On a more serious note...
For anyone interested:
"The objective creates the exercise, Part 1" by Louis van Gaal
"Dominant play,in my opinion,means that you are the team that decides the flow of the game", van Gaal starts to explain. "Meaning creating more chamber than the opponent,playing offensively and doing this based on technical and tactical capacity,whereby the will to win plays an essential role. You therefore assume an offensive rather than defensive organization. The core of this is that you decide what happens on the field; of course this is open for discussion,because when you play from a defensive organization you can also dictate to a degree,as you determine that the opponent attacks in a small space. This,however,is not dominant play,because you do not determine the situation in an offensive manner. I see dominant play as playing offensively and pressing on the opponent's half. This is my perception,as I believe you should always entertain the fans and the fans are,in my opinion,entertained when you play offensive football. Whether you are able to play dominant is of course dependent on the quality of your opponent,but even more on the quality of your own team. There are many great coaches who never received the recognition they deserve. They have booked great successes by getting optimal results with their team. This is however not always recognized by the outside world,because you don't win any prizes when you are not working with the top players.When you have always worked at the top it is easier to win the title than with,for example, AZ Alkmaar. Dominant play is also largely based on trust. Playing dominant football asks for quality players and for guts and trust to execute it.There are a lot of influential aspects surrounding a group of players.In order to attain good results these aspects must be balanced.Whether you eventually play dominantly is influenced by the players,the technical staff,the board and of course the fans and media. At an absolute top club this environment forms a more complicated factor than at AZ. When I signed at AZ it changed the environment surrounding the club.We are technically still a sub-top club,even though the media attention is rapidly increasing. The product football is a cooperation between the players,the technical staff and the medical staff. First of all there is the quality of the players,quickly followed by the quality of the coach.I think the coach is very influential in a team." He went on to talk about formations. "When you opt to play with a 1-4-3-3 you will,in my perception,have optimal field positioning.You can then decide whether to play with point (in midfield) forwards or backwards.A lot of teams nowadays opt to play with the point backwards,but I prefer to play with the point forwards. When you want to move one player up from the back there will be more room to do this when you are playing with the point forward.You automatically create more space to move up from the back. When you play with the point backwards you will have to create this space by moving out of the way.The beautiful thing about my choice of system is that it creates alot of lines.When you play with a 1-4-4-2 you have a flat four in midfield,creating only 3-4 lines. In our system of play we usually have about 6 lines. So from a mathematical point of view you are creating a lot more passing opportunities. Your positioning is not only better in attack, but also in defense. When you're playing with more lines it will be easier to constrain your opponent. It is always about occupying regions. Take Barcelona for example,they play with the point backwards in midfield. They pressure on the side of the ball with a lot of players and leave the other side free.Whenever you pressure the ball correctly,the opponent will never pass to the other side of the field anyways." He went on to speak about defending various situations. "The toughest situation for us occurs when we are playing against two strikers and we want to defend forward.This is due to the large spaces in the back,which makes the 1v1 situation very dangerous. Usually I will add a player in between.The problem then is that the spaces on midfield will become larger,so our number 10 will have to play in midfield.The result of this is that the opponent will have an extra player in defense and will outnumber us in that area 3v4.We will be playing in a 3-4-3 formation,whereby our number 10 is a fourth midfielder instead of a second striker.In this situation you will have to play with a different number 10."
