More and more elite clubs are using game models as a framework for cohesive decision-making. We give the Hudl perspective on how they are best implemented.
In the ever-evolving landscape of elite football, clarity and cohesion are becoming decisive factors behind sustainable success.
Clubs are increasingly seeking ways to ensure strategic alignment and consistency of decision-making across all departments, and that has driven interest in the concept of a game model as an organising principle.
What is a Game Model?
In essence, a game model is a centralised framework that allows a club to map their vision and objectives to the style of play, player profiles and training methods required to achieve them.
To provide a simplified example, a club might set a goal of achieving promotion and conclude that is best achieved with a possession-based style of play. That in turn requires more technically able players and an approach to training and development that focuses on technical attributes and the creation of a coherent in and out-of-possession structure.
Why do Teams Create a Game Model?
In our experience, clubs create a game model in order to establish a clear and cohesive framework for decision-making that helps steer everyone in the same direction and align the short-term priorities of a head coach with the medium-term objectives of a sporting director or general manager and the long-term goals of the owner, president or CEO.
A game model should act as a guiding light in every major process, from player and head coach recruitment through to match and training analysis, to athlete monitoring and beyond.
In all situations, it should be able to provide a response to the question, why? Why are we doing this drill? Why did we sign that player? Why am I being rested? Every decision should be strategically aligned with the club’s overarching goals.
When implemented throughout a club, it becomes a common point of reference for players and staff moving up through the various age groups that helps ease the transition and provide psychological safety through consistency of language and practice.
Components of a Successful Game Model
A successful game model rests on four key components:
Vision and Philosophy: your aims and objectives; what you aspire to achieve.
Game: how your teams should play in order to achieve your vision and philosophy.
Players: the profiles required in each position to successfully implement your chosen play style.
Training: the methods by which you will train and develop players capable of playing the style of play that brings your vision and philosophy to life.
These are interlinked, and continuously feed back into each other as the model is developed and implemented. Let’s look at each of them in more detail.
Vision and Philosophy
Start with the end in mind: what is your version of winning?
Is it getting promoted? Qualifying for Europe? Winning the league? Maybe achieving a baseline of success while making a profit in the transfer market?
Whatever it is, this is the starting point that conditions all other decisions.
Successfully implementing a game model requires buy-in from stakeholders throughout a club, not just the major decision-makers. To foster engagement and shared ownership, It’s important to gather the widest possible range of opinions at an early stage in the project.
This is particularly important because your vision might not always be entirely objective. There is space, also, for sentiment-based considerations. Is your club historically associated with a given style of play? Are you renowned for giving opportunities to academy graduates? Is that identity something you want to hold onto?
A wide survey will help you determine the current state of the club’s vision and philosophy, and the factors that should feed into the creation of a new one that will help drive the organisation towards its objectives.
Game
Once your vision and philosophy is set, you need to establish the style of play that is most appropriate to achieve those goals.
There is room for both art and science here. In most cases, there will be data points that are predictive of achieving your objectives, but there can also be consideration for concepts such as playing an attractive or attacking style if that matches your vision.
Once you have established how you want to play, it can be codified into a series of game principles that detail how the team should be expected to organise itself and respond to specific match situations, both with and without the ball.
This is the framework that allows you to bring your vision and philosophy to life.
Players
Players are tasked with translating your game principles into concrete actions out on the pitch. It is therefore imperative to understand what is required in each position so as to develop or purchase players capable of succeeding in those roles.
These profiles should encompass the actions a player needs to perform in attack and defence, and the technical, physical and psychological attributes that allow them to do so.
They have obvious utility in recruitment and squad planning at senior level but can also help guide the development of youth players towards the desired attributes.
Indeed, it is important to establish a common language for these positional profiles across all departments and age groups, be it shirt numbers or descriptive phrases, so that anyone within the club immediately knows what you are referring to when you talk about a given profile.
Training
The training pitch is where the players are grounded in the fundamentals of your style of play and the specific actions they are expected to perform in every phase of play.
While coaches should be empowered to adapt and be creative, every training session should be tied to your game principles and the demands they place on both individual players and the broader collective from a tactical, technical and physical standpoint.
This starts with a set of non-negotiables that every player is consistently reminded of when approaching training, and could include principles such as focusing on determination, work rate or the execution of specific skills.
But player preparation goes far beyond what happens on the training pitch, and these principles also serve to provide clarity and structure to each of the other departments involved in the shared goal of maximising player health and performance: sports scientists, strength and conditioning specialists, physiotherapists, psychologists and nutritionists.
Again, the game model provides a consistent reference point to align and inform decision-making across roles and departments.
Implementing a Game Model
All of that makes sense on paper, but how does the theory of a game model and its composite parts translate into the real world environment of a football club and its day-to-day operations?
There are certainly challenges to overcome, and here are some of the key takeaways from our experience working with clubs:
Alignment is key: arrange weekly meetings between all stakeholders to address issues, find solutions, and highlight wins and commonalities. For example, you might use video to show the under-14s pressing in the same way as the first team to provide evidence that the whole organisation is moving in the same direction.
Communication is everything: The game model should be the reference point for every conversation. Use the language until it becomes second nature. Simplify as necessary for lower age groups but never lose the core message.
Don’t stand still: a game model cannot be a static document that just sits in a drawer somewhere. It should be constantly tested against the current circumstances of the club and wider trends within the game, and iterated to remain relevant.
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