Embracing a Foreign Concept

"Ken Krieger's Hylton teams," Herndon Coach Sean Lanigan offered.

With high school programs often bringing together players of different ages, skill levels and backgrounds, and with inexperienced coaches at the helm, playing possession was thought to be too difficult in the past, several coaches said. But with more experienced coaches taking over programs, and a talent pool increasing in size and in ability, that is changing.

Knock It Around

Lanigan's Herndon team -- ranked third in the area -- is one of the many schools relying more on the controlled style of play, along with teams like Robinson, Stone Bridge, Westfield and Yorktown, all of whom are ranked in The Post's top 10 rankings and considered state title contenders.

Torres said programs have seen an increase in the number of players with a club soccer background that have played at high levels, and that even the lower-level club teams are better educating their players. The larger pool of talent, he said, creates the core of a team that can play comfortably in a more complex system.

"If you're fortunate enough to have players that have ability and play at a high level in their club structure, they're going to bring that club element into their high school team," Torres said. "All the high schools that have a good nucleus of players, they're all trying to [play possession]. With some schools and some teams, possession is not going to happen just because it's not. Another third is going to try to do it sometimes, and if they're down a goal they're going to throw that away. And then there's another third that want to control the tempo and keep the ball and knock it around."

The possession style is considered distinctly South American, with the Brazilian teams known for their highly technical play. And for teams like Yorktown with a large Latin American base, the influence is strong. But Clyde Watson, an assistant coach for the W-League's Washington Freedom who has coached youth soccer in the metropolitan area for nearly 25 years, said the style is a sign of an increasing national trend, and the Latin American influences aren't the only ones that are swaying teams' play.

"We have to recognize that the U.S. is probably the world's greatest melting pot," Watson said. "We have all kind of influences: European, South American, Latin American. What happens is out of all these various preferences there's a developing national trend and this developing national trend is to be able to knock the ball around, possess it a little bit more."

The trend has transferred to the high school fields because the possession brand of soccer works, coaches said, pointing to the success of Krieger's state championships at Hylton as an example.

"You see most of the teams that try to possess it have a chance to get to the regional tournament and do well," Torres said. "And those that don't might not fare that well."

As possession soccer has become more natural to teams, its effectiveness on the field has negated any tendencies to play a "kick-it-and-run" style.

"We've actually had a couple 10-minute spells where we go direct," said Herndon center midfielder Christian McLaughlin, who will play for the University of Virginia in the fall. "People get nervous and we start hitting it up to [forward] Sean [Murnane] and it doesn't work because he's outnumbered. He'll get it and turn and have four defenders on him and he can't do anything with that. When we play direct, we're relying on one or two versus four, and as good as Sean is, when he's playing four defenders by himself it just doesn't work."

For players such as McLaughlin and Sheta, the change to possession soccer has also softened the perception that playing for a high school team can stunt a player's development. In the past, some club programs have barred their players from playing on high school teams in order to prevent bad habits from developing.