blueparrot said:
I thought I'd seen it said somewhere that all the junior teams would play 433 as its's the best formation to learn the game and make the players adaptable for whatever formation the first team played. But the manager would choose the first team formation.
It's an interesting discussion actually.
I've long said that formations don't even exist - they are a stupid way of describing what is essentially a fluid game and we need a better way to describe the general area that players operate in. One of my problems with modern football and the increasing use of science, is that it hasn't really adopted the scientific idea of having to label everything specifically and accurately. People interested in physics will know what I mean when I say this, but one of the issues in any complex situation with many variables is the ability to label variables accurately enough so that the mental model that they create in other people is somewhat true to life. Without that, we can't even communicate in the same language. My idea of what a 4-4-2 is is not the same as yours or Dave's or anybody else's; in fact when I say a 4-4-2 all I really mean is a team that plays with wingers and has a striker that drops deeper. You could call that a 4-2-3-1 and it would be perfectly accurate. This in my mind has been the biggest failing of the football media over the years, and I include things like Football Manager and FIFA too, they have created poor mental models which don't accurately reflect the game and nobody ever challenges them to be specific. Football has its own marketing-speak that everybody uses despite not really knowing that anything in it means.
With that disclaimer out of the way, our youth teams tend to switch through several different formations at different points of the game. Take Ambrose for example, in a single game he can play on the right, left or up top in a 3 man attack but in the next match he can be the lone striker with an attacking midfielder behind him, and he'll rotate into that role too. Our players at youth level tend to play various formations and in various positions as a way of keeping them moving and improving.
You have to remember too that many of our youth teams won't play a 4-3-3 formation because they aren't playing 11 a side games yet. The ones who do play 11 a side are the ones who use constantly fluid formations with constantly fluid positions.