Skill Skool and Instagram
Skill Skool Soccer and Instagram
Happy to roll out the Instagram site that is getting great feedback. In a nutshell, I have archive of archive of training videos that I've taken through the years and will continue to innovate much of this visual learning. Instagram has become a staple for most of the kids and so the idea is to spread the wealth of short training videos that will empower the kids to test and aid in their training. I have challenged myself to upload 1 training video a day for 365 days. Each individual drill different from any other. Creation is life. Like me follow me and as it says in the video #getitdone.
RVP freestyle with kids - Amazing Skill
Robin van Persie, the Manchester United forward, shows off his incredible football skills at his own freestyle tournament in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Robin van Persie Tournament is for talented footballers between the ages of eight and 10. In this video, Van Persie is joined by Karim Touzani of Sparta Rotterdam and Tonny Vilhena of Feyenoord
Video courtesy of The Guardian Newspaper.
Drop off or Press
When coaching use 'Triggers' to allow successful decision making that can be consistent through the team. In the following exercise it utilizes a small sided game that allows players to PRESS or DROP OFF. The session is courtesy of The Coaching Manual. A fantastic resource. Take a look at www.thecoachingmanual.com
Chelski Milan in Indy
Look out for public announcement tomorrow. July 27, 2013: Valencia vs AC Milan, Valencia
July 30, 2013: Chelsea vs Inter Milan, Indianapolis (this may be wrong as I am told by reliable source this is an August 1st game )
July 31, 2013: Juventus vs Everton, San Francisco (AT&T Park)
August 1, 2013: Real Madrid vs LA Galaxy, Phoenix
August 3, 2013: West semi-finals, Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium), TBD ET West semi-finals, Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium), 8pm ET
August 4, 2013: East semi-finals, New Jersey (MetLife Stadium) East semi-finals, New Jersey (MetLife Stadium)
August 6, 2013: TBD vs TBD, Miami (Sun Life Stadium) TBD vs TBD, Miami (Sun Life Stadium) August 7, 2013: TBD vs TBD, Miami (Sun Life Stadium), TBD ET TBD vs TBD, Miami (Sun Life Stadium), 9pm ET FOX Soccer will be televising 11 of the 12 games live with presumably the July 27 match in Spain the one game that FOX won’t televise.
Courtesy of Grant Wahl SI.com
Dribbling........Pure Artistry. Watch Watch Watch
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGDQjTYJUKQ[/embed]
Borussia and the Footbonaut
Footbonaut: Dortmund’s Secret Weapon
By JACK BELL In November, Borussia Dortmund was the two-time defending champion of Germany’s Bundesliga, stalking a three-peat and a run deep into the UEFA Champions League.
Only one of those goals was reached. On Wednesday Dortmund plays host to Real Madrid in the first leg of their semifinal series in the top European club tournament. (The other German entry, Bayern Munich, and the other Spanish team, Barcelona, play Tuesday in the other semifinal.) But the club still has one thing others do not.
Last fall Dortmund introduced a novel and striking training device that could be compared to a mixed-martial arts cage or the Thunderdome of movie fame (one player enters, one player leaves), a kind of science-fiction approach to honing an individual’s technical skills — the Footbonaut.
Some assert that the Footbonaut has been Dortmund’s secret weapon. It is more likely, however, that the device simply helped already technically proficient players become even sharper and more capable.
The Footbonaut, which is the brainchild of the Berlin-based Christian Güttler, is controlled by a tablet computer and is about 15 square yards. A player enters and takes up residence in a circle at the center of the device’s artificial turf surface. Balls come spitting his way from eight directions and he must quickly hit them first time or settle and then place the ball into one of 72 panels, depending upon which one lights up (think “Hollywood Squares“).
“We are convinced that at the very least the Footbonaut will improve technique but will also benefit spacial awareness and peripheral vision,” Sven Mislintat, Dortmund’s chief scout, told the club’s Web site. “And we can closely monitor a player’s development with data gleaned from the machine. There is no reason why a player cannot translate the actions practiced in this environment onto the actual playing field.”
Mustafa Amini, Dortmund’s 20-year-old Australian midfielder, said: “It’s as if you are surrounded by 10 colleagues who are there only to serve you balls. In the course of normal training, that level of intensity just is not possible. The Footbonaut allows you to work on any weaknesses and ensures that you play at pace but with precision.”
The device has attracted significant interest around the world — from coaches and people commenting on social media. One fan on a forum on the Liverpool Web site said: “We need to get this right away! Some great stuff.” There was also a response on a forum on Manchester United’s site.
“It is the perfect tool to improve ball-handling skills,” Dortmund Coach Jürgen Klopp said “It demands precise skills used at speed in a physically tough environment. It’s quite a package!”
In an e-mail, Güttler said the device comes in a number of configurations and that the price depends on how sophisticated you want it, ranging from $2.4 million to $3.5 million. Because of contractual restrictions, he said he could not say how much Dortmund’s configuration cost. But like so much else in life, if you have to ask how much it costs you probably can’t afford it.
Follow Jack Bell on Twitter.
Football Golf
A great game combining two sports. Have been known to use many a park path as a water hazard. Kids love it. This takes the game further.
Euro 2012 report. Interesting Analysis
Interesting to see the formations analyzed. The days are gone of strict formations. Alf is turning in his sleep.
10K Hr Practice Rule
Fantatsic book written by Dan Abrahams. Soccer Tough hilites the famous 10 000 practice rule. Great read. Chapter 10 below;
Chapter 10 Kevin’s 10,000 hours
It wasn’t a gift from birth that helped him score 62 goals as a youth team player in a single season. It was Acton Park, or more precisely the thousands of hours he spent there with his two brothers practicing and playing football.
The park in Acton is just a stone’s throw away from Loftus Road, the home of QPR FC and whenever Kevin Gallen went out to play with his brothers Steve and Joe he could see the top of the stadium’s floodlights glistening in the sun. His motivation was visible at all times!
Kevin went on to have a successful career as a Premiership striker, a career largely as a result of the amount he practiced and the manner in which he trained. Recent science is showing us that the way we practice determines how good we become at something. This chapter explores the art and science of training and how to develop the soccer game of your dreams.
10,000 hours
There is one figure that lays on the lips of many of the world’s finest sports coaches right now – 10,000. It is this number that is believed to be one of the secrets to success.
Practice soccer for 10,000 hours and you give yourself a great chance of becoming world class at what you do. But not all soccer fans should get too excited yet. There are, of course, rules and regulations to those 10,000 hours. Some of which I’ll talk about later.
It was a Swedish researcher called Anders Ericsson who came up with the magic number. He discovered that experts practice around the same amount of time every single day including at weekends.
Back in the 1980s Ericsson travelled to Berlin to study the working patterns of top violinists. At the time, people thought that the really top violinists would train for fewer hours than the less accomplished musicians because they had natural talent and ‘didn’t need to practice’. But Ericsson discovered the complete opposite. The best violinists were the ones who invested significantly more time to practice. As a result, over the past 20 years, Anders Ericsson has argued that people can, by and large, reach excellence in their chosen profession or activity but it takes about 10,000 hours of hard work to do so.
He says this:
“With the exception of the influence of height and body size in some sports, no characteristic of the brain or body has yet been shown to constrain an individual from reaching an expert level.”
And Ericsson discovered more interesting facts. He found that the great violinists tended to take a nap or rest after lunch. The violinists told him that the only way they could keep full concentration was to take regular breaks and limit the amount of hours they practiced per day. They said they felt that without a fully focused mindset they were wasting their time.
Anders Ericsson argues that not only do the world’s best become the best because they practice more - but they reach excellence because they practice with greater focus and intensity.
Deliberate practice
Let’s get in our imaginary time machine and head back over 20 years.
Kevin’s twelve year old brain is overloaded. The ball is popped between Steve and Joe with ease and Kevin’s task is to win it back from them. He knows he has to read their body shape – he has to pinpoint subtle body movements that tell him whether they will pass or feign and try to go around him. As Joe comes at him Kevin opens up his body so he can check his left shoulder to get a good look at Steve’s movement. Timing the tackle is everything and as he sees Joe work another step over, Kevin intuitively knows Joe will try and go around him. As Joe side-foots the ball to the right Kevin sticks his foot out and knocks the ball away from Joe, away from danger. Kevin is learning the art of defense. He is learning how to shape his body, how to see others, and how to time a tackle.
Every day at the park Kevin’s brain was overwhelmed by a whirlwind of information. When Steve and Joe invited their older mates to come play, Kevin was the youngest and smallest and had to think quickly to deal with the bigger players’ physicality. He learnt to lose his marker by using his weight and body shape - he pretended to go one way then quickly shifted in another direction. He became adept at finding space by looking up more than everyone else. He learnt to go around defenders not by pace but by throwing a shape. Body angle left, move right. And he learnt to score goals, lots of them, by using his movement to get in front of defenders and by taking first time shots without care of outcome.
Kevin’s education as a football player was the exact mode of practice that Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice isn’t easy and it begins in the brain. It’s not a soccer player doing an hour of training, doing a bit of five-a-side and having fun with mates. It’s mentally and physically taxing. It is a kind of focused, repetitive practice in which you are always monitoring your performance, correcting, experimenting, listening to immediate and constant feedback, and always pushing beyond what you have already achieved.
Let’s examine the attributes of deliberate practice in relation to the way Kevin developed his football.
A footballer has to amaze himself everyday with his effective thinking, focus of attention & goal driven training
Repetition: Kevin practiced a lot!
Deliberate practice centers on repetition. Champions become champions because they practice over and over again, no matter what the weather, no matter what the conditions. Don’t expect to become any good at anything without doing it a lot!
Some of the greatest soccer players of all time come from a background of poverty. Pele grew up in Sao Paulo in Brazil, so poor that he couldn’t afford a soccer ball and was often forced to play with a sock tied to a piece of string or with a grapefruit. Maradona too was born into poverty and lived his first years in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Both of these legends of the game practiced and practiced. They did so in dirt and mud. They did so despite not having the money for flash boots and state of the art soccer balls.
Just as the greatest swimmers swim hundreds of lengths every day and the greatest golfers hit thousands of golf balls every week - a footballer must dedicate himself to play and practice. Kevin Gallen describes Acton Park as his home from home. In school holidays he woke at dawn, put on his tracksuit and walked the couple of hundred meters to the park.
He took hundreds of thousands of touches on the ball, took thousands of shots and spent endless hours passing and tackling. He perfected his spot kicks over time by taking penalty after penalty against his older brothers who acted as keeper. At first they saved most of his shots and they made fun of his weak strikes. But over time the taunting grew quieter as the power in his legs and in his kicks grew greater and greater. He would score more times than they could even get a touch on the ball.
Like most youngsters Kevin and his brothers had a love for football you can almost touch. They had a compulsion to play just as much as a will to win. It was only darkness that ceased the repetitive practice and forced them inside.
A soccer player must play soccer, and work at his soccer. It must be fun, but it must also be constructive
Stretching: Kevin played against older, better players
Kevin was constantly challenged by those he played with every day. As a small 10 year old he played with his equally football obsessed brothers: Joe, who is now assistant manager at Millwall FC and 4 years older than Kevin, and Stephen, who is now Head of Academy at QPR, and 2 years older.
Because he was frequently playing with players who were bigger, stronger and quicker than him Kevin was always stretched as he competed. At a minimum he had to keep up with them, but his passion and approach was to find ways to beat them. This self-induced pressure forced him to focus his mind with a level of intensity that would be unusual for a teenage soccer player. It was this degree of focus that played a huge part in his rapid progress.
With a will to beat his brothers at football Kevin was required to build his skill levels quickly. This meant he couldn’t allow himself to slouch or take a break for a few seconds. To his younger mind his brothers moved with speed and agility. He had no time to think about the past. Mistakes had to dissolve into the background so he could fix his focus on the present moment.
His will to improve extended to post training analysis. In his bedroom after dinner he reviewed and analyzed how well he did against them and asked himself how he could do even better the next day. He didn’t write anything down but he kept a mental note of the components he had to work on.
Many hours of focused, goal directed training is your launch pad for improvement. Every minute of practice offers a learning experience. Striving to be a little better each day provides mental fuel on your journey to discovering how good you can be.
Feedback: His brothers told him ‘like it was’
Kevin was always getting barracked by his brothers. They were always mickey taking when shots were struck poorly or passes went seriously astray. But underneath the ‘banter’ (as we call it in England) there were always instructional comments for Kevin. “You shot when you should have passed there” or “You didn’t get your head up... I was calling for it” were the types of feedback Kevin grew accustomed to.
Kevin came away from the park every day with his head buzzing with ideas. Not only did he take time to self-analyze but he pondered the comments his brothers had made during the day’s practice. If they had shouted at him for shooting he asked himself why he had shot and why the option to pass was better. If they’d moaned at him for missing the target he thought a little about how he could get better at hitting the target. If they’d barked at him for losing control of the ball he imagined ways to improve his first touch. Kevin reflected on his day of practice not as if it was just a game (although he had a lot of fun playing) but as if it was his obsession to improve – to get slightly closer to the performances of his older brothers.
Deliberate practice involves feedback - verbally from others, visually from watching yourself play, or kinesthetically (from your bodily feelings) from your own mind.
Most of the time you need feedback from an outside source, from a coach or mentor. Make sure this feedback is as specific as possible and is solution focused. You need a coach to tell you about your game, the things you can control. Ask your coach what he felt you did well, then ask him to tell you what he feels needs to go better. “You need to win more headers” is not specific enough. “You need to time your jumps better to win more headers” is more precise feedback and gives you something tangible to work on. Allow me to give you a few more examples of good and bad feedback.
“You need to stop letting goals in. You are good enough not to.” vs. “Commit to catching the balls on crosses. Be confident in yourself and you’ll jump higher than the opposition strikers. You’re good enough to keep a clean sheet.”
“Stop giving the ball away.” vs. “Relax on your passes. Spot your man and commit confidently to your pass. Try to focus on getting a great strike on the ball and trust your body to kick it in the right direction.”
“You are always fouling. Stop fouling.” vs. “Stand the player up. Remain on your feet and stay focused as he tries to go around you.”
Of course you can’t control the initial feedback from your coach but you can ask him to elaborate. You can ask him to tell you exactly how he wants you to improve the specific area of the game he gives you feedback on.
Remember, a great coach is only as good as his students are at learning. So take ownership of your feedback and communicate with your coach. Keep asking him what specifically you have to do to improve your game.
Working hard is important, working correctly is crucial
How you should train
Train a little more
How often do you practice and train? Very few people reading this book are professional soccer players. Very few people can (or want) to make a living from the game. But if you are a recreational player who enjoys playing on a weekend for your local team or playing five-a-side with work colleagues then please do take a little more time to practice your game.
You’ll be amazed how much you can improve just by turning up to the pitch 30 minutes earlier than normal to do a little more practice. Take a few shots, put some cones out and dribble around them. Invite a friend so he can go in goal or so he can try to tackle you in a one-versus-one.
If you train twice a week then an extra hour over those 2 sessions turns into 4 hours over the course of a month. So you will put in another 40-50 hours a year for just an extra small effort 2 days a week.
See a little more
Improvement starts in the brain so it’s important you make your practice and training as mentally demanding as possible. It’s easiest to do this in your extra practice. Make your shooting practice tougher by making the goal smaller. Place 2 bibs inside the goal, a couple of meters apart, and try to hit between the bibs from different angles. Maybe get a team mate to put you under pressure by closing you down quickly. If you are dribbling around cones then put those cones at ever decreasing distances apart so your ball control has to get better and better.
There are a whole set of drills you can do on your own or with a partner. The main message from the concept of deliberate practice is that soccer drills have to make you stretch your mind. They must be mentally demanding and physically challenging. They must make you think and they must pinpoint your focus.
In football most of your sessions are set by the coach so it is up to you how you make the sessions mentally tougher for yourself. You could try to complete a passing drill with your head up more - checking your shoulders before the ball arrives at your feet. With drills that require a good first touch you could stretch yourself by trying to constantly improve your ability to deaden the speed of the ball. Similarly, if a drill involves running then you could strive to execute the drill while working on your running technique.
Deliberate practice demands that you don’t get lazy as you train with your team. This is something I see time and again with soccer players. They complete drills with poor body language, in a ‘switched off’ manner. Stretch yourself. Strive to complete every drill to the best of your ability. Be the best at doing exercises, practices and drills on the team. Execute them with a goal in mind and with complete confidence.
When you play small sided games or practice matches deliver a performance outside of your comfort zone. Play with freedom and focus. Try to do things you haven’t done before. Experiment! If the coach asks you to rein things in then do so but until that time look to broaden your set of skills by attempting new movements, new techniques and new plays.
In this way you set a path to becoming an expert performer. You’ll start to see things on the pitch differently and see things that you hadn’t seen before. And I mean both visually and mentally.
Expert performers in any walk of life have a better and faster understanding of what they see. An expert driver will see a hazardous situation before a novice driver. An expert tennis player will see the way his opponent is shaping up to hit the ball. He can predict where the ball will come back to him and with what type of spin.
Great footballers have this kind of ‘better and faster’ understanding of the game. The game is slower to them. They have a feel for the game that enables them to make decisions and constant adjustments before everyone else. This starts with deliberate practice. This starts by practicing more and then by making sure you are taxing your brain as you train – stretching yourself.
In your next training session practice playing with too much confidence
Know a little more
As I mentioned in the introduction to this book the beauty of my profession is that I can help players improve without them having to break sweat. They can work on their mindset in the quiet solitude of their own home.
The great thing about deliberate practice is that it encompasses not only the times you are training but it also involves the notion of studying the game. If you start the process of becoming a student of the game then every minute you spend in learning mode counts toward your 10,000 hours of practice.
Do you understand the formation your coach likes you to play in? Are you aware of the role and responsibilities of your team mates?
You may not be able to play like Xavi Hernandes but do you know as much about playing as a midfielder as he does? You may not score any goals for AC Milan but do you know your striker role as well as Zlatan Ibrahimovic? If not, why not? It’s only knowledge, and yet knowledge is a powerful forerunner to skill. When you know more you can do more.
Do you watch much soccer? You probably do, but let me re-phrase this question slightly. Do you study much soccer? When you next settle down to watch one of the world’s leading games such as Barcelona versus Real Madrid, Inter Milan versus AC Milan, or Manchester United versus Chelsea I invite you to study the game as you watch. This means taking your eye away from the ball and focusing on the players.
Watch their movement, the runs they make, their touch on the ball and the passes they complete. Specifically study the players in the position you play. Ask yourself
What are they thinking? What are they seeing that helps them make the decisions they make? What are they feeling? I have asked you several times to imagine yourself as a world beater. It is especially important you exercise your imagination when you watch soccer.
When does the defender I’m watching close down his opposition? What body shape do they keep to be able to see man and ball? When do box-to-box midfielders surge forward and when do they track back? What movement helps the striker I’m watching lose a defender? How is he getting free from his marker inside the box?
Questions, question, questions. Answer these questions in your mind and imagine yourself on the pitch in the game you are watching making the same plays as the world beaters you are learning from.
This works, and works powerfully. How? As a result of a quirk of the brain.
Working harder than the opposition only gets you so far. Working with greater quality should be your aim
Your brain has mirrors
“On your marks.”
Everyone in the stadium starts to hush.
“Set.”
The silence is painful.
“Bang.”
I don’t know about you but when I watch top level sport I experience a little of what the competitors do. When I watch the Olympic final of the 100 meters I can feel my body shake a little and I can sense my heart rate jump slightly. I don’t have the same nerves as those who are running, but I do get a few nervous sensations running up and down my body.
Emotions and actions are easy to catch. When we see someone cry or laugh, display anger or show pain we can share a piece of what they experience. Equally when we watch a powerful movie filled with emotion our own feelings swell and when we listen to great music by a band - it’s as if we can experience a piece of what they are going through.
The secret behind this lies in our brain. Over twenty years ago a group of Italian researchers hooked wires up to the brains of monkeys. They found that the brains responded in the same way whether they were picking up some food or simply watching other monkeys pick up food. The same region of the brain would light up. There have been identical results in humans. If I was to watch you switch on the TV, the areas of my brain that would respond would be the same areas that engage if I was turning on the TV myself.
So what has essentially been discovered is that the brain has mirrors. This means we do a lot of our learning by watching other people. This includes sport as well. For example, a scientist called Daniel Glaser asked some ballet dancers to watch other ballet dancers while he hooked up some wires to their brains. He found that the dancers had substantial activity in the part of the brain that controlled dancing when watching other ballet dancers.
It’s clear I can watch you do something, such as chipping a football, remember it, then use the same skill later. That sounds obvious but how many of you take time to model players who are better than you or who are better than you in a certain area of the game such as tackling or passing?
The process of learning from others is a genuine part of your 10,000 hours of training. Simply by watching someone play you are feeding your mind and developing your skill.
Working hard and working with quality despite not feeling at your best. That is mental toughness
Be position specific
Choose a player to model who plays in the same position as you. As a real world example, Carlton Cole chose to take time watching Didier Drogba and John Carew play. He enjoyed taking DVDs home from the West Ham training ground to watch them play from the comfort of his sofa.
Choose a player whose attributes you’d like to build into your game. If you’re a central defender you might like to watch the competitiveness and strength of Carlos Puyol. A full back might clip footage of Paulo Maldini or Ashley Cole. Perhaps as a midfielder you might get inspired by watching old recordings of Zinedine Zidane. Whilst you might not be able to replicate his skills, just by imagining executing his movements you will get a boost of confidence and motivation. Similarly as a striker you might record the runs of Shevchenko, watch the goals of Ruud Van Nistelrooy, or bring out old highlights of Gary Lineker’s positioning.
The point is that you choose someone who you believe has the characteristics that your game can build on.
Use their eyes, their heart and their mind
When you watch your models - try to see the world through their eyes. Mentally place yourself in the body of your chosen player. Feel what he feels. Think what he is thinking. Look where he is looking.
Use the whole of your body. If you are modeling the powerful clearance headers of John Terry feel yourself push off the ground, leap high into the air and launch your head onto the ball. Allow yourself to see the ball soar into the sky and bounce down on the half way line. Add an opponent to make your images as authentic as possible. Feel your opponent jump against you – feel him straining to get his head on the ball. But always win the challenge.
Add a sense of character to your images. If it’s John Terry then inject your images with reality by sensing a feeling of dominance. If you are watching the German midfielder Mesut Ozil then add a sense of liveliness and confidence. If it’s the French striker Karim Benzema you are modeling then enjoy the feeling of strength that he brings to his game. Putting yourself into the boots of American striker Landon Donovan? Then enjoy a feeling of freedom, dynamism and pace.
Of course there is a little guesswork to this process but I really want you to get into the action when you watch your model. Don’t be frightened to act as you watch and picture. Stand up and pretend to trap the ball just as your model does. Jump up and win a header just like your model. I want you to literally do it.
Getting the balance
The quantity and quality of your training is a big determinant of your trajectory as a footballer. However, as we shall discuss in the next chapter it is important to add a sense of patience, calm and relaxation into your training and your game. Driving toward perfection is dangerous – therein lies fear and anger.
Make sure you put your foot in on number 10. He must be a player.
In the old days, (Well when I played) the number you wore typically was indicative of the position you played on the field. But there were certain numbers that typically were saved for the special player that served a role that the number became accustomed. The number 10 was the revered number and for most fans their favorite creative player wore it. I remember pulling on the jersey and having a greater sense of responsibility on the field. Knowing im probably more likely to get kicked. So in a world of 23s and 32s and 99s, its nice to look back courtesy of TFT blog.
The Decline Of The Classic Number 10
We look at the decline of the classic number 10. Full of grace, skill and intelligence, the likes of Totti, Riquelme, Platini and Valeron are most certainly a thing of the past. What has brought about the decline of the role? Will it ever return? We answer.
"Football is working class ballet." – the hallowed and much revered words of Alf Garnett.
There’s no debate either; football is beautiful, just as the ballet is. Both require precise technique. Both require brilliant vocabulary when performing. And both capture the imagination of those who watch with awe and excitement.
The Beautiful Game has always boasted a plethora of stunning sights for purists and part timers alike. The sight of a stand awash with scarves, flags and banners, in full voice, can only be admired. A trip to the Westfalenstadion, home of Borussia Dortmund is a majestic sight as a yellow wall greets the opposition players.
There’s other beauty too. The intricate passing games of Barcelona and Spain today; Liverpool and Real Madrid yesterday. The orange invasion at every World Cup. Such sights are a fixture in the footballing world – whether it’s Barcelona this decade or Paris Saint-Germain next, there will always be the footballing masters of the day. The individuals who make the game beautiful.
The Dutch will always turn up in tides of orange. The Stade Velodrome will always be a decimal busting bowl. Yet one sight becomes ever rarer each passing year – the classic number 10.
From Platini to Totti, the classic number 10 has always been a sight to inspire dreams and engulf kids into what is possible with a ball. Elusive for much of a game yet so often the match winner, these players are the embodiment of technique, grace and skill. Relying on touch, vision, control and most importantly, speed of thought, the classic number 10’s role was to create and score where possible. Teammates sprang into life around the player, anticipating knife-through-butter killer balls and deft touches to open up defences.
Without the ball, the number 10 was so often work shy and lazy. The ‘dirty work’ was left to the anchor man and defence – instead the player would drift around and find space to receive a pass and look to create between the lines. And it worked. There was no point asking a player who combines visions and skill to track back. Their ability to unlock defences and turn a seemingly innocuous attacking phase into a goal required them to be placed higher up the pitch.
Note the past tense. With great regret, the European game is seeing a decline in such players, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the speed has increased just too much now. Perhaps the rigid defensive lines in midfield and defence are too tight and narrow to find space and time in the hole. Maybe it’s neither. Maybe teams just require more dynamic players who can contribute in the attacking and defensive phase.
The increase in the speed of the game as well as a greater reliance on strength and power has contributed heavily to the downfall of such a player. At the very top of the game, the relationship between space and time has become yet tighter and the integral use of anchor men and holding midfielders has been influential in denying the opportunity to play between the lines. Crucially these holding midfielders are frequently able to create from deep (Pirlo, Xabi Alonso, Arteta).
There’s an abundance of valid reasons to sum up the decline of the classic numbers 10. Perhaps the role has changed. The number 10 is by all accounts heading to a place where skills and technique are needed in equal measure alongside strength and power. Marouane Fellaini executes the role brilliantly for Everton. Using a combination of aerial power and technical ability, he affords his team a variety of options in terms of playing out.
Robert Lewandowski also executed this brilliantly in his earlier Dortmund days. Prior to becoming a clinical finisher, his all round game was relied upon far more heavily. He would use balance, strength and skill to drop deeper and offer a range of options.
In addition to their ability when dropping deeper, the modern number 10 can also score. They’ll work hard to get on the end of moves in wider areas, sometimes even penetrating as the furthest player forward. For the magicians of years gone by, this lung busting activity was beyond their game. Not because they didn’t necessarily have the capability. They didn’t want to. And they didn’t have to.
Football is different now. The success of Barcelona, Dortmund and Real Madrid is based on the ability to press high to win possession closer to the opponent’s goal. There’s no time or space to carry passengers. Sadly those days are over. And with it, only memories remain. Memories of a glorious Riquelme at his best for Villarreal and Argentina. Of Platini mesmerizing Turin with his skills and precision Of Bergkamp dropping and using his incredible vision to turn a move into a chance.
The passing of Juan Roman Riquelme from Spain back to Argentina in 2008 represented the beginning of the end for such a player. Perhaps with Del Piero moving to Australia and Totti entering the final years of his career, the end is nigh. Even the sumptuously gifted Juan Valeron of Deportivo La Coruna, still as injury prone as ever, is nearing the end.
The reversion to old fashioned wingers and their success in the modern game, in addition to the inside forward role, has also contributed to driving the classic number 10 to virtual extinction. While clubs will always possess ‘luxury players’ (The Robinho’s of this world), the central figure who was the focal point of every attack is a player in decline - the quick thinker who dwelt in possession is no longer able to hold possession between the lines.
The modern luxury player is commonly a striker or winger. In the case of a work shy striker, teams will compensate by pushing midfielders up to close down early and deny space with the striker looking to latch on to misplaced passes. Wingers can be covered by the aforementioned holding midfielders moving across or strikers working harder to close down the full back. The defensive striker (Kuyt) is on the rise.
Central players need to have a work ethic in the modern game and this has driven a change in personnel at so many clubs.
The old fashioned number 10 was in so many cases a loose cannon off the field, enjoying a playboy lifestyle and an attitude to training that wouldn’t be tolerated in today’s sport science culture. The modern number 10 (Messi, Rooney, Ozil) possess all the technical skills needed to turn defence into attack in an instant as well as superb physical conditioning and an appetite to work hard for the team when out of possession.
This has enabled the likes of Manchester United and Barcelona to close down higher up the pitch and win the ball back closer to the opponent’s goal – a counter attack started from 40 yards away is more likely to yield results than one started 70 yards away. Very few teams get the chance to reorganize when Barcelona hit them on the counter from 40-50 yards away; the speed of the game is just too fast. For example, at their best, Barcelona will counter and 5/6 metres per second. Pace, strength and skill is an essential combination in making a counter work today.
So will we ever see the old fashioned number 10 back at the very top of the game? Perhaps not although brilliance will always be brilliance. It’s hard to imagine many games passing Del Piero by on his day.
The beautiful game goes through periods and styles of play that alternate with each new era. In the past 30 years we’ve gone from the regular use of 3-5-2 (wingbacks) to 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 to the modern 4-1-2-3. As the game changes so will its tactics and the accommodation for the old fashioned number 10 may once again be opened. The sight that thrilled so many youngsters when growing up will once again return to our screens. Or so we can only hope.
Moody, elusive, volatile and lazy, yet exquisitely skillful and effortlessly intelligent, the classic number 10 may be a dying breed but one whose memories will long live in the mind of football fans who witnessed their graceful brilliance.
All in a days work. At the San Siro with Barcelona.
What an experience to delegate the AC Milan game Barcelona game. Proud of my brother. Picture pitch side overlooking Barcelona training session pre game at the San Siro.
Player Position Profiling
Very well put together ebook by futuresoccerpro.com Will use to evaluate players strengths and weaknesses. PLAYER POSITIONING PROFILING
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Heading can be fun
With the limitation of space you have to be creative. My sons favorite drill. Diving headers on mat. Imagination and use of whats around makes for fun practice.