Game Plan or Freestyle ?

[Robbo]

When I first got involved in XBall, game plans and tactical preparation were the talk of the day.
We had game plans comin' out our ass in Paris and Amsterdam and played sh1te.
In Oslo,we had a last chance to put it right because our feeder squad is playin the last round in London.
And so, when it came to getting some game plans together, I decided the team should freestyle their way through this tournament.
We easily beat a much weakened Ton Tons side and in our next game against were only 5 -2 down at half time with the Russkies until they shifted into tenth gear in the second but I stuck with the freestyle idea.
We ended up getting third place which was a vast improvement for us.
So the question is this :- Can freestyling achieve the same level of viabiilty in XBall as it enjoys in 7 man.
Our results seem to suggest it might, though of course it could be we were just damn lucky and I wonder how well the Russkies would do if they just freestyled.....comments and ideas....from you as well Nick I hope !

 

[DarWood]

Good question mate. Personally 'with no experience' i think its down to the individual coaches and teams playing style. Freestyle sets a flare, and makes a team unpredictable. Maybe thats what gives the yanks the edge. As for well thought game plans we will soon find out if they work wonders, when the Ruskies face the almighty!

At the end of the day go on performance maybe it has nothing to do with the planning or freestyling, maybe you just need to step away from the 7-man scene.

Well thats my opinion... and as you know opinions are??

Peace

Darren

 

[Booya39]

what types of game plans are we talkin about here? Do you mean you had the whole match scripted or that you had, say, 10 plays and ran them in an order you found to be useful?

And when you say freestyle do you mean were coming up with that game's plan as you walked to your starting box?

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Booya39
what types of game plans are we talkin about here? Do you mean you had the whole match scripted or that you had, say, 10 plays and ran them in an order you found to be useful?

And when you say freestyle do you mean were coming up with that game's plan as you walked to your starting box?

Boo, most XBall teams would have four to five break-out game plans that they would strictly adhere to.
No team can have a plan for the whole match except maybe the Russkies because you don't know what the other team are gonna do on their break-out or what might happen during a game.

Freestyling is where you just let the players go where they want and do what they want, basically they adapt as the game unfolds rather than adhereing to some rigid game plan.

It's the classic clash of control v flair.

 

[Alien_Balliztix]

I know this is going over the same ground of spectators again.
however I believe:

Control = proof that this is a viable sport that adheres to professional thought out training/playing techniques and promotes us as a professional sports body.

Flair = As players we get the adrenaline rush that we all love so much. Culminating in playing naturally as a team and Giving the public the excitement they want and we want to give them.

 

[Duncster]

Are the break outs still pre-determined? Or were you just letting them decide when they got to the box?

To be honest, I thought it pretty much was freestyle anyway after the the breakouts... after all, you can never predict exactly where the other team are going to break to, so you're often going to have to adapt strict game plans to suit... isn't that what freestyling is?

Dunc.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Duncster
Are the break outs still pre-determined? Or were you just letting them decide when they got to the box?

To be honest, I thought it pretty much was freestyle anyway after the the breakouts... after all, you can never predict exactly where the other team are going to break to, so you're often going to have to adapt strict game plans to suit... isn't that what freestyling is?

Dunc.

Dunc, previous thinking had most teams have definitive primaries and for some of the players, pre-determined secondary and even tertiary bunkers to get to.
This would be applied to the majority of a team's game plans.
I just told the guys on Nexus, I wanted one part of the field covered at some time and left it up to them when and where they went to.
I trusted them enough to come up with the right moves as I can only see one dimension of play from the sidelines, the guys actually playing could experience it from a much more valid viewpoint, that of being on the field.
They could go where they wanted within certain common sense limits and these limits were sometimes changing after every game they played.
Game plans are all about imposing control and once that control has been established, predictability is then a feature of that control.
Freestyling is playing by the seat of your pants and reacting to what the other team does in real time rather than trying to pre-plan.

 

[Glorykid]

I think freestyling suits the players you have on Nexus, so let em!!!! to a point.
Control needs to come into the game when say your 2-4 points ahead, sit a little and run the clock down, its your biggest friend when your leading and your worst enemy when your behind.
If you control the clock by leading you can quite simply frustrate the other team into giving away points.

 

[noop]

The man who brought us "Technique v. Strategy" is now questioning strategy?!?

Originally posted by Robbo
So the question is this :- Can freestyling achieve the same level of viabiilty in XBall as it enjoys in 7 man.

It has too.

I imagine it would take quite a bit of time to fully syncronize players to the point where fully scripted plays would prove effective.

I only know of a few teams that have the time to do this.

Of course, we all know, time is money.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by noop
The man who brought us "Technique v. Strategy" is now questioning strategy?!?

Noop, I have always questioned strategy !!!

And that questioning has always been with regard to people trying to tell me tactics (strategy) was just as important as techniques.

And I will reiterate, you can be the best tactician in the world but if your techniques ain't up to scratch, you ain't gonna win Jack Sh!t, that still stands.

It's still an intriguing debate but tactics will always be subserviant to techniques at this stage of our sport's development.
I saw one game in Oslo's XBall tourney that had the Russians shoot every one of Joy Division's players within ten seconds of the start.
Their technical supremacy in shooting their markers completely negated any tatical expertise the Swedes may have had.
A sobering thought for any aspiring strategist and a moment of clairty and confirmation for me.