How Badly Do You Want To Be A Great Footballer?
August 11, 2008
Ever wonder what it’s like to live in Pele’s shoes? What about Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, George Best, Cristiano Rinaldo or Ronaldinho? Being a footballer is an honor and a privilege that you have in life. As an individual you have been blessed with physical health and skill to play and compete in such a mentally and physically challenging sport. In football there are many life lessons to be learned and in life that are many lessons that can be applied from what football teaches us. So, what are some of these lessons you may be asking yourself?
What Football Teaches Us
Football teaches us about faith, family, dedication, commitment, teamwork, struggle, success, failure, accountability and so much more. But, it’s just a game you say! Well, it all depends on how you approach the game, what you put into it, what you intend to get out of it, and what you plan to give back to it.
Football has not become known as “the beautiful game” just because of its poetic nature and skilled, artistic-like movement of its players or strategic mastermind coaches. It has become “the beautiful game” for the wholeness of what we get out of and bring to the game – passion!
Passion is the essence of the game. Do you have the passion? Do you have the drive?
Channel Your Passion Into 3 Core Areas
There are so many things to work on and only so much time. What should you be doing as a player to become great? You should be focus your energy on three core things:
- Your Game
- Your Body
- Your Mind
Sounds simple, huh? It can be if you have the right focus, passion and the people to guide you through your personal development process. But, how can you channel your passion and energy to become a great footballer?
For one thing you need to understand what some of the key elements are to strengthening your core. This is why we have developed a simple guideline to help you understand the key elements that make up your game, body and mind.
Focus on 24 Key Elements
With in each core you have 8 key elements that make up the core. These 8 key elements are critical to strengthen your total performance as a footballer. Ok, so what are they:
Your Game
- Marking – your ability to track and apply pressure on your opponent.
- Positional Play – your ability to consistently be a step ahead of your competitor.
- Ball Control – your technical ability to hold, secure, distribute and attack with the ball.
- Intercepting – your ability to dispossess the opponent and transition play.
- Tackling – your ability in taking the ball directly from your opponent.
- Heading – defensively or offensively, your ability to play with your head.
- Attacking – your ability to penetrate and threaten your opponents goal.
- Shooting – your ability to hit the target and score!
Your Body
- Food Intake – eating healthy and wisely.
- Fluid Intake – consumption of correct type and quantities.
- Speed – explosive and consistently outpacing your competitor.
- Strength – the capacity to overpower your competition.
- Stamina – capability to sustain performance.
- Power – combination of speed & strength of movement.
- Agility – your ability to change direction of force with minimal loss of speed.
- Flexibility – limit risk of injury & increase range of movement.
Your Mind
- Communication – how well you listen to, instruct, guide and help teammates verbally.
- Confidence – your personal belief in your abilities.
- Aggression – your attitude and competitive nature.
- Understanding – how well you know and study the game.
- Reading the Game – your thought process and ability to impact the game tactically.
- Awareness – your vision and foresight to capitalize or reduce pressure in the game.
- Preparation – your ability to concentrate and perform consistently at high levels.
- Composure – your capability to recover mentally from performance lapses or manage high stress situations.
How Do You Measure Up?
How do you measure up in these key areas? Depending on how badly you want to be a great footballer your next task should be to paint a clear picture of exactly where you shape up. Once you have that picture clear how will you build an improvement plan for success? Well, that’s where Footballers FC can help. We are starting a series on the 24 Key Elements mentioned above in the Game, Body and Mind sections of the blog.
Get Started Today
- We recommend completing a Footballers Personal Assessment Kit - CLICK HERE TO GET THE KIT.
- Subscribe to this blog by email or RSS (top right corner).
- If not a member already, CLICK HERE TO JOIN FOOTBALLERS FC.
- Share your thoughts on the, “24 Key Elements To Being A Great Footballer” series right here on FFC.
What ideas, input, experiences or resources can you share? Feel free to make a comment below.
As part of FFC’s series on, “24 Key Elements To Being A Great Footballer” we are discussing each key element in 24 successive blog posts every Monday, Wednesday & Friday over an 8 week period inside the respective Game, Body and Mind sections. For more information about the 24 Key Elements get our Players Assessment Kit here.
What Shape Is Your Body In?
August 11, 2008
Players and coaches, we discussed in our featured post this week, “How Badly Do You Want To Be A Great Footballer” that we are starting a focused study on key fundamental elements to being a great footballer. We have outlined the 8 key elements with in the core Your Body segment below:
Your Body
- Food Intake – eating healthy and wisely.
- Fluid Intake – consumption of correct type and quantities.
- Speed – explosive and consistently outpacing your competitor.
- Strength – the capacity to overpower your competition.
- Stamina – capability to sustain performance.
- Power – combination of speed & strength of movement.
- Agility – your ability to change direction of force with minimal loss of speed.
- Flexibility – limit risk of injury & increase range of movement.
Get Stuck In & Share Your Thoughts
Now, while we work to lead the discussion we need your participation and open mind. What do you think about these key elements? Where do you think you stack up? If you’d like to find out where you stand click here. Share your thoughts below and make sure to subscribe to the blog so you get everything right in your inbox or RSS feed reader.
Applying Our Collective Football Knowledge
August 9, 2008
Do you think you know it all? Some people do but, I sure don’t. I personally have so much to learn it’s crazy and so do you. However, you may not know it yet. Thus, is the purpose of this post.
Many footballers on FFC are here to get better. Others are here to reach the next level. Still, others are here to help the next generation of footballers and are seeking information too. True footballers always study the game.
So, wouldn’t it be cool to be a student of the game while at the same time teaching others? This may sound nuts but, it’s actually simpler than you think. Do some research, do some more research then write about what you found via your personal FFC blog. Make sure to provide a few links in case the reader wants to read more.
What exactly should you blog about? Really, anything you want it’s your blog and it’s your voice. But, just in case you need some ideas - here are a few things to consider, which I was thinking of looking into:
Game - Tactics & Training Techniques
- The Importance Of First Touch - Video
- Art Of The Second Ball
- Anticipation - A Key To Success
Body - Nutrition & Fitness
- Vegetables That Actually Improve Endurance & Focus
- Aerobic Interval Training
- Tips On What To Eat Prior To Games
Mind - Psychological Matters
- The Most Important Play - The Next One
- How Focus = Success
- Mind Training For Success
This is just an example of what could be done. Further, if there were numerous coaches, players, fitness trainers, wellness experts, nutritionists and sports psychologists all contributing to community at their leisure and inline with personal passions, great things are bound to happen.
What do you say? You gonna Get Stuck In?
Mmmm Chicken Piccata
August 9, 2008
Here is another great pre-match dish. Yummie…..
INGREDIENTS:
* Pasta
* 2 Chicken Breast
* Olive Oil
* Fresh Garlic
* 1 Tbsp Flour (or Cornstarch)
* Fresh Lemon
* 1 cup White Wine (Chardonnay)
* Chicken Stock
* Capers
* Fresh Oregano
* Butter
Cooking Instructions:
Set Fire to medium-high heat. Boil pasta in separate pan and strain. Cook chicken in olive oil in cubes, strips or fillets until browned. Take out of pan and lay on paper towel. In same pan with oil and dripping, add chopped garlic and brown. Add a tablespoon or two of corn starch or flour to make a rue. Add about one cup white wine (chardonnay I like best) and reduce to a thick sauce. Squeeze in a lemon while reducing. Add half cup of chicken stock and reduce again to thinner sauce. Add capers and fresh (preferred) or dry oregano. Finish sauce with a patte of butter. Add pasta & chicken and mix.
What spectacular dishes do you prepare for you pre-game meals?
Member Focus: John Stevanja of GOALKEEPER SKOOL
August 9, 2008
Helloooooooooo members of the FFC Nation! I want to bring your attention to one of our coolest members John Stevanja or BIGJ01 . John is one of our early members and has done some much for FFC.
John was recently nominated for a bloggers choice award and you can vote for him here. In case you did not know, John recently wrote a Goal Keepers book called the G-Code and he’s extremely passionate about helping aspiring goal keepers.
BIG John is an open and honest guy - a cool cat. So, if you’re a goal keeper looking for some tips on how to get better check out his blog and connect with him on ZZ.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: keeperskool, goal keeping, soccer, football, john stevanja
News Section Coming Soon
August 9, 2008
This is our news section which is coming soon. We’re putting together some cool stuff for this section but, we’d also like to know what ideas you have for this content section.
We’re thinking about covering the following:
- tables from the various leagues
- current reactions to current events
- insights that might be uncovered
There’s much more that we could do but we really want to hear from you about what you want us to publish here. Do you want to cover things here personally that happen around the world?
Would you be interested in being a FFC correspondent? Let us know our ears are wide open.
Featured Footballers Of The Week
August 9, 2008
Well, we’re gonna restart our Featured Footballers segment for our club members. Below is an example of a previous Featured Footballer and I’m looking to feature a few players over the next few weeks. If you would like to be featured please write to me at jcronkhite at footballersfc dot com and tell me why you should be featured. If you want to recommend a player for us to feature please drop me a note. I’d really like to see a video of the player to be featured as it will help expose the player at the same time if I have a video to share with all the readers of FFC.
Example Of A Featured Footballer
This week I’m featuring Tommy Drake, a freshman midfielder at Clemson University. Tommy’s scored some amazing clutch goals this season and for a freshman he’s holding his own pretty well. This kid has a knack for finding the back of the net when it really counts and I wanna see more of ‘em. Looks like we should being a Freshman All ACC player.
Heck, I wanna see more amazing young players gettin stuck in! So, if you know of a few players that want a weeks worth of fame on FFC tell ‘em to get their skills, a camera and whatever creativity they can muster up to post their video. I’m thinking I’ll turn this into a contest at some point but, first I’d like to see what happens and what the footballers out there have in their bag of tricks.
Let’s see what you got! Check out Tommy’s video.
