuits, like a Conte or Sarri side, yet in a different manner.
Ten Hag’s circuits, present in warm-up drills to make them less boring, exist as a support system when a game doesn’t go as expected. They exist to fall back on, a form of muscle memory to activate when in need - much different to Conte’s circuits - that are the core progression methods for his side’s attacking play. Here’s dutchsoccersite.org quoting ten Hag on his circuits:
Ten Hag’s philosophy is unique - it separates itself from the positional ideology and leans into the relationist view of football - yet strikes the balance at football’s elite level. Exciting times are ahead for followers of ten Hag’s work.
Thank you for this. You've encapsulated what I couldn't. I thought of football philosophies as a spectrum between 'Philosopher Coaches' and 'Vibes Managers' but as you succinctly put it, it's actually Positionalism vs Relationism.
Great article and explanation about a manager’s philosophy