Developing soccer skills: Challenging

SCW: In youth soccer, strength can vary a lot between players. Do you think a player’s physical make-up impacts how good they can be in the challenge or can they learn to work with their body?

MK: I think both. Obviously there is a body type that is going to have an advantageous starting point when it comes to challenging. At the top level, players that have to make a lot of defensive challenges - particularly centre-backs - are usually physically robust, stronger and often taller.

A lot of strength aspects can obviously be improved in the gym but when it comes to a 1v1, it’s not about pure strength and what I can bench press. It is also about how co-ordinated I am so that I can maintain balance and agility under contact.

If I am not very co-ordinated and you initiate physical contact against me and I get knocked off balance, it doesn’t help me if I can bench press 120kg.

The best way to improve challenging is still by training it in a football context. As players gain more self-security and experience in terms of making tackles and playing with physical contact, they will also get better within that [challenging] scenario, because their bodies will intrinsically adapt to playing under contact and with the elements of balance and co-ordination, which play such a large role.

Different players can use different physical abilities to their advantage. If I don’t naturally have the strongest upper body, I can maybe compensate by getting into a lower position and thereby having a stronger, lower centre of gravity. 

If I’m not the strongest, but I’m very quick, I might be able to build momentum going into a challenge, or even skipping the challenges altogether with speed.

"When it comes to a 1v1, it’s not about pure strength and what I can bench press..."

There’s different ways of adapting to a problem. Football is too complex a game for it to only favour one type of body and one type of player in any type of situation.

SCW: What do you make of the instruction: "Watch the player, not the ball" or vice versa?

MK: Either one is difficult for me because, in order to make good football decisions, you need as much information as possible. If I’m only watching the opponent, I might miss the moment the ball is played to them and give away the opportunity to intercept, or make the challenge at the wrong time.

If I only look at the ball, then I’m not seeing the body position of the opponent and might challenge from the wrong side, which can allow them to go on to their stronger foot or go towards other team-mates.

For me, soccer actions involve orientation and scanning intrinsically. With years of experiencing the game, I can process this information better and in a more situationally appropriate way.

I think there’s perhaps an order of looking at the information. In attack, you might want to coach that you look at the ball first, then the position of the opponent, then the position of your team-mates and then the space that you’re in.

In defence, you could say look at the position of the ball first, then the position of your team-mates, then the position of the opponent, then the space that you’re in. It depends a bit, though, on how you want to play the game.

As a player gets older and the football situation becomes bigger, they need to be able to process this information better because if they single in too much on any one piece of information, they might lose [sight of] cues and triggers that the other pieces of information could have given them.

For example, if I only look at the attacker, I might not even know that they have a lot of team-mates in support. I don’t have a lot of team-mates and support so I go in for the challenge. 

I’ve been pinned and committed to that attacker but now they are very easily able to pass to one of their team-mates and now the space I came from is exposed and they are able to quite easily play into it. So, orientation, scanning and processing information is all parts of a football action. 

The better I am able to communicate and interact with my environment, the better the conditions to make a good situational decision.

I think this is the inherent complexity of the game. It is also part of the reason why people can watch their whole lives and still not be bored by it, because it is such a complex game - and the complexity involves a degree of difference.

As coaches, we have to be comfortable with that complexity. We have to understand that it is there and that it is an inherent part of the game. Consequently, oversimplifying the game sometimes can have bit of a detrimental effect.

SCW: Any final thoughts on challenging?

MK: It is great to encourage players to be comfortable with physical contact. Training predominantly with games and practices that involve team-mates and opponents is going to give us repetition of challenging.

Creating a degree of comfort in physically challenging moments is going to help our players’ confidence, because it is something that certain players might [otherwise] try to sidestep. 

However, if they can get comfortable with this part of the game, it often builds their confidence to express themselves.

It is key to encourage challenging and embracing physical contact within the rules of the game and while still looking for clean, creative football solutions. I think it’s a very important balance to meet. 

It’s something that players typically get better at as they get older and it’s something that players typically struggle with when they step into senior football from junior football, because it is more physical.

Challenging is crucial. It needs to be trained. But it can’t be overtrained. And it still needs to be trained within the context of the game, especially with the youngest ages and relatively sensitive players. We need to have a close eye on the social aspect of the physical contact.