Soccer Attacking

(aka "Offense"). When a team has the ball they are generally referred to as "attacking", no matter where the ball is on the field. There are 2 different styles of attacking: a "direct attack" and an "indirect attack". A direct attack tries to move the ball quickly into scoring range by using mostly forward passes, through balls and breakaways. An indirect attack is slower and uses a lot of sideways or backward passes while searching for a weakness in the defense. Unless your team is very skilled and has excellent passing ability a direct attack will work best. (See "Styles of Play" for more details). Creating space is a very important part of attacking. There are 2 different ways to create space. One relies on the ballhandler (i.e., the player "onball") to create opportunities. The other way to create space is by "movement off-the-ball" & relies on movement by players other than the ballhandler (i.e., players "off-the-ball") to create space & to create opportunities. (See "Attacking Plan", "Attacking Third", "Create", "Dribbling", "Go To Goal", "Kick-Off", "Pass To Space", "Shift & Sag", "Strength On The Ball", "Through Ball", "Push Up", "Build An Attack From The Back", "Center The Ball", "Coaching Rules", "Commit The Defender", "Counterattack", "Creating Space", "Cross The Ball", "Defending to Win", "Direct Attack", "Finish", "First Attacker", "Formations", "Goal Kick", "Movement Off-The-Ball", "Possession Style", "Rebound", "Release", "Spread The Field", "Styles of Play", "Support", "Switch The Play", "When to Dribble/When to Pass", "Width In Attack", "Win The Ball".