Developing the 'under-developed'

Have you ever wondered why certain players perform well against an average opponent, only to find themselves exposed in the next match by a higher-level team?

These players are often labeled with phrases such as ‘not ready’ or ‘not technical enough’ - and, at the same time, don’t often receive an accurate assessment of where and how they need to improve.

Some coaches may simply not even know specifically why their players are ‘not good enough,’ while others may find it extremely difficult and time consuming to break down the individual technical execution and/or decision-making for every athlete on a team. 

The drawback to these time and resource restrictions is that athletes who have issues at one level or another may go uncorrected for a prolonged, even indefinite, period of time.

For example, a player with solid technique may not necessarily able to use it at the relevant time and/or for the relevant situation, or even know how to apply this technique in communication and co-ordination with their teammates.

Conversely, a player with good game insight may be unable to receive a pass effectively, due to deficiencies with their movement, technical quality or level of physical conditioning.

In either case, these players will only be able to contribute partially to the overall team performance.

Here’s the thing though. Only a team can fulfill the objective of the game - but the role of the individual is important in allowing the team to do this.

If you ultimately want to improve your team’s performance as a whole, then you must have the aim of developing the quality of each player’s soccer actions within your team.

This means that each player is given the opportunity to become better and more effective at passing, getting open, shooting, pressuring, heading, creating space, pressing, clearing, dribbling and so forth.

These skills are the resources that each player has at their disposal to help contribute to the team’s overall objective, of scoring one more goal than your opponent.

"I may give detailed instructions on body movement and how it related to execution..."

The question is: how are the individual players executing these qualities. Are they effective or not?

The areas of movement and problem solving are fundamental to soccer and to the development of the overall football action for each player. It is here where I love to go to work and have found several key areas of underdevelopment in this regard. 

I start the process of developing more effective soccer actions by observing the player in their warm-up or when they execute an action, such as dribbling the ball towards an opponent.

Depending on what I see, I may give the player very detailed instructions in terms of their body movements and how this relates back to their execution of a soccer action.

For example, this might look like asking the player to become more aware of co-ordinating their upper body with their lower body or having an awareness of how high or low their body positioning is when they move.