A Team Without a System or a System Without a Team: The System of Selection! PART 1
STORY BY: NANA AGYEMANG
Player selection is never arbitrary, it is a deliberate, evidence-based, and dynamic process anchored on current form. The foundation of any successful squad is the consistent assessment of how well each player performs within their individual role and how that performance contributes to the collective equilibrium of the team.
Selection must be pragmatic, not sentimental; scientific and not speculative. The key objective is not to just merely assemble talented individuals but to engineer a synchronized unit that maximizes efficiency, resilience, and adaptability in pursuit of victory in every encounter.
The process integrates physical metrics, tactical intelligence, psychological readiness, and positional balance, ensuring that every player selected strengthens the team’s holistic performance profile.
This philosophy is at the heart of modern football. It is not an invention of preference but a discipline of structure a universal code that governs performance and decision-making at every level of the game. Yet within that code lies a universal language one that transcends culture, geography, and generation, understood by all who play, coach, or observe.
The world’s top coaches follow it, whether consciously or instinctively. Selection, when done correctly, becomes a reflection of that shared language and philosophy. It is within this understanding that different coaching schools have evolved, each subscribing to the same scientific and pragmatic foundation, yet expressing it through their own tactical dialect and cultural nuance.
The Positional Play Philosophy: –
Represented by coaches such as Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta, and Xavi Hernández, positional play relies on precision, spatial intelligence, and measured rhythm. Every player must understand their role within the collective geometry of the team.
Selection here depends on current form, passing accuracy, decision speed, and ability to interpret and occupy space intelligently. Reputation carries little weight. The philosophy demands thinkers on the pitch, not just athletes, individuals whose presence maintains structure and tempo.
The Total Football Tradition: –
Rooted in the Dutch school of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff, Total Football is built on fluidity. Roles are interchangeable and adaptability is a necessity. Only players in top physical and mental condition can sustain the constant movement and rotation it requires.
Selection is therefore based on versatility, tactical awareness, and energy levels. An off-form player in this system can destabilize the entire structure. Every inclusion must preserve the seamless interchange between attack and defense.
This philosophy was adopted by the late Coach Sam Arday, who led Ghana’s Under-17 team, the Black Starlets, to victory at the 1995 FIFA U-17 World Championship held in Ecuador. He cherished this system and credited it as the foundation of his success.
In my view, Coach Arday went beyond simply applying Total Football he combined it with an intelligent pressing system that made his teams proactive, compact, and relentless. The same hybrid philosophy shaped the Fetteh Feyenoord Academy, which stormed the Ghana Premier League with fearless football, pressing high and attacking with rhythm and precision.
Sadly, the system declined after his passing in 2017, and to this day, even those he once mentored have struggled to reproduce the synergy and tactical clarity he achieved. His model, a Ghanaian adaptation of Total Football infused with pressing intensity remains one of the most forward-thinking and disciplined tactical systems ever seen in African football.
Watch this space for Part 2