I’m glad and overjoyed that the World Cup is attracting so many new fans into the fold.  When I watch a match, I’m looking at the players, ball movement, and formations with the eye of someone that has played for 20 years.  What must it be like for the mind of a newbie, watching all of this frenetic running, often with little to show for it on the scoreboard?  Well, fear not, faithful readers.  I am going to share with you the secret of soccer.  Not just the secret of soccer, but of winning, championship soccer.  It’s the first word that Captain Kirk says at the start of every episode …

Space.

The key to soccer is space.  Strategy, tactics, passing, dribbling, positioning, everything.  All aspects revolve around space.  Finding space, using space, creating space are the techniques that win matches.  Space creates scoring chances.  Lack of space negates them.

The Pitch

Before we look at a soccer pitch, let’s first examine a few other team-based ball sports.  A basketball court is 94ft long, 50 ft wide.  That’s a total area of 4,700 square feet.  For giggles, an ice hockey rink with its rounded corners is 16,327 sq. ft.  An American football field is 360ft by 160ft (including both end zones) for a total area of 57,600 square feet.  Getting larger, but how does this measure to a soccer pitch?

There is some variance permitted in the size of a FIFA-regulated pitch, but we’ll take the standard dimensions that are most often played at the international level, including the Mecca’s of the sport – Camp Nou, San Siro, and Old Trafford.  They measure in at 345ft by 222ft or a total area of 76,590 sq. ft.  The largest soccer pitches can get up to 117,000 square feet.

Of course, there are larger fields in play than soccer.  The two obvious ones are rugby and Australian football.  We’ll use league over union, since their fields are larger.  The standard rugby paddock comes in at approximately 89,000 square feet.

Now let’s rank order these fields based on the number of field players from the least amount of space to the most:

• Basketball, 10 court players with 470 square feet each.
• Ice Hockey, 10 rink players with 1,632 square feet each.
• American Football, 22 field players with 2,618 square feet each.
• Rugby, 26 field players with 3,423 square feet each.
• Soccer, 20 field players with 3,829 square feet each.

Only Aussie-rules has a larger field on average, offering their 36 field players 5,222 square feet each.  But the largest soccer fields trump even this titanic space with 5,850 square feet.  Clearly, soccer is a game that must have space.

Using Space

What are players supposed to do in all this space?  To help illustrate my point, I’m going to post two videos below of the opening goal of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, scored by Siphiwe Tshabalala against Mexico.  Beautiful strike into the upper 90.  Most soccer newbies (aka America) only saw the final, amazing strike as Tshabalala put the ball into the upper 90.  See here:

The truth is that Tshabalala could only use his magical right foot because of the ball that was played into space and the most valuable space on the field – in front of goal.  It freed the scoring player from the defense and gave him the opportunity to focus on a quality strike.  Truth is that there are a lot of international-caliber strikers that can summon this type of an effort.  All they need is space and in space comes time.

To help me illustrate my point, watch this video diagram of the same play in which Tshabalala scores:

This ball is played five yards from the half-line and by the time Tshabalala catches up to the ball it is 3 yards inside the penalty box.  That means that the passing player sent the ball into open space over 110 feet in front of his attacker … more than the distance of an entire basketball court by some measure.  You will see these types of plays in every single match.

This is how you use space

Creating Space

Of course, every soccer player and coach in the world knows the value of space.  The defensive tactic is generally to pile as many defenders as possible between the ball and the goal as possible, while marking all of the attacking players around.  Deny space.  It was one of the techniques that the Brazilians tried to do against the Dutch.  It was a tactic that the Germans executed perfectly against the mighty Argentine strike force.

So with the entire team trying to deny you space – how do you create it?

Obviously, you can pass into space and let your man run onto the ball as seen above.  This requires a few things before the final pass is delivered.  This is where coaching in soccer plays a critical part.  When Germany beat Argentina 4-0 in the quarterfinals, their coach Joachim Loew, claimed he noticed that the wing midfielders for the Argentines were giving a lot of room and not playing tight on the marks.  That’s why you saw Lahm and Ozil tear them apart down the flanks.

To achieve this type of result first the attacking team needs support with other players.  More players means more attacking options and thereby more worries for the defense.  Spread them out.  Also, you can let the other team commit to the attack, win the ball back and then counter attack.  The team that lost the ball will often be struggling to get enough players back in time to bolster their defensive efforts.  Soccer is a passing game.

The best passing team wins.

Otherwise, you can bank your hopes on a player like Diego Maradona, who personally carried Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986, or Garrincha, who personally carried Brazil to World Cup victory in 1962.  If you have a player with extreme technical ability (i.e. dribbling in tight spaces), he can attempt to beat a defender and thus force the rest of the defense to collapse on him, creating space for other players.

Or if you are Maradona, you can beat SIX defenders on a 60-yard scamper and then just score on your own.  Witness the greatest goal of the century as voted by the Entire World against England in 1986:

You see, once you have space – whether by team passing or by sheer genius – good things happen.

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