The pitch view, markings, surface and camera

Pitch view

How much of the pitch you are looking at. Changing between two match boards does not move anybody: everyone stays on the same patch of grass, you just see more or less of it. Like the tilt, it runs from the phase you set it on: pick Their box on phase 6 and the film flies in there during the move, panning, zooming and turning the pitch as it needs to. The session board is the one exception, because a coned grid is a different kind of board rather than a closer look at the same one: going there stands your players down at the side so you can build the drill, and one undo brings your match layout straight back.

A close-up view cannot hold two full teams, so a shape placed on one puts in the players that part of the pitch is actually about and leaves the rest out. Everyone else is still in your system, and comes back when you widen the view.

The session board

The session board: a coned area on grass, at whatever size you are running today. Coming here from a pitch stands your players down into the strip under the grid rather than squashing your shape into it, because a drill is written by putting the players you want where you want them. Drag them up onto the grid, and drag them back down when it is somebody else's turn. There are deliberately no goals painted on it, because a goal in an exercise goes where the exercise wants it: drag mini goals out of Equipment onto the grass around the grid, in the corners, on the ends, facing whichever way you need. One undo puts your match layout back exactly as it was.

How big the grid is, in metres. This is the thing that changes most between one exercise and the next, so it is a control rather than four boards: rondos run from 8 x 8 up to 40 x 40 depending on the age group and what you are coaching, and possession games go out past that. The presets are the sizes that appear by name in the coaching literature and in the FA pitch guide, and the two sliders take you anywhere in between. Everything already on the grid scales with it, so shrinking a rondo keeps your men on the corners.

The size of the grid divided by the players standing on it, which is how a training space is sized professionally. Smaller area or more players means more touches, more accelerations and faster decisions; bigger area or fewer players means more distance and more sprinting. Small-sided games have been studied from about 43 up to 341 square metres each, and under about 150 they do not produce match-level high-speed running in youth players. A tight rondo is nowhere near that on purpose: Barcelona's 8v2 in a 10 x 10 is about 10 square metres each. Players waiting at the side are not counted.

Thirds, channels and numbered zones

Rules the grid you coach in onto the pitch itself: thirds, the five channels, or the eighteen numbered zones. The lines are drawn at the real numbers, not by eye: the channels are set by the width of the penalty area and the six-yard box, which is why "outside the box line" and "in the half-space" mean the same thing to everyone looking at the board. They sit under every counter and arrow, they are on every phase and every export, and there is nothing to drag or delete: this is the pitch, not something drawn on it. Put your own names on the sectors with the Text tool.

What the pitch is drawn on

What the pitch is drawn on. Paper is what the videos use and what prints best. Broadcast and Night look like a match on television, which reads well on a screen in a dark room. This travels with the system, so everyone you send it to sees the pitch you chose.

The camera

Whether the film moves. Fixed shows the whole pitch view in every phase, which is what a coach draws on a whiteboard. Follow the ball frames the ball and travels with it, the way the videos are shot: it follows the ball and nothing else, so moving a player never moves the camera. A phase with no ball is framed on what you have marked on it instead, and a phase with SEVERAL balls is yours to frame: there is no one ball to follow, so the camera uses the frame you drew on that phase and stays wide if you drew none. It changes nothing on the board: nobody moves, and you can still see everyone while you work.

The room you work in

Changes the room you are working in: day, night, or one of the two pitch skins. It only changes these panels. What the pitch is drawn on is set under Pitch, and that is the part everyone else sees.

Questions