'Total Football' a concept developed by Jack Reynolds in the 1940’s, is a system where a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining their intended organizational structure. In this fluid system no footballer is fixed in his or her intended outfield role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. Central within the club is the formation 433, aiming to keep our brand of football recognisable; attractive, offensive-minded, creative, fast and fair.

Our Youth Development Program works on the TIPS model of Technique, Insight, Personality and Speed. Our philosophy, which values the ball over the athlete, skill over strength, and intelligence over effort is focused on producing players who understand the game, can control and manipulate the ball with great skill, maintain possession both individually and collectively, intelligently construct an attack and respond well in defence.

Tactical emphasis is placed on the following points:

1. To play the ball on the ground at all times, which requires both supporting play, players creating angles and good technique;
2. To play short passes, which requires players to support each other in attack and defence, and is harder to defend against and anticipate;
3. To play longer balls only in response to a movement by a team-mate who moves and asks for the ball after which the pass is delivered;
4. To play longer passes, and particularly those in the air, predominantly only when there is no closer option and always into the feet of an attacker;
5. To encourage young keepers in playing the ball short when taking goal kicks, unless there is no other option and at all times have the keeper roll the ball to a team-mate so the team can begin to build play from the back;
6. If, at any time, a player has no option to find a team-mate, they should be encouraged to keep the ball. This may mean shielding it, keeping it moving to wait for a pass, or to dribble forward to attack an opponent. At no time should they be told to kick it away regardless of the position they play or where they are on the field;
7. To encourage players to express themselves through their football and recognise that everyone is not the same, and shouldn’t play so. Some play fast, others slow, some play simple, others read situations and find more complex solutions, and some have enough skill to individually dominate a game, while others can only dream of doing so, but all should be allowed to find their own game not forced to conform to a uniform way of playing;
8. To slow down and relax, or more specifically, vary the speed of play during a game, which requires a team to hold the ball. After working to recover possession, every team should break forward only if they have an advantage in attack, otherwise they should slow the play down and possess the ball, back and across the field, resting and starting to position themselves in attack to take advantage of overloads in numbers, or weaknesses in defence. Our coaches understand that the object of football is to keep the ball and to score goals through breaking down a defence with passing and skill, not by booting the ball forward hoping for a defensive mistake.
   

Training sessions are almost always completely with the ball, with every player touching the ball between 500 and 1000 times, refining technique and 1 v 1 skills, learning the game principally by playing in small games of 2 v 2, 3 v 3, 4 v 4, 5 v 5 and overload practices such as 4 v 2, 4 v 3, 5 v 2.

Our coaches are encouraged to value the player’s technique and tactical awareness over all other attributes.