PUPPET MASTER, YOUR STRINGS DON’T WORK
by Mark Heffernan -
“Football is a mindgame. You play with your brain.” Johan Cryuff
In an earlier blog we shared the conversation a friend of ours once had with a young player:
Coach: “ so what is your favorite position? ”
Player: “ center midfield”
Coach: “ Interesting. Is that because you see yourself as a good playmaker? “
Player: “ No its because my dad is one side and my coach is on the other and sometimes if I am in the middle field I can’t hear either of them. “
You have all seen the coach – never stops talking and directs everything taking place:
“ Play Johnnie. Run with it. Take him on. Shoot. Rebound. DROP! DROP! “
We probably shouldn’t have used the term coach since puppet master may be a better description. The scary thing about this though is that it’s incredibly seductive because if the goal is just winning, at a young age, and if the coach knows just enough to be dangerous, it will probably work. While teams at this point tend to be very disorganized, the organized team with the puppet master pulling all the strings will usually win. But if your goal is player development, in the long run it’s a disaster. As players get older the game gets faster, spaces become smaller, and pressure becomes much more intense. There simply isn’t time to listen to instructions and react. Only players who can read the game, and can instantly and instinctively react will have any chance of maximizing their potential. Soccer is a player’s game.
A game of soccer has 22 players most of whom are free to go anywhere they want. We can’t do the math but we can tell you that for all practical purposes that creates an almost infinite number of situations. There are no time outs. Soccer can never be thought of as a series of set plays. Because of this soccer is not a coach centric exercise but is inherently player centric. To have any chance of succeeding at higher and older levels players must be able to see game problems and have the ability to formulate their own solutions. From a training perspective this means:
Players must be taught to understand concepts that they can apply to a wide range of situations.
Players need to learn to make their own decisions.
Players need to feel free to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.
The idea of letting the players play with the minimum of interference in matches, far from reducing the role of the coach, actually elevates the responsibility and makes it much more demanding. If the coach is to perform their job adequately they must become true educators, they must be able to take all the information available and synthesize it into a simplified, progressive curriculum that gradually makes the game clearer for the players. The game of soccer has changed greatly over the last 25 years. Players are faster and stronger and the move towards zonal systems has reduced time and space. These trends will continue. The current World and European champions, Spain, are unquestionably the finest team at the time of writing. Are they faster than their opponents? No. Do they have better technique? They have great technique but then so do many other teams. They are the best team because, as soccer players, they are more intelligent than their opponents. For years Spain has been developing its’ youth on a program of rapid, short passing and constant movement to space and the creation of triangles everywhere on the field. The result is a generation of players able to observe, decide and execute faster than those from other nations. Others will catch up, they will develop their own styles and strategies; such is the nature of a dynamic, competitive system. But only those countries that emphasize intelligence and decision-making in their players will progress. Programs that continue to see soccer as an athletic contest where the team that runs fastest and longest will win are destined to languish in mediocrity.
Those of you who have access to the Inside soccer team pages may have used the animation tool embedded in it. One of its interesting features is that it allows you to create an animated scenario and send it to all your players. They can then edit and send it back as their answer to whatever problem you have posed. The answers you get from this are really, really, really interesting. If an experienced coach were to look at these answers they could go quite close to ranking the effectiveness of the players without ever having seen them play. Certainly they would easily highlight those players who make the most of their ability. It is all too easy to think your players really understand what is happening and what you are telling them. They might, but they might not. The group understands because little Sally is as bright as buttons and always gives the right answer but what about those players at the back staring down at their cleats? For those of you who have the tool, I challenge you to use it with your players. Even if you are the clearest coach in the world you may be surprised at the answers you get back. So we agree with Horst Wein that the essence of great coaching is to choose age appropriate exercises and create a syllabus that teaches your players game intelligence. At higher levels very few players are able to get by on raw athleticism. Various studies have failed to find significant athletic differences between elite and sub elite athletes. By contrast a high soccer IQ coupled with great technique will take you a long way. Look at a 37 year old Paul Scholes, hardly a racehorse even in his prime, coming on and being able to almost instantly change and control the rhythm of the game with his movement, positioning and decision-making. What appears to differentiate the best from the rest is their ability to make quick accurate decisions, to see the field, to anticipate: in short, their ability to think their way through a soccer game. And that presents a challenge and an opportunity to all coaches.
“Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.” Johan Cruyff
Recommended Reading:
Horst Wein: Developing Game Intelligence In Soccer
Joan Vickers: Perception, Cognition and The Quiet Eye
Mark Heffernan: Player Intelligence- The Winning Factor
Henk Mariman: The Soccer Method
