The awesome role of backspin in swing bowling and dipping yorkers: A thread.

If you've ever bowled any kind of seam in your life, you know that your fingers impart a backward spin on the ball as you release it.

Turns out, this is important in multiple ways.

Thread⬇️

Advantages and disadvantages of various formation in football.

🔘4-4-2

🔘4-2-3-1

🔘4-2-2-2

🔘4-3-3

Analyzing Manchester United’s 3-2 win over Liverpool in the FA Cup through data and tactical analysis: a thread.

#MUFC’s plan was to progress the ball wide through the flanks to find runners and/or switch the players — and it was well executed.

Issues:

(A) Henderson’s ball distribution was not well utilized to find forwards through long balls.

(B) Weak verticality/central presence.

This can be better seen through the territory Manchester United occupied in both halves — although they dominated through the left flank, they progressed well through the right as well.

The height of central presence increased as a result of substitutions: Fred/Bruno.

EXAMPLE: #MUFC’s dominance in the left was seen in multiple formats which include:

(A) Construction of triangles — to cross, create space and perform third-man runs.

(B) Rashford dribbles > cutbacks.

(C) Overlaps from Luke Shaw.

(D) Long balls from deep to find runners.

So how did #MUFC move the ball?

In the first half — they looked to build-up *and* progress to the left flank to create opportunities to exploit #LIV’s high line i.e long balls, overlaps.

Directness improved in the second half with a more dangerous forward presence.

I'm starting to think Marvin Lewis is one of the more underappreciated NFL coaches of the past couple decades. Staying 16 years in one place is TOUGH, and I feel like people have forgotten a lot of context along the way.

In the 12 years before Marvin Lewis arrived, the Bengals were 55-137. In the two years since he left, they are 6-25-1. That's 14 years and 0 playoff appearances.

Lewis was 131-122-3 with 7 playoff appearances.

Lewis took over a 2-14 team in 2003. His first three years, he went 8-8, 8-8 and 11-5.

He got his QB in Year 2 in Carson Palmer and reached the playoffs in Year 3. But on his very first throw, Palmer tore his knee.

So, we begin the narrative that Lewis was 0-7 in playoff games. Fair criticism to a point. But here were his seven QBs for those playoff games:

Jon Kitna after 1 throw
Carson Palmer
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
AJ McCarron

The Bengals, who have a cheap owner as GM, not only struggled to find Marvin Lewis a QB but also struggled to get him much of anything. They consistently let good players walk, from Carson Palmer to Marvin Jones to Kevin Zeitler to Eric Steinbach to Leon Hall to Reggie Nelson.

“Mastering the basics” is a long-standing pillar of cricket coaching. I want to challenge the idea because I think removing it will lead to more effective cricketers.

Welcome to my TED talk.

Most of us have been brought up that nailing the basics equals success. I remember being a kid reading and re-rereading my coaching manual, knowing it contained all the answers. The idea is simple and intuitive: the basics provide a template.

Copy what works. No need to reinvent the wheel. Play straight. Sure, there is some natural variation but the basics are always at the core. They are the spelling and grammar of cricket.

We can see this at the highest level. TV commentators criticise technical flaws (against a template) in every player. When they fail we see this as the cause. When they succeed we see the player as finding a way to compensate in spite of this basic error.

We also see it when coaching. We use the basics template to tell players how to bat, bowl and field. If they get it wrong, they need to identify and correct their errors through hard work. You can add flair, but not until these basics are firmly in place and the flaws ironed out.