Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Luckily for you all, I didn’t have the height for hooping so I chose soccer (because if I was five inches taller this blog could have turned out to be, “Basketball, She Wrote”). But as you can probably tell, I still love to watch, and talk, and think about the game. Not only did hooping teach me how to be mentally tough and contribute to my athletic prowess, playing basketball also informed my perspective around the tactics behind winning.
It’s About Matchups
In basketball there is a huge emphasis on matchups. This concept of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a player in comparison to their opponent is central to any basketball coach’s strategy (from the NBA on down to youth hoops). Whether this is the main objective of the offense, or a significant feature, all successful teams aim to capitalize on mis-matches. That could be, for example, when a 6’10’’ Big is guarded by someone who’s 6’5’’ and weighs 40 pounds less than them.
Another, and more common, mis-match is one that’s created during the run of play. A situational mis-match can happen when, for instance, the opponent switches on a screen and a post is now defending a guard. Generally, the guard has a speed and agility advantage so they’ll be able to cross up the post and create dangerous opportunities.
NBA teams are very matchup orientated. They’ll run an offense with loads of screens with the intention of creating mis-matches, because most defenses will switch on the screen. You’ll also see a team spread the floor and do pick-and-rolls all day, isolating its best player who receives an on-the-ball screen, which typically results in a mis-match with himself and the post who’s setting the pick.
No matter the type of offense a team is running, players are always cognizant of the mis-match. And if your player wins his/hers consistently, and the other team has no answer, then you feed it. Every time. That’s basketball.
You’d think this strategy would be applicable to soccer. Nonetheless, I’ve never seen a football coach emphasize or utilize the concept. I’m not sure if I’ve even heard a soccer coach use the word mis-match.
More Soccer, She Wrote
06. Go Hoop (Part 1) | Soccer, She Wrote
05. Imbalance | Soccer, She Wrote
02. The Product Of Unprotection | Soccer, She Wrote
Weak Link Situations
Interestingly enough, whenever a non-soccer playing friend or family member comes to watch me play they inevitably ask me the same question, “Why don’t they just kick the ball over the other team’s head and have you run on to it? You’re faster than all of them.”
Even to a casual observer it’s apparent that I’m a huge matchup problem for nearly any defender I’m up against. Why, then, are exploiting matchups so heavily relied upon in basketball but nearly non-existent in football?
Here is the argument most folks will typically posit:
Soccer is a weak-link sport whereas basketball is a strong-link sport. It’s harder for a soccer player to impact the game, because there are many more players on the pitch. A star striker may have to wait for several passes to be completed before they are able to receive the ball, compared to a star basketball player who can literally dribble the ball up the court and then go to work. Thus, in basketball there is more reason to maximize the impact of the best player. Soccer, on the other hand, since it relies more heavily on contributions from all its members, the nature of the strategy should be focused on the team.
Just because there’s less of a reason to do something doesn’t mean it’s not advantageous. Any fan of football has seen amazing goals scored during transitional moments. A team doesn’t have to take twenty passes before hitting the ball behind the defense to the fastest player on the field. They could do that in two if they really wanted to.
We don’t see more of this practice because direct soccer gets a bad rap. A direct style of play is often branded as “ugly” or “bad”. Meanwhile, a team that’s possession-oriented and keeps the ball for long spells, even if they over-possess, is idolized. (Ever heard of Barcelona?)
When both styles of play have value, why do we glorify one and denigrate the other?
I believe race contributes to this phenomenon.
The Deeper Issue…
In the women’s game it’s uncommon to have a player that’s substantially more athletically gifted than her counterparts. In the U.S. there’s on average one player per team that’s heads and shoulders above the rest. In Europe, there’s probably one player in the entire league.
And who are these athletically superior players? For the most part, they’re Black. Basketball has come to terms with this fact. Basketball is comfortable being a game that is centered around aggrandizing Black players. Football, with its roots firmly planted in Europe, is not. The game of football has historically, and continues to be, controlled by white men.
I’m not sure i’ve ever heard a soccer coach use the word mis-match
A look at American and European teams show that Black players are competing at the highest level in greater and greater numbers. Yet, Black coaches remain underrepresented in the sport from top to bottom. When a white coach whose methodologies have been informed by a long line of white men that seldom encountered Black players, you end up here– where “mis-match” is absent from coaches’ lexicons and there’s a reluctance to add it.
A sport that enables athletically average (although profoundly technical) players the ability to succeed at the upper echelon is comforting. A sport where no amount of skill can overcome a physical deficiency, however, is scary– especially when those physical qualities can be mapped closely along racial lines.
What purveyors of the notion that football is a superior sport because it doesn’t rely on athleticism forget is that basketball doesn’t rely on athleticism either. It’s just that sports invariably will choose a faster/taller/stronger/springier, incredibly skilled person over just an incredibly skilled person. That’s sport.
As much as we try to believe otherwise, there’s no such thing as equal opportunity in sports. Physical advantages– by their definition– are exclusionary, and in part, what makes sports so entertaining. We accept the fact that not every kid can go to the NBA. Why can’t we accept the fact that not every kid will play in the Champions League?
Perhaps, if we weren’t so afraid of soccer looking like basketball we could learn a thing or two from the sport. It would probably result in more goals.
