The underloading principle

In 2010, former FA elite coaching manager, Dick Bate, created an opportunity for me to visit former England Rugby Union head coach, Brian Ashton, to gain a deeper understanding of the hostile practice environment. The visits triggered a real interest in the underloading coaching approach and a desire to explore its relevance for youth and coach development.

When Aston joined the England set-up as head coach in 2006, he made numerous visits to the Royal Marines to research military tactics and strategies. He wanted to know more about how to empower individuals and teams to make decisions in highly stressful situations.

At the Marines, the former Bath Rugby head coach was introduced to the idea that “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy”. It was a Marine mantra based on the belief that dynamic game plans are needed to respond to chaos. Adaptability rather than rigidity is a necessity in the highly pressured situations in which the Marines operate in.

Ashton believed that players should operate within a flexible framework – a less rigid structure that provides guidance for the players – rather than a system that the opposition can analyse and neutralise.

The work of Sacchi and Ashton prompted me to begin a two-year study into the principles of underloading and the idea of the hostile practice environment, changing and tweaking the approach with the players and coaches I’ve been working with along the way.

Football applicationHaving considered the research on underloading and the hostile environment – all of which was sourced from professionals outside of the football industry – I looked at its application in the game of football, with a particular focus on the types of situation that occur regularly in games at elite level.

By collecting photographs taken during different phases of the game, a wealth of evidence was gathered to show how underload situations were frequent occurrences.

One observation was that as teams enter the attacking half, they often find themselves in an underload situation – i.e. there are more defensive players than attackers. Here, players are under greater levels of pressure to find ways to penetrate and break down the opposition.

Traditionally, I would have delivered an overload practice, for example an 8v4 or 10v6 in favour of the team in possession, when the reality, more often than not, is the players need to experience the reverse situation, for example four attackers v eight defenders – possibly with ‘free’ or ‘floating’ players on the outside to relieve pressure when the ‘stress’ is extremely high.

Similarly, putting players in situations where they’re significantly underloaded when trying to regain possession, for example nine defenders versus eleven attackers, can be a fascinating observation exercise. Watching a group of young players try and quickly problem solve with the aim of finding order from chaos requires awareness, communication, connection with teammates, leadership and organisation.

Can we really get frustrated at our players in matches if we do not place them regularly in these realistic situations in practice, trusting and helping them to figure out solutions to the problems the game poses?

Underloading and game-realistic situations in practiceFurther down in this article are a few example sessions which have been delivered with Sheffield United’s under 15 and 16 players. Please note that the underload match-realistic session is delivered each Thursday as game preparation ahead of the weekend fixture and is not an approach adopted for every session. The underload approach is just another method of learning as part of a varied development programme.

Guiding principlesFlexible approach

The application of the STEP principles model (Space, Task, Equipment, Players) and coaching styles continuum (command, question and answer, observation and feedback, guided discovery, trial and error) is crucial for the coach to adopt a flexible approach during the session to challenge the players.

Observation and listening

Observation and listening skills are essential for the coach, not solely to appreciate how things are developing within the session and to respond, but also to coach ‘in the moment’ in order to stretch the players.

Challenging players’ understanding

With time and practice, the players will have a deeper understanding of the key principles of the game and will dictate the direction in which they feel the session needs to go to challenge them further. They’ll also expect you, as the coach, to empower them to think about the game in more detail and appreciate the value of decision-making.

Develop players not sessions

It doesn’t matter how flashy a session does or doesn’t look, it’s crucial to understand that the purpose of this approach is to develop players and not sessions. The underloading method involved a pitch, players, basic equipment, clear outcomes and time constraints.

The hostile environment comes as a result of the use of the following:

• Connection with the players – versatile communication, effective questioning, ownership, guidance and using language with impact.
• Equipment to set up visual reference points – for example, recovery and retreat lines, thirds, channels, wide scoring zones, boxes for central area combination play, different sizes of goals for different areas of the field.
• Scoring systems – used to create game-realistic situations and opportunities for players to find appropriate solutions. The planning of the scoring system and the management of it during the session is crucial to the creation of the environment.
• Time – six-minute matches to encourage intensity, realism, competition and ‘stress’.
• Opportunities for reflection – rest periods between matches for players to reflect and make decisions around strategies, changes in system of play, novel tactics and ideas to beat the opposition, ideas to neutralise the opposition.
• Group challenges/individual player challenges – set specific challenges to engage and focus individuals and units.

ConclusionThrough all my experience of coaching and visiting clubs in England and Europe, there appeared, in the main, to be a preference for heavily overloaded possession-based practices in favour of the team in possession such as 8v3 and 10v4.

Being introduced to the concept of underloading challenged me to look at the relevance and realism of these types of practice as well as my own coaching approach in the past.

The purpose of this article is certainly not to claim the concept of underloading but to present it as a method to challenge coaches thinking, and ultimately to help effectively support the development of the players of the future.

The players I currently work with are aged 15 and 16. By the time some of them reach senior professional level, the game will look considerably different than it does currently.

What I believe is certain now, is that these young players need to deal regularly with a variety of realistic and challenging situations in practice to help them get ready for what lies ahead.


This article was first published in The Boot Room magazine in April 2014.