By Tokuzane Minami, Raphaël Bédard and Hikaru Tateishi

Every day at lunchtime, teachers and students play football in the school grounds. 

I am one of the many students taking part in the matches, and it is one of the most exciting parts of my day at EIM. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult for us students to defeat the teachers, which is why I came up with the idea of analyzing their different playing styles and applying this knowledge into our daily game. My procedure was that of watching the match from the third floor of the school building, which made it easy for me to observe the movements of the players, as well as the situation of the game.

The football field is not quite big enough to call it a proper pitch. It is smaller than a regular football field, which makes the game increasingly more difficult. Students usually form teams according to their grade, most of the time in the MYP level. We divide the 30 minutes of allowed time into the number of existing teams, which can change depending on the day and situation. The objective is to have equal amounts of playing time for everyone.

1. Teachers’ features

 2. Teachers’ attack tactics

• Keeper often throws the ball in order to initiate the attacking play when there are no open passing options

• Efficient back passes in direction of the keeper, causing difficulty for the defending team

→ Chasing and pressing the keeper results in the teachers gaining a one player advantage, which makes the counterattack challenging for the students

→ Recurring passes to the player (on the teacher’s side) located high on the pitch, which allows fast counter attack to ensue

• Back passes aimed towards Mr. Branco help the teachers with time to reset, prepare, and reconstruct their attacking play

• Passing trajectories are easy to read

4. Why do we struggle to defeat the teachers?

The teachers have : 

• Solid, organized defensive play and speedy attack

• Higher skill and technique standards

• Superior passing quality 

• Active and effective team communication

• Strong counter attacking

→ Lead counter play when one teacher is open and positioned high on the pitch

5. How could we improve our attacking play? 

• Develop various movements to give and receive passes with pinpoint accuracy

→ Backwards passes, overlapping passes, one-two passing technique

• High quantity of passes to initiate discord between teachers and students, making it harder for opponents to track, intercept, and retrieve the ball from our possession

• Dribble past one teacher as a way to create a numerical advantage in our side (3 students vs 2 teachers)

• Abrupt, unexpected shots on goal, to catch our opponents off guard

6. How could we improve our defensive play?

• Man-to-man defense, each student constantly covers and tracks their respective teacher

→ Intercept teacher’s pass trajectories

• Not chasing or pressing the keeper, maintaining cover on the teachers 

→ Teachers will not be able to obtain a numerical advantage as they will not be in measure to properly receive a pass from the keeper, which will significantly slow down their attack 

• Discuss between teammates to decide who is going to mark which teacher

→ Prevents confusion in student’s side when teachers change positions

Conclusion:

        Despite analyzing their playing styles, my team and I still do not manage to defeat them in daily games. However, that does not make me bored when playing. After writing this article and gathering the knowledge I learned from my work, I became more thoughtful, reflective, and excited during my match. 

Finally, to conclude this paragraph, I would like to thank Raphaël and Hikaru for helping me with my article.