How to coach the principles of offensive transitions

Transitions are a massive part of football and have gained more popularity in recent years due to successful teams being focused on them. Transitions can be defined as the periods between possession, I.e the moments after the ball is lost and the moments when it is regained. This tactical analysis will focus on the moments when possession is regained, or offensive transitions, and will show the principles of offensive transitions and how to coach them, with influences from the tactics of top coaches such as Jürgen Klopp, Ralf Rangnick, Ralph Hasenhuttl and José Mourinho.

Beating the counter-press

Usually, when the ball is won back, the first step to a counter-attack is to overcome the pressure from the opposition to prevent the ball from being lost again straight away. To overcome the counter-press there are a number of components:

-Intelligent, anticipatory movement to support

-Quick decision making

-Creation of angles

-Awareness of passing lanes and pressure

Quick decision making is obviously a key principle of counter-attacking which will appear throughout this article, but here with usually immediate pressure from the front it is particularly important, and players have to quickly switch from out of possession decision making to in possession decision making- which is where anticipation plays a large role.

We can see here an example of these components in practice, with RB Leipzig recovering possession and looking to transition immediately. Recovering the second ball, one player moves to receive the ball. The other player beside him, Emil Forsberg, already makes a movement forward into space before the other player has even received the ball. This gives an angle to play the pass and beat the counter-press from the oncoming Leverkusen player.

We can see another example from RB Leipzig here under Hasenhüttl, where immediately a player moves to create an angle to receive and progress play forward. Having a structure which allows for players to stay ahead of the ball obviously helps this, but both the carrier and the receiver have to make decisions quickly in order to make the correct movement and find the correct movement with a pass, while under pressure.