Midfield Utilization for Building and Sustaining an Attack

An examination of Outletting, Attacking & Interchange Roles

The role of the midfield offensively is quite simply to create a link from the defensive
line to the forward line. This begins during a team’s outletting phase, continues
throughout the offensive buildup and concludes in the attacking third of the field. Each
situation has important positional and tactical characteristics to understand and
implement.

Outletting:
The fundamental issues of immediate concern are to read the opposition’s press to
determine if it is a pressure or non-pressure situation and to correctly position the
central midfielder accordingly. The midfielders must also immediately determine the
type of defense they are playing against—whether it is man-to-man, zone or a
combination of the two. This lays the framework for what will or will not be successful
in building the attack.

The midfield shape is critical to establishing more than an initial pass. Teams are too
often lured into playing a ball into a “dead” space thereby handicapping their chance of
creating an attack by going through the teeth of the defense. The appropriate goal is to
create passes which result in a sustained attack over the 50 yard line. From the
perspective of repeatability and dependability, this can only truly be accomplished
through proper structure. Ideally this also means that passes into the midfield have the
overarching effect of eliminating the forward line rather than being in positions where
double and triple teams are possible with the forwards tackling back.

First and foremost the central midfield should be offset in the middle channel to the
opposite side of the ball. This will force the opposition to make pressing and positional
choices which will either open up space on the side that the free hit is being taken from or
will allow a much more dangerous attack after the ball is transferred. Regardless, this has
the effect of opening up space, which is the key advantage for every attacking situation.

Offsetting versus a full press:

Even in these instances the central midfielder can be offset to increase the potency of an
attack. The critical component is to either be outside the line of the defender so that any
ball that gets through beats the press completely or to be offset in a way that allows the
transfer to go from fullback to fullback via the center mid. Inherent in this tactic is the
understanding by the free hit takers that the ball must be rolled or moved towards the line
of the weakest point of the press—namely laterally or diagonally rather than vertically.
The last element involved is to approach the edge of the press and hit through from close
range—ideally from about five yards away. Hitting through from big distances typically
leads to easy intercepts against a now-compromised defensive structure. As a final piece,
the center mid must make subtle positional adjustments to align themselves against the
reverse stick of the pressing defender whenever possible. When hitting through is done
effectively, it will have the effect of forcing bigger gaps within the press thereby making
it easier to find open passes or will move the opposition out of a full press altogether.
Diagonal overheads will accomplish this same objective and are a vital weapon to
develop to back a team out of high presses and to bypass the main concentration of
defenders.

Should the decision be to not hit through to the offset center mid or offside half back, the
on side midfield must be in a position to screen the back part of the defensive triangle to
facilitate a through ball to a striker leading in behind or they must be in a position to
receive the ball under pressure and maintain possession. Screens must take place against
the strong side of the defender and effect their visual field in order to force them into
non-mobile positions—an extra wide base for power or into a weaker more upright
position—which the defender will often adopt to increase vision.