experimental formations

Is there anyone out there currently trying out a new formation they havent tried before? maybe something you developed yourself, or just a setup youve heard of other teams using but are trying out?

in the schools comp here in auckland theres a team whose coach (extremely experienced player) is trying out a new style that's set out 1-3-1-1, and it's pretty interesting watching his team play other schools who use more conventional setups.

__________________
it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

We tried something new, but you saw how that worked for us.

__________________
Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

Were also experimenting and trying but haven't found the 1 yet...
1-3-1-1... Sounds interesting..

__________________
Regards,

Marius

"Great works are performed, not by strength but by perseverence" - Samuel Johnson

Actaully we tried some variations on convention in 2002, 2006 and 2008. I think the results speak for themselves.

__________________
An aquifer is a water bearing layer of rock or soil. Aquifers are separated by impermeable layers of rock or clay called an aquitard. Aquitard, however may sound a bit offensive to some, and therefore we will be changing the name to Aquachallenge.

I am not sure what you mean by variations Tuck, care to elabroate, you or Duck?

I don't want to sound like a prick, but variations usually work best when you have the players to do it, and I don't think that the US has those players at the moment (although they did in the past). There was a club team called Croc's in NZ who were a collection of most of the young, fit and new internationals in NZ at the time. Their coach tried all sorts of variations, and not surprisingly everything worked.

__________________
Faster than a speeding puck...

I hear what you're saying, and the variations were attempts to use or highlight our strengths or at least mask weaknesses.

In 2002 we played a variation of a 1-3-2 we called a fox and bull. Essentially the outside mids/wings were not left and right but wall side/open side. The wall side were the bulls and the open pool players were the foxes. The backs were not quite done with the same convention but did have some thought about who is the more aggressive, so they didn't split the pool left and right either. A bit like a 1-3-1-1 where one back would default to agressive and one to being golie like, but this wasn't hard and fast. I still like some aspects of this and for the players we had if fit very well. I'm still very disapointed in how we finished this tournament as we played everyone pretty strong through the round robin and I thought we had a realistic shot at a medal.

2004 I cannot comment on as I didn't go, but there was anarchy among 1/2 the team vs the coach and there were also some significant personal issues.

2006 was a modified 2-2-2. We tried to capture the offensive strength of a 2-3-1 and the defensive strength of a 1-3-2. It didn't work. It was difficult for us to really accomplish Coach's vision here and what ended up happening was we somehow emphasized the weaknesses of the two systems. In response to our poor defense things changed for our preperation for 2008.

I really can't explain easily what we were doing in Durban. basically a 4-1 with an extra player. What everyone saw was not exactly what it was supposed to look like, but i really didn't like what it was supposed to be either.

But like Jols said, in a lot of ways the team with the best collection of individual talent *should* do well no matter what they do as a formation, but I do think really looking at what we have for strengths and weaknesses as individuals and tweaking the formation to fit that is not a bad idea. Radical changes though I'm not sold on.

__________________
An aquifer is a water bearing layer of rock or soil. Aquifers are separated by impermeable layers of rock or clay called an aquitard. Aquitard, however may sound a bit offensive to some, and therefore we will be changing the name to Aquachallenge.

just to be sure about conventions, formations are named here starting with the backs, like in football ? I mean, 1-3-1-1 means something like

. [ TEAM GOAL ]
. --------------------------
.
. player
.
. player player player
.
. player
.
. player
.
.
. ------------------------
. [ OPP. GOAL ]


(NOTE: I have just seen the result, I don't know why the spaces aren't like I wrote them, sorry !!!)

sorry our convention has always been forwards to backs. Not sure but we did the same thing in soccer all through growing up. For whatever reason when I got to college I found out they name their formations backs to front like the rest of the world. I'd like clarification on what everyone else does for naming however, backs to forwards or forwards to backs. When I write 1-3-2 it means:
1 forward
3 mids
2 backs.

__________________
An aquifer is a water bearing layer of rock or soil. Aquifers are separated by impermeable layers of rock or clay called an aquitard. Aquitard, however may sound a bit offensive to some, and therefore we will be changing the name to Aquachallenge.

That's the beauty of the 2-2-2 or the 3-3... no confusion.

__________________
Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

hmmmmm.... 3-3... wonder if that would work...

__________________
Regards,

Marius

"Great works are performed, not by strength but by perseverence" - Samuel Johnson