An all time cult hero at Leicester City, Steve Walsh captained the Foxes to victory in the 1997 League Cup Final. During a playing career spanning 21 years he also played for Wigan, Norwich and Coventry City.

He now runs his own Soccer Academy with Muzzy Izzet called Future Foxes. The former defender has also set up Legends UK an event and memorabilia company. On top of this he writes a weekly column for the Leicester Mercury. He is an ambassador of the Special Olympics Leicester 2009.

I play centre-back for my Sunday League team. As you can imagine the linesman and referees are a bit dodgy and if they’re from the opposition they have a tendency to cheat. Do you think it would be best to deploy a sweeper system?
Steven Elliot, via e-mail 
What’s the best way of implementing this system? I believe that a sweeper system is only effective when using a 3-5-2 system and combining in with overlapping full-backs.

At Leicester we enjoyed great success with this as I often felt like a left-back, whilst covering Steve Guppy, who raided down the left to supply ammunition for Emile Heskey.

It’s absolute suicide to employ the offside trap in local football, as you simply can’t rely on officials, especially if they are from the other team!


Master Sweeper: Franz Beckenbauer "der Kaiser"

Do you think it’s better to man-mark or to mark zonally? What is your experience of the two? What’s the difference between them?
Ollie Hooper, via e-mail 
If you choose to man-mark, you must stay tight to the player. If you’re using zonal marking, make sure you dominate your area.

I personally preferred zonal marking, as wherever the ball was I just attacked it, without paying attention to any opponents.

This suited my game as I was particularly difficult to beat in aerial battles. At Leicester, with strong central-defensive partners such as Matt Elliott and Gerry Taggart, we were very solid at the back and strikers had to utilise other aspects of the game to beat us.

Playing devil’s advocate, I would have looked to use a smaller striker as a ‘blocker’ to unsettle our leaps when attempting to get to the ball. However, I’d have probably found a… shall we say… ’agricultural’ way to dispose of them!


Spot the ball

If you’re marking someone quick, is it better to get touch-tight or give them a yard and then crunch them when they get the ball?
Sean McGrath, via e-mail 
If you’ve ever seen the way that I played, you’d know that I would have crunched them before they’d even got the ball! In all seriousness, I would always back away and give a quick striker space, which would allow myself a head start on them.

Testing myself against quality Premiership strikers allowed me to increase my understanding of the way they made their runs, which enabled me to read the game better and develop my positional sense over time.

However, if a quick striker has the ball played in to their feet, with their back to goal, this is the time to strike yourself and ensure that you close him down fast before he turns and beats you.


Esteban Cambiasso and Wayne Rooney make friends