 Hey guys, hope everyone's doing well out there. We're coming back with another installment of the Tactics Corner. My name's Bradley Morrison, I'm the assistant coach here at Gardner Web. Today we are going to be looking at third man runs or off the ball movements to create penetration. So I'm going to show you three clips from our previous game where we have some good third man runs or movement off the ball to create a couple goal scoring chances and goals. So the first one we'll get right in. So we win the ball back in the middle of the field and we're going to play the ball back to allow for a build up and this is what the last Tactics Corner was about. So creating that possession so that you can penetrate and so our team does a good job here of moving the ball forward and back to move the defense so that we can create some penetration. Our left center back comes, creates penetration and then we keep the ball and we play back and then we swing the ball back out to the other side and again we're progressing up the field. Now our right center back is going to drive forward, find our center forward and now our center forward is going to play the ball back and now we move it out to the wing. So now through those passing exchanges we're into the attacking third. Now when our wing back gets the ball he finds an opportunity to take on a defender and now he's driving forwards toward the goal and as soon as he takes the turn forward our players are going to recognize, alright now is the time that I need to show if I want to play a combination pass and then as our center forward or in this case our winger is checking inside to find the ball our center forward and our opposite winger see now is the time to run in behind and make vertical runs. He tries to chip the ball through in behind and in this case it's just blocked off but you can see with the movement of those three players it creates an opportunity to find penetration when one player is checking back or dragging the defense with him it's going to create spaces in behind for those other players to run into and that was a good opportunity unfortunately it didn't come off so we're going to move to the next one. In this situation it's set up immediately from the start by a good goal kick from our goalkeeper we like to create an expensive team shape so that we can play the ball and he plays the ball out to the wing back who takes one touch plays it inside to a midfielder and as we're playing forward and back our winger gets fouled. Right off the foul we do a great job of just get the ball playing again moving and creating possession so that we can penetrate. We find the center back's feet and our center back is going to play the ball forward into one of our wingers checking to the ball. Now as he's checking we have a midfielder showing up underneath that can receive the ball but since that winger brought the defender with him there's now going to create space in behind him. The ball is set back to our midfielder he can now see two runs going forward our center forward is going into the space that was left by the winger and our right wing back is actually running down the line and they're both looking for a penetrating pass. In this instance our midfielder plays it into the forward who's in behind the defense. He does a great job of holding up the ball for just one or two seconds and now our run to the near post by the opposite winger is going to drag the defenders across and the later run by the winger who set the ball back originally is going to be wide open and he's there for the chance to finish. Okay so again great interlink between the players with the ball but also great movement off the ball. Because of the movement from the winger initially to drag the defender out of the space that creates space in behind he plays the way he's facing our midfielder can now see both runs and plays it in behind. Now the job isn't done because as our forward gets the ball by the end line our opposite winger sprints to the near post dragging all the defenders across with him so now the cutback is wide open so that he can just place it into the goal. And then we're going to move on to the last one. So the last example here is very similar in that we play the ball out to the left wing back and again we established possession it's important to get the ball moving drag the defense around so we can create those pockets of space. And now our center back is going to take a touch and now our center forward is moving back into this space. Okay very similar to the last play. Our center forward is strong, holds the ball up there's a defender in his back that means that there's space left in the middle of the field in behind he sets the ball back the way he's facing now our center midfielder knows same exact ball there's two runners running in behind because that defender was dragged out of space that third man run is going to be open for the ball over the top and then he does a great job to just place it around the goalkeeper for the second goal of the game. Okay so again building off of last week's possession theme it's great to keep possession and it's great to move the defense around but at some point you have to find penetration in the right times to penetrate. So if you can create movements that drag the defenders out of space now you have to be able to find penetrating runs and passes into those spaces so not only keep possession just for possession sake but really keep possession so that you can find the pockets of space to either turn and drive it at a fence like happened in the first clip that you watched with our left wing back where he drove inside and then we had runs off of them or where a player can check back into the space and drag defenders and now just play the way that they're facing and then the next ball can go in behind to the third man run. We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Tactics Corner and please comment below if you have any questions or would like to see anything else in the next Tactics Corner. We also want to talk about the PDF so Javi's done a ton of different exercises for individual players and we want to put all of those into a PDF along with some exercises so that your team could maybe train possession to penetrate or they could train third man runs and so that you guys would have access to all of those activities and exercises. If you would like that or you want to see specific things if maybe you would like to see individual activities in one packet maybe a defending and then an attacking PDF just please comment below and and let Coach Javi know because we want to give you what you need. Thanks so much.