GAME BODY MIND OFF THE PITCH NEWS

Command The Match By Mastering Football Control

On the ball who’s in control? When you juggle do you find yourself directing the movement of the ball or are you reacting to the change in its direction. Masters of ball control demonstrate mastery by controlling the pace of games because these players are frequently touching and guiding play or game speed.

What ball control looks like?

Ball Control is your technical ability to hold, secure, distribute and attack with the ball. Players with exquisite ball control make the game beautiful. Sound ball control is almost artistic but can also be very simplistic. Players with good ball management skills are able to control the flow of the game. With control you are able to create opportunities and diffuse pressure.

Two of the most well know ball control masters are Pele and Maradonna. These ball control idols told the ball what to do, the ball listened. As a player you must master the ability to command control of the ball and not the other way around. Think of the way that you write with a pen or pencil, hopefully you have good penmanship? If not, the point is that you drive the direction of your pen/pencil and you produce the end result pretty or not. How much do you practice this skill? Pretty much every day, right?

Becoming Master Of The Ball

Mastering ball control takes a lot of effort and consistent practice at varying levels of speed, change of direction and with many control touch points i.e. feet, head, chest, thigh, etc. How much time do you spend juggling daily? How much time do you spend practicing new moves dribbling? How much do you practice explosive directional changes? How much time to you spend taking people on 1 v 1?

You need to touch the ball every day if you’re serious about mastering control over it. Experiment with new dribbling moves, cuts and taking the ball out of the air from a friend’s service. There are many ways to master ball control and its really up to your imagination as to how you develop the skill but below are a few ideas to consider.

Ideas For Action:

1. Play lots of 1 v 1 with a friend in a confined space.

2. Practice dribbling and cutting with the ball in an open space. Focus on performing a cut and exploding out of it.

3. Have a friend serve you balls from a distance that you take out of the air and put into play on the ground quickly.

4. Organize small sided games like 2 v 2, 3 v 3 and 4 v 4 and play as much as you can.

5. Grab a small size ball and just juggle to your hearts content.

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. Be sure to also subscribe to FFC by email or RSS - just visit the subscribe button in the top right corner of the page.

What ideas, input, experiences or resources can you share?

Amazing Tackles Can Win Major Matches

Is your tackling ability on a world class level? What would it take for you to elevate your skill to the world class level? Do you have what it takes to be a tackling specialist? You very well could and it all starts with you and simple fundamentals.

Tackling Defined

Tackling – is your ability to take the ball directly from your opponent. (pretty simple huh?)

What tackling looks like?

Players with strong tackling skills are excited about stripping the ball from their opponent. They look forward to and are as excited about taking the ball from their opponent as they are about scoring goals. Similar to they way a cat claws at ball of yarn, the tackling specialist knows just when to pounce on the ball.

Tackling should never be timid in nature. If you are going to tackle the ball go for it and get it. Don’t tackle your opponent with any doubt in your mind or you will have lost the battle before you begin it. Furthermore, you stand to risk injury to yourself if you are timid in your ability to tackle strongly.

Fabio Cannavaro, 2006 FIFA Footballer Of The Year, embodies the genius of tackling. With cat like reflexes Cannavaro’s tackling ability and defensive organization was on of the key reasons Italy won the World Cup in 2006.

The Right Action At The Right Time

Smart tackling requires a strong ability to read the game and more importantly the player from whom you must take the ball from. You have study their body posture, movement and the cues they give you. Look to see if they are timid on the ball an test them with your own jab (false step toward the ball) as it may just shake their control.

Picking the right time to tackle may be one of the more important aspects of the skill. Many times players are beaten by their opponent because they were not patient enough to see the right moment or are over aggressively by diving in and find their opponent blowing by them.

Allow your opponent to really show you the ball. For instance, when a striker is barreling down on goal and he exposes the ball out in front of himself more so than he appears comfortable with. This is the time, pounce on that ball like a tiger does on its prey and don’t look back.

Ideas for action:

1. Watch game film and take note of how various defenders tackle in various situations.
2. Record you own play and watch/review your tackling behavior carefully.
3. Challenge a few friends to 1 v 1, 2 v 2, and 3 v 3 games where the number of successful tackles that cause a change of possession earn a point.
4. Run ladder footwork drills to improve foot movement speed for tackling.
5. Count the number of successful tackles you make in your next game. Then work to beat your tackling record every game.

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. Be sure to also subscribe to FFC by email or RSS - just visit the subscribe button in the top right corner of the page.

What ideas, input, experiences or resources can you share?

Why Communication Is Key?

How much do you communicate to your teammates on the pitch?  Do you provide direction when pressure is on coming?  For example, “Watch your back Bill, man coming from your left.  Look at James up top - he’s got Seth to support him - play to his feet”.  This type of communication helps teammates immensely and should be a significant part of your game.

What does communication look like?

Communication – is how well you listen to, instruct, guide and help teammates verbally.

ON THE PITCH

Communication is used to carry out instructions and tactical changes. This has become common practice in modern-day football. Forms of communication used during the match are: vocal anchors, gestures and signals.

Each type can be assigned to an individual, a unit and/or the whole team. Preordained commands/signs or gestures have been used to play offside and press opponents as a team. Often the spine of the team (center forward, center midfield, center back and goalkeeper) would use these forms of communication to keep the balance of the team formation.

OFF THE PITCH

Managers and coaching staff are able to influence the squads’ communication skills by interacting with the players. Often used at the Half-time interval and before/after a training session/match. This can be with an individual, small group or the entire squad. Resulting in an improvement to the working environment and overall harmony that aids the day-to-day running of any large football club.

5 Ideas for action:

1. Look at Captains of National teams and big clubs, how the use the technics of communication available on the pitch
2. Listen to interview and make a note when you feel the player or coach has a good media profile of the pitch
3. Ask advice from players/coaches who you respect
4. Attend courses provided by local or national sporting bodies on this subject
5. On the pitch, this tool is as important as any other skill, never neglect it and always look for new ways or new languages to enhance this tecnique

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. Be sure to also subscribe to FFC by email or RSS - just visit the subscribe button in the top right corner of the page.

What ideas, input, experiences or resources can you share?

Resources:

Football Communication

Communication Coaching

How Tough Are You Mentally?

It’s a challenging question isn’t it? Yet, it’s what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. Your mental toughness is as important as your physical conditioning and technical skill and in the big games - it’s often what makes champions. Looking at it closely, what makes up Your Mind? As a player let’s take a look.

Your Mind Consists Of:

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.

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.

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.

What Shape Is Your Body In?

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

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.

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.

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