Give them the tools, not the answers — inside Mingo Oramas's game model
Most game models are written as instructions. This one is written as a set of decisions.
FAL Playbook · Modelos
Most game models are written as instructions. Do this here, take that shape there, press when the ball goes wide. Domingo “Mingo” Oramas — a UEFA Pro Licence coach from Spain — writes his differently. Almost every principle in his methodological programme is phrased not as a movement to be executed, but as a situation to be read.
The tell is in a single line from his build-up section: “We give tools to understand what opportunities game give us.” Not we tell them where to run. Tools. Understanding. Opportunities. The verb that keeps recurring across his document is not execute — it is decide.
That matters, because Oramas is not only a head coach. Ten seasons at U.D. Las Palmas took him from U19 head coach — seven league titles, the most-capped Spanish coach in the U19 national championship and Copa del Rey — to head coach of the B team and then to Methodology Director of the club. He is a coach who has had to write down not just what his football looks like, but how it gets into players. In the Modelos series, that combination is rare enough to be the story.
A pass is a message, not a transfer
The first line of his game model does not describe a shape. It describes a language: “Pass as communication channel, third man as transfer to game.”
Treating the pass as communication rather than transport changes what the receiver is responsible for. A ball played into feet is not simply arriving — it is asking a question about where the space is, and the answer is given by the next movement. This is why his positional play section talks about attracting the opponent, facing them, and only then progressing: “Attract opponent, face them, 3rd man. Keep the ball to progress.”
Possession, in other words, is not the objective. It is the instrument that makes the opponent move, and therefore the instrument that makes space appear.
The third man is the recurring answer
Read the offensive concepts in sequence and one figure keeps returning. The third man appears in the game model statement, in build-up, in positional play, and then gets a section of its own — 3rd Man. Superiority — where the demand is put plainly: “Footballers must understand where and how create superiority.”
Understand where and how. Not run to this cone. The third man is the mechanism by which a two-player exchange becomes a three-player advantage, and Oramas treats it as a comprehension problem before it is ever a technical one. Alongside it in the same build-up line sits another concept doing the same work — chase the shadow, the run that hides in the cover shadow of a pressing opponent until the pass makes it visible.
“We give tools to understand what opportunities game give us.”
Four to five seconds, and a mentality to train
Then there is the single number in the entire document.
“First 4-5 second after you loss the ball are crucial.”
The window itself is not unusual — most modern models have one. What is unusual is the second half of the sentence: “We will work players mentality to show the off ball aggression we aim to achieve.” The response to losing the ball is framed as a mentality to be trained, not a trigger to be obeyed. Aggression without the ball is described elsewhere in the model in even blunter terms — attack to the attacker — and the balance principle that sits beside it reads like a locker-room instruction rather than a tactical one: “Fly together.”
Order as the non-negotiable
The defensive organization is where the language hardens. Five words head the defensive column — order, aggressiveness, discipline, pressure, intensity — and the structure section allows no room to argue with them: “Order, discipline and non-negotiable efforts to maintain a compact team. Strong structure as a premise. Close pass line.”
Premise is the operative word. Compactness is not something the team achieves on good days; it is the condition on which everything else is built. Inside the box the instruction narrows to man-to-man, with anticipation and body contact — “Anticipation, use the body, cut opponent run.” — and the defensive actions section asks for the same superiority the attack does, only mirrored: “We have to create defensive superiority.”
Choose when to run
The counter-attack is where the decision-first logic shows most clearly, because most models here simply say go. Oramas does not.
“Understand and choose when we can run taking advantage of space opponent leave. We work depth a lot.”
Understand and choose. The transition is conditional, and the condition is the space the opponent has actually vacated — which means somebody on the pitch has to read it in the moment the ball is won. Depth is the resource that makes the choice available; it appears both in this phase and in the five offensive principles, and it is the one thing he says explicitly that they work a lot.
Why this model travels
Las Palmas, Independiente del Valle in Ecuador, two seasons in the Indian I-League, and back to Europe’s coaching structures. That is an unusual span for one game model to survive, and the reason is visible in how it is built.
A model made of fixed patterns needs the players to already fit the patterns. A model made of decisions needs players who can be taught to read — and reading can be taught anywhere. The training section makes the mechanism explicit: “Development of the cognitive process. Perception, decision, execution.” Sessions are designed as open tasks — “Open tasks with more than one option to choose. Guide to discovering the resolution of each situation.” — because a player who has only ever been given one option cannot make a decision when the game presents two.
That is the through-line of the whole document, and it is why every phase below reads the way it does.
Full four-phase breakdown — sources & sub-principles
Phase 1 · Organized Attack
① Build-up: tools, not instructions
Source“Spaces, create superiority. attract the opponent, 3rd man, chase the shadow, take decision, depth, body shape. We give tools to understand what opportunities game give us.”
- Create space and superiority by attracting the opponent
- Third man and chase-the-shadow runs as the progression mechanisms
- Decision and body shape named as trainable components, not by-products
② Positional play: the pass as a channel
Source“Pass as communication channel. Attract opponent, face them, 3rd man. Keep the ball to progress. We will do too much drills looking for this goal.”
- Possession used to move the opponent, not to hold the ball
- Attract → face → third man as the repeating sequence
- Heavy drill volume dedicated specifically to this idea
③ Third man & superiority
Source“Footballers must understand where and how create superiority. Working this situation we can get a lot advantage in game and build better players.”
- Superiority framed as a comprehension task before a technical one
- Explicitly tied to player development, not only to match advantage
④ Finishing
Source“Body shape, timing, running speed, positional superiority, technique. We will work this situation in all its variants”
- Body shape and timing lead the list, ahead of technique
- Positional superiority carried into the box
- Worked across variants rather than as a single rehearsed pattern
⑤ Offensive set pieces
Source“Set piece its very important in modern football. Discipline, surprise effect, control of situations. Offensive set piece is a important element of our methodology.”
- Named as a methodological element, not a peripheral routine
- Discipline and surprise held together deliberately
⑥ The five offensive principles
SourcePASS · SPACE · DEPTH · FINISHING · WIDTH
- Pass first — consistent with the communication framing
- Depth and width as the two dimensions the model works to open
Phase 2 · Negative Transition (Attack → Defence)
① The four-to-five second window
Source“First 4-5 second after you loss the ball are crucial. We will work players mentality to show the off ball aggression we aim to achieve.”
- Immediate window defined in seconds
- Off-ball aggression trained as mentality, not as a rule to follow
② Balance: timing, return, press, recover
Source“Defensive timing, return, press, recover structure. We have to create winner players so we understand every action is necessary thinking in team. Fly together.”
- Four-step sequence: time it, get back, press, restore the structure
- Every individual action framed as a team obligation
③ Attack the attacker
Source“Sharing effort and sharing spaces, attack to the attacker. Offensive initiative without ball, playing field opposite team and high pressures lines.”
- Initiative claimed without the ball
- Shared effort and shared spaces as the collective condition
- High pressing lines, play staged in the opponent’s half
Phase 3 · Organized Defence
① Structure as premise
Source“Order, discipline and non-negotiable efforts to maintain a compact team. Strong structure as a premise. Close pass line.”
- Compactness treated as a precondition, not an outcome
- Passing lines closed as the first defensive act
② Defensive actions: approach, reduce, attack
Source“Every defensive actions is the most important, intelligent players to take advantage of every action. Approach reduce and attack. We have to create defensive superiority.”
- Three-beat individual sequence: approach, reduce, attack
- Intelligence named as the defensive requirement
- Superiority sought defensively as well as offensively
③ Defence of the box
Source“Man to man into the box. Anticipation, use the body, cut opponent run.”
- Man-to-man inside the box specifically
- Anticipation ahead of reaction; body used to cut the run
④ Defensive set pieces
Source“Every Set piece situation will be worked. Footballer must understand their responsibility every game moment.”
- Every situation covered, not only the common ones
- Responsibility framed as understanding, consistent with the whole model
⑤ The five defensive principles
SourceORDER · AGGRESSIVENESS · DISCIPLINE · PRESSURE · INTENSITY
- Order first — the same premise stated in the structure section
- Aggressiveness and intensity as the emotional register of the phase
Phase 4 · Positive Transition (Defence → Attack)
① Understand and choose
Source“Understand and choose when we can run taking advantage of space opponent leave. We work depth a lot.”
- The counter is conditional, decided by the space actually vacated
- Reading required at the moment of recovery
- Depth as the resource that makes the option exist
Method — how the model is taught
Source“Development of the cognitive process. Perception, decision, execution. Set objectives directed task. Open tasks with more than one option to choose. Guide to discovering the resolution of each situation.”
- Perception → decision → execution as the training spine
- Open tasks with multiple options, by design
- The coach guides discovery rather than supplying the solution
- Player state monitored through indicators and sessions adjusted accordingly
Analyst Read — Modelos
- Decision is the load-bearing concept. Build-up, transition and defence are all written as situations to be read, not movements to be executed. The model’s grammar is consistent across all four phases.
- The third man is the signature. It appears in the game model statement, in build-up, in positional play, and again as a section of its own — the single most repeated mechanism in the document.
- All four phases are declared. Unlike the thinner transition cells common in coach-written models, every phase here carries explicit principles, and the positive transition carries a conditional rule rather than a default instruction.
- Model and method are inseparable. The document specifies not only the football but the pedagogy — perception, decision, execution; open tasks; guided discovery. That is unusual, and it is the reason the model has transferred across Spain, South America and Asia.
- Declared, not inferred. Every principle above is stated in Oramas’s own methodological programme; Modelos has only formalized them into the four phases.
Football Agent Lab — Vistru Partners
