Width: The Cheapest Goal You're Not Scoring

Watch any under-9s match and you'll see it: twenty kids and a ball, all in the same square yard, chasing it like it owes them money. Using width in football is the simplest fix in the game and almost nobody coaches it.

The idea's not complicated. Pin two players to the touchlines and tell them to stay there even when the ball's miles away. Suddenly the pitch is wide open. The other team can't defend the whole width with a swarm, so gaps appear in the middle — the gaps your better players want.

The Hungarians taught England this the hard way in 1953. Came to Wembley, pulled our lads all over the place with movement and width, won 6-3, and English football took twenty years to get over the shock. Stretch the pitch and a packed defence falls apart. Old lesson. Still true on a Saturday.

The trade-off is patience. Kids hate staying wide — they want to be where the ball is. You'll spend weeks reminding them. But a winger who holds his line gives the whole team room, and that's worth the nagging.

Monday: two cones on the touchlines, a kid glued to each, and a rule that a goal counts double if the ball goes through a wide player first. Watch how fast they learn to use the space once there's a point in it. Pair it with a bit of width in your shape and you'll see the swarm break up.

Width also sets up overloads on the far side — more on that another day. Ask the Gaffer how to get your swarm to spread out. We go again.