Youth soccer offenses: which is better, single wing or double wing?

Comparison of single wing and double wing offenses

For youth soccer, which attack is better, the single wing or the double wing?

Many of you may not be aware that I have coached single end and double end offenses with various youth soccer teams. When I say Double Wing, I mean the traditional Double Tight, Fullback in the sniffer offense, not the flexbone. The Double Wing has as its main series off-board pitching power, fullback trap, fullback wedge, wing counter, some sort of sweep (various options), and a pitching action play action pass.

I have executed both crimes

After careful study, we decided long ago that my then 16-team organization would have the option of running single wing or double wing. We play in a league of 70 or more teams from 6 to 14 years old. As recently as 2004, I was doing Double Wing clinics for the youth coaches in my organization. In 2005, my organization became 100% Single Wing across the board. Personally, I have been running Single Wing exclusively for the past 8 seasons. Many trainers who weighed this choice have trained one or the other or sometimes even neither, I have studied and trained both.

Double wing is a good offense

While this article is in no way intended to disparage the Double Wing offense, I just want to share with everyone why we did what we did. I am in an enviable position to have coached both offenses for multiple teams and to have taught both systems to over 200 coaches in the youth programs I led. Again, I’m a fan of all series-based offenses that can hit every attack point while putting defenses in conflict and both offenses do this very well. I’ll always be a fan of excellent execution and offenses that allow teams with average talent to succeed, and both offenses do a pretty good job of doing just that. This is not meant to be a jab at Double Wing, I think it’s a good system and we ran it years ago for that very reason.

Here are some basic reasons why I prefer the single brim to the double brim:

The Single Wing requires only 1 puller, the Double Wing requires 4. In unselective soccer, even with great training, I will rarely have 4 effective pullers. If I have multiple athletic linemen who can throw, I think they are 2-way players. Do I really want to get these 2 way starters out by making them pull every play except wedge? Most double wing, pitching, sweeping, and fast break basic plays require 2 shooters.

The Single Wing clasp is MUCH easier and safer. Too many drives die in youth soccer due to bad QB/Center trades. In our version of the center, the “QB” is only 2 yards behind the center and very low, the center doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective and if there are any problems, the QB has a 2-yard cushion to recover. With foot-to-foot splits, penetration is minimal. It is extremely rare that we have more than 1 bad billing trade result during an entire season (those with full season game DVDs can attest to this) / That’s 1 billing per SEASON, not per game. Indirect snap teams (QB under center) simply can’t make this claim.

Single Wing requires no difficulty executing footwork for the quarterback on most ball exchanges. To give you just one example: On the basic no-tack shooting play that is the staple of every double wing attack, the quarterback has to take the snap from under snap (which is already riskier than snapping a snap). single wing), makes sure he punts deep enough to get out of the way of both the back guard and tackle by shooting right in front of him, shoots the ball making sure to lead the moving wingback, then comes out in front of the running back running inside the fullback’s kick block while making sure to make a play-side corner block. The pitch itself often involves a drop step and snappy spin, and in order for the quarterback to have a chance to get out in front of the moving wing, the quarterback really needs to throw the pitch blindly while waiting for a huge nose guard hasn’t jammed the center in your lap.

What this all means is that training your quarterback takes a long time at double end and you better have at least 2-3 quarterbacks ready. Do they have to be great athletes? No, but they must be smart, like contact, durable and well trained, the offense is complex and requires precision in timing, it is not very forgiving. Compare that to the Single Wing “QB,” he rarely has to turn the ball over, doesn’t have to worry about getting run over by linemen, and takes less than 15 seconds to learn. In 2005 we won a state championship with a fourth-string “QB” at the helm. Our first-team kid broke his arm in game 5, our second-team kid had a swollen knee, and our third-team kid snouted at the pool party the night before the big game, slipping on some tile. wet. We won the game on the mercy rule with a fourth-team QB who was out at starting right guard, and up to that point he had only carried the ball 10-12 times. I doubt many honest Double Wing coaches would tell you they could do the same with a fourth-team QB in that offense.

In Single Wing we can get the ball to any player very easily and with very little time dedicated to it. In the Double Wing you have to teach the movement, shoot and transfer, etc. In the last 3 seasons, every one of my eligible players has carried the ball and 36 different kids have scored touchdowns. Once we get ahead of it, it’s simple for any player to take a simple direct cross and run the takedown hole. Parents and kids love this about our offense.

The Single Wing has a disappointment like no other. With Single Wing you can run all the plays Double Wing has in their offense, but in all cases it is easier to run the play from Single Wing. But Double Wing can’t run many of the series Single Wing has, including the trickiest series in all of football, the full spin series.

The Single Wing hits the shot much faster. In the Double Wing, many of the plays take a bit of time to develop, such as the takedown. You have to wait for both backside pullers to get there, the WB to get his slow motion pitch and the QB to get out. corner. In contrast, the Single Wing takedown game hits full speed, the “QB” taking the ball on a dead run straight into the hole, something we feel we need when playing very fast, athletic teams.

It’s easier to get out of the Single Wing, we’re already in a short-throw formation.

The Double Wing requires even their weakest players, the tight ends (in most cases) to “shine their shoes” and block 2 spaces to the inside, when the tackle and guard vacate to shoot. There is no such requirement for Single Wing wingers, although I don’t think such a block is as difficult to execute as many trainers make it out to be.

Single Wing offers the unique trick of being able to throw the ball to 3 different players on each play. The defense has no idea which of the 3 has been sent the ball and has to account for all 3. There is no other offense that can match that statement or be more of a headache for the typical youth defense.

The Single Wing was more fun for the kids and even me. I got bored of running 3-4 plays each game and fell in love with the Full and Half Spinner series in Single Wing.

In the end, Single Wing was a better fit for our mission than Double Wing, it was much easier to train and we got better results with it. That’s why we made the change.