The Gastenvak erupts
A Far Post Frenzy publication
Three-hundred and sixty-eight voices tore through the atmosphere at the Abe Lenstra Stadion. The ‘Gastenvak’ south-east corner of sc Heerenveen’s home was bouncing and shaking with ecstatic celebration as Richonell Margaret fired home Go Ahead Eagles fourth goal of the evening, sending them into the lead in the eighty-fourth minute. With the score at 3-4 there was a feeling that this match still had plenty to give. The referee, whistle to lips, got the match back under way with the home support roaring back into voice. Urging an instant response that never came. Three big points for Kowet, bringing blockbuster football to the Eredivisie one match at a time.
One figure stood steady in the center of it all. Eyes smiling upon the floodlit pitch. Pa Ceesay, wearing his now trademark terracotta jacket, orchestrating his sides third win in their opening four Eredivisie matches. Bringing joy to the Deventer faithful. Three-hundred and sixty-eight voices. Manager. Players. Supporters. Caught up together in this rapture of the purest form. Pa Ceesay says his philosophy is all about the gift of football joy, ‘Voetball Vreugde’. Winning is important, but the true victory lies in how much delight the team brings to the stands. Every pass and dribble is a gift. Every goal a shared celebration.
The Go Ahead Eagles fans left the stadium lifted by a unity of unadulterated joy. Smiles all round. There was not much talk of tactics or form. No singling out of player performance. Just pure, infectious joy injected into an evening that saw Pa Ceesay’s team grab victory from two nil down by adding another four goals to their league leading total of eleven.
For Pa Ceesay the evenings result is much more than a sporting victory. It is a living art form, where entertainment is the highest achievement.
Football Manager Focus
Pa Ceesay’s talk of delivering entertaining football has instantly come to fruition on the pitch. We sit top of the league for goals, expected goals for, Non penalty expected goals, shots for, dribbles made and high intensity sprints. We are second for crosses completed and chances created. Only 4 games played yes. But promise made is promise delivered thus far and Pa Ceesay’s non-compromised brand of football might be hard to contain for future opponents. In an age of controlled dynamics and stats driven football, how do you react to an incoming tide of attacking intent?
There is one area of concern however that other teams will be identifying as a weakness to exploit and that is in the amount of goals being conceded at the other end. If you throw your kitchen sink the other way, you might just find success. We sit joint 15th for goals conceded with eight shipped so far. Four of those were in a 1-4 home loss to Ajax where despite the gap in quality, there was no compromise in our approach to the game. This will be a key learning point if we want to convert early joy into long term success.
Out of possession pressing dynamic
4-2-3-1 Gegenpress was the darling tactic of Football Manager 24 and this Go Ahead Eagles side are well suited to this particular style of play. With solid levels of work rate, Teamwork and fitness attributes throughout the squad, we have the players to sustain a collective commitment to this tactical approach. I have seen a trend of using the new Football Manager 26 out of possession tactics to transition to a more defensively solid shape but Gegenpressing is all about the counter press. We do not want our players to be retreating to a withdrawn position on the pitch when we lose the ball but rather to remain in their attacking shape and counter press from there. So we retain our 4-2-3-1 shape both in and out of possession.
Our right full back and central midfield playmaker are both set to out of possession ‘press specific’ roles to further enhance how we pressure the opposition off the ball. We attack when we have the ball and we attack when we don’t. This is a high risk, high reward approach.
Many elements of our in possession instructions are set to deliver the ‘Voetball Vreugde’, footballing joy philosophy.
- A much higher tempo in an attempt to provide as much forward play as possible.
- Little time wasting, relentlessly playing our game until the final whistle.
- Counter-attacking to get the ball forward as soon as we’ve won it back, driving into any space that might be there.
- More expressive creative freedom giving our most talented players free reign to entertain. Attack with a wink. The flicks and tricks that truly inspire.
- Keep ball in play, sustaining our progressive approach.
- Standard passing. While our narrow attacking width naturally equates to a shorter passing style, we want to leave it open for more direct passing where appropriate, to get the ball forward quicker if it is possible to do so. Our forwards are where we want the magic to happen so we want them receiving the ball more often than not.
Our out of possession instructions provide the utmost intensity to our press. Reducing space. Relentless running. We can’t entertain if we don’t have the ball. Our narrow width helps us press as a unit. Our shape helps us maximise the zones of the pitch that we can instigate the press from.
Quirks of the system
For our midfield double pivot, we lack hard tackling enforcers to dominate in defensive positioning and strength, so we are using two central midfielders to provide closer support to the forwards in both our approach play and counter press, rather than being defensively positioned in front of the back four. Robbin Weijenberg has emerged as a bright young prospect adept at playing as an advanced midfield playmaker. His strength in aggression and workrate make him suitable to play as a pressing central midfielder out of possession so he can often lead a press from his more advanced position on the pitch. This does leave us exposed in the middle though so we have our left full back, Dean James, playing as an Inside wing-back to move into the midfield space being vacated.
Right back and team captain Mats Deijl exemplifies the high levels of work rate and aggression needed in our high pressing approach. He plays as an Inside full-back when in position, supporting our progression of the ball more centrally. He lacks the pace to be a constant attacking threat but is comfortable enough to support the play through the middle and to slot into central defense as cover when we are attacking down our left hand side. Out of possession he will press any threat on our right hand side, supported by our right central midfielder who will provide a balance between screening for passes through the middle and supporting the press.
So our system is focused on delivering our attacking play through our forwards. They are the ones being encouraged in their roles to make more attacking movement and runs with the ball. We want to maximise the use of their technical capabilities. We have two promising talents on either wing to act as our creative sparks.
On the left we have Danish 21 year old Jakob Breum. He possesses the flair and technique to use his comprehensive dribbling ability to attack the space from out wide. A capable passer and crosser of the ball he has various ways in which exploit space and create opportunities in the final third. He is playing as our left winger but instructed to sit narrowly where he will combine centrally with Weijenberg to create a bit of an overload against the opposition full back. He will attack the byline from a narrower position of play, increasing the penetration into the oppositions penalty area.
To help provide some space for the overload to be effective, we have our right winger, Norwegian 21 year-old Oskar Sivertsen, instructed to stay wider, stretching the back defensive line. Similarly to Breum, he has the technical attributes well suited to the creative freedom we are giving our attacking players.
To boost their contribution to the brand of entertaining football we are instructing both wingers to make more forward runs and to dribble more often in an attempt to overload the oppositions defense. Both wide men will be creating for our central goal threats coming from an attacking midfielder and ‘number 9’ center forward who will be the ones making central runs into the box. Victor Edvardsen as centre forward scored eight goals in thirty-four Eredivisie matches for Go Ahead Eagles in the 2024/25 season. Under Pa Ceesay he already has four in four so we are certainly getting the best out of the Senior statesman.
Conclusion
We will need to keep an eye on our defensive form and see if a balance needs to be struck somewhere for sustainable success but the early signs are positive that we can achieve our entertainment orientated season objectives and in doing so, Pa Ceesay will quickly be amassing a lot of admiration for this footballing philosophy. As a performance analyst in his previous role, we’ll be diving into what we can from that aspect in Football Manager 26 and analysing what is working well and where we need to look for improvement. We’ll take an in depth look at individual player performance and consider what indicators we need to focus on to assess their contributions to the objectives. What areas of the team might we need to strengthen? Can we break into that top 3? ‘Voetball Vreugde’ has officially arrived at Go Ahead Eagles and its fanbase are hungry for more.