Shading a block, a danger area or a zone, and writing on the pitch

Block

Threads a line through the players you pick and shades their space: back to the goal they are defending, or closed around the players themselves.

Use it for any unit that holds a line together: the back four, a midfield screen, the two who stay when the full-backs go. "Our block" works the deepest one out for you; this is for every other one.

Click the players in order along the line, then press Enter. Click one again to take it back out.

How a block decides what to shade

Finds your deepest line (a back three, four or five, whichever you have on the board) and shades everything between them and the goal they are protecting. It is tied to those players, so it reshapes as you drag them.

Pick the players yourself, in the order they stand along the line, and it shades their space. Use it for a midfield screen, a front two pressing together, or any line the automatic one will not find. It stays tied to those players, so it moves when they do.

Click each player in the line, then press Enter to draw it. Click a player again to take them back out, press the grass to finish, or press Escape to forget the whole thing.

What gets shaded. To the goal fills everything between the players and the goal behind them, which is what a block is: a back four, a low block, anyone holding a line in front of their own net. Around them closes the shading round the players themselves, which is what you want for a midfield screen or a front three pressing. Those are not protecting the goal, and shading back to it swallows your own team.

Works the line out again from where the players are standing now. Do it after you have moved your back line, or after you have changed shape.

Danger area

Shades an area in gold: the space the move is trying to reach.

Use it for the space you want attacked: the cutback zone, the pocket in front of their back four, the far post.

Drag for a box, or click corner by corner for any shape. Click a player to put a corner on him. Click the first corner, double-click or press Enter to close.

Zone

Shades an area: gold for the space to attack, grey for a channel, a trap or a drill area.

Drag when a box, an oval or an octagon fits. Click corner by corner when nothing does, and click players to shade the space between them: corners on players follow them when they move.

Drag for a box, or click corner by corner for any shape. Click a player to put a corner on him. Click the first corner, double-click or press Enter to close.

Colour, strength, shape and edge

What colour it is shaded. The first five already mean something on our boards, so picking one is really picking what you are saying: gold is the space to attack, red is danger, green is ours, blue is neutral, grey is quiet. Violet, orange, teal and pink claim nothing. They are there for the board that needs a fourth and a fifth area told apart.

How heavily it is laid down. Soft for an area you are only gesturing at, strong for the one thing the phase is about. Every shading stays see-through: the players underneath always read.

A box for a space with edges, a rounded box for one in open play, an oval for a pocket: coaches draw pockets as circles on a whiteboard, so an oval reads as one instantly. A triangle for a space that funnels, like a trap closing towards the touchline, a diamond for the pocket between four players, and a hexagon or an octagon for a drill area. Edit corners turns any of them into an outline you can reshape corner by corner. The shape is only how it looks: you can change it as often as you like without redrawing it.

The line round it. Dashed says "this region, roughly". Solid says the edge is real: a zone that stops where the six-yard box stops. None takes the line away and leaves the shading to say it, which reads better over a busy part of the pitch.

Shaded fills the area in. Hatched rules it diagonally instead (the same ink, laid on as lines, so the grass and the players standing on it still show through, and it survives being printed in black and white. Outline leaves the grass showing and draws only the border round it. Line only removes the border and the shading entirely, leaving just the line threaded through the players) best when the line itself is the point. You can still click anywhere inside to pick it up.

Drag inside it to move it, or take a gold corner to resize it. Only the area you have selected shows its handles.

Text

Writes on the grass. Any words, anywhere on the board, at any size.

Use it for the thing the picture cannot say by itself: a trigger, a coaching point, a name for a space. It is the mark to reach for when you were about to draw a zone with its shading turned off.

Click anywhere on the pitch and start typing; Esc when you are done. Drag the words to move them, double-click them (or press Enter) to type again.

Clearing shading

Removes every shaded area from this phase.

Questions