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How Badly Do You Want To Be A Great Footballer?

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:

1. Your Game
2. Your Body
3. 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

1. Marking – your ability to track and apply pressure on your opponent.
2. Positional Play – your ability to consistently be a step ahead of your competitor.
3. Ball Control – your technical ability to hold, secure, distribute and attack with the ball.
4. Intercepting – your ability to dispossess the opponent and transition play.
5. Tackling – your ability in taking the ball directly from your opponent.
6. Heading – defensively or offensively, your ability to play with your head.
7. Attacking – your ability to penetrate and threaten your opponents goal.
8. Shooting – your ability to hit the target and score!

Your Body

1. Food Intake – eating healthy and wisely.
2. Fluid Intake – consumption of correct type and quantities.
3. Speed – explosive and consistently outpacing your competitor.
4. Strength – the capacity to overpower your competition.
5. Stamina – capability to sustain performance.
6. Power – combination of speed & strength of movement.
7. Agility – your ability to change direction of force with minimal loss of speed.
8. Flexibility – limit risk of injury & increase range of movement.

Your Mind

1. Communication – how well you listen to, instruct, guide and help teammates verbally.
2. Confidence – your personal belief in your abilities.
3. Aggression – your attitude and competitive nature.
4. Understanding – how well you know and study the game.
5. Reading the Game – your thought process and ability to impact the game tactically.
6. Awareness – your vision and foresight to capitalize or reduce pressure in the game.
7. Preparation – your ability to concentrate and perform consistently at high levels.
8. 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

1. We recommend completing a Footballers Personal Assessment Kit - CLICK HERE TO GET THE KIT.
2. Subscribe to this blog by email or RSS (top right corner).
3. If not a member already, CLICK HERE TO JOIN FOOTBALLERS FC.
4. 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.

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