The Unorthodox Guide to Coaching: If Only Our Best Athletes Played Soccer

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I'm not going to tackle this issue directly, as I feel it has been done well enough in the following two articles.

https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2016/7/5/12089038/are-you-sick-of-hearing-if-only-americas-best-athletes-played-soccer

http://www.whatahowler.com/httpswhatahowler-com201603athleticism-isnt-the-issue-html/

It's more the idea of what is defined as athleticism, and the founding principles of that, which I am going to address.

Have a look at these highly successful athletes and their body type.

What do they have in common? Nothing at all. They're all good at what they do, but physically they are so different. It appears that in these sports, there is an ideal body type, and that ideal body type is specific to each sport. The more narrow the range of techniques and movements required, the more specific the body type.

Now in football, it's a little more broad. There is certainly an unwritten rule that goalkeepers have to be above six foot. Ten years ago, they were peaking at around 6'5'', and now it's closer to 6'0''. That's because the demands of the game have changed. Goalkeeping is less now about shot stopping, and more about distribution. I have talked about this a lot previously, and so won't go into massive details, but essentially what a keeper does with their feet is now more important than what they do with their hands.

How about these two specimen? Played on the same team, Stoke City, in the Premier League. Peter Crouch (the lamp post) was a Champions League runner-up with Liverpool, and Xherdan Shaqiri was on the bench for Bayern when they won the Champions League in 2013. They have represented their national teams multiple times, played at international tournaments, and won many club honours too. Physically, they couldn't really be more different.

And then we have...

Adebayo Akinfenwa. The bodybuilder. Though he never really reached the top, playing in the lower divisions in England, his size hasn't impeded him too much. It's these different types of physicalities that help players carve out a niche for themselves. Crouch is obviously a target man that was good at headers from crosses and winning knock-downs, whereas Shaqiri's low centre of gravity and strong core means that he is a good dribbler, and very agile and explosive. Akinfenwa is more of a battering ram. Use them as you see fit.

Full credit to Crouch, as he is incredibly memeable, and one of the funniest users on Twitter.

Here we have Messi, Suarez, and Neymar (MSN) who were one of the most frightening attacking lineups ever. An Argentinian, a Brazilian, and a Uruguayan. They're hardly tanks. Physicality just has no bearing when it comes to being a successful soccer player.

In 2010, Spain were the shortest team to win a World Cup. Carles Puyol, their star central defender, was 5'10''. Goalkeeper Iker Casillas was 6'1''. Andres Iniesta, who scored the winning goal, is 5'7''. The build up included Cesc Fabregas (5'11''), Jesus Navas (5'7''), Xavi Hernandez (5'6''), and Fernando Torres (6'1''). Other players involved in that game are; Sergio Ramos (6'0''), Gerard Pique (tallest at 6'4''), Joan Capdevila (6'0''), Sergio Busquets (6'2''), Xabi Alonso (6'0''), Pedro (5'7''), and David Villa (5'9''). These are hardly giants.

What even is athleticism? It's apparently a noun, that means the physical attributes that are qualities of athletes, such as strength, fitness, and agility.

What is an athlete? An athlete is a person who is proficient in sports and other physical activities.

Interesting definitions. It doesn't mention anything about being 6'8'' and full of muscle. I wonder why that is. Let's first look at the physical attributes required to be a footballer.

I'm going to copy and paste directly from another article. Lazy writing, but I don't care.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/481514-physical-description-traits-of-a-soccer-player/

Field players in the top soccer leagues of Europe tend to be around 5 feet, 11 inches, with goalkeepers around 6 feet, 2 inches. They display lean, defined physiques, reflecting the fact that 200 lbs. may be the realistic upper limit of a soccer player given the demands of running six miles or more in a typical game. Messi is significantly smaller than a defender such as Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand, who stands 6 feet, 3 inches, but has a compensating weapon to use against taller players: his agility.

While body type may not matter so much in soccer, agility is paramount. In a sport that relies heavily on agility and its allied trait, speed, players make nearly a thousand changes of direction per game. Agility depends on three factors, says athletic performance specialist Craig Friedman. He cites explosiveness and power, stability from the ankles through the torso and the technique to deliver power to the ground while taking a quick stride. Though small, Messi’s strength-to-weight ratio “is just ridiculous,” Friedman told ESPN’s John Dorsey.

Soccer players work hard to stay in shape. Kristine Lilly, who has participated in more international matches than any other player, calls fitness the “backbone” of her game and key to her confidence on the field. Her focus on fitness, typical of soccer players at all levels, allowed her to compete in 352 international games, to play every minute of the 2009 Women’s Professional Soccer season and to appear in five Women’s World Cups.

Players need talent and a good attitude, but the real factor in advancement is not physical ability but rather mental toughness, writes sports psychologist Bill Beswick in “Focused for Soccer.” Many players at the top level would not score an “A” on talent, “but their A attitude drives them to success,” he writes. Mental toughness includes having a competitive and optimistic attitude, bouncing back with resiliency from setbacks, taking risks and being single-minded. Messi brings tremendous confidence, an allied trait, to the game, which is on display when he steals balls from opponents and weaves through them “like traffic cones on a DMV road course,” writes Erik Malinowski for the online site, Wired.

The website My Personal Football Coach has a similar take.

https://mypersonalfootballcoach.com/top-5-soccer-player-attributes-needed-to-be-a-great-footballer/

They list five attributes needed to be a great footballer; technique, mindset, game intelligence, team player, and physique. Mindset and team player will be common across many sports that American athletes play. Technique and game intelligence are probably what's missing most from the understanding of most American observers. They don't see it, nor do they get it, so it can't be appreciated or valued. People only place value in that which they understand. We are also in a culture here where pretty much everything in every sport is measured and recorded. It's all about speed, distance, height, strength etc. It's not like those aren't possible advantages, it's just that such attributes are dwarfed by a player's ability to execute technical skills, and to quickly identify correct decisions. The range of techniques necessary to play football is far wider than any other sport played in the US, apart from perhaps ice hockey, but only because that is three sports merged into one; skating, boxing, and hockey.

In terms of physique, MPFC list these elements;

ABC’s – Agility, Balance & Coordination are vital because there are so many movements that happen in a soccer match. This is with and without a football as you dribble, jump, turn and place your body into a variety of positions.
Power & Strength – This is not the size of the individual but is more about how effectively you use your body to win a physical battle.
Speed – This is not only straight line speed but it is the speed at which you accelerate, decelerate and how quickly you can change directions with and without a football at your feet.
Stamina – As your body fatigues, your control, focus & decision making becomes impaired which are all critical in a match situation. The ability for a player to deal with the constant stop, start nature as well as endurance during a game to keep moving will be examined.

Does it say anything about being big and tall? No. It quite clearly states... not the size of the individual, but how you use your body to win a physical battle. 10k run per game, 1000 changes of speed and direction, 800m sprinted at full speed per game. In what way is being built like an outhouse going to be an advantage for that?

Check out these tiki taka goals from Barcelona. In what way will these players having an extra twelve inches of height and 20lbs of muscle helped them perform these tasks any better? Football is like a combination of chess and ballet. Americans don't see that. They take a bull in a china shop approach to everything. We've got to make it bigger, and faster, and give it thirteen cupholders! I see it in their cars. Everyone needs a huge truck despite never doing anything that requires a vehicle that transports large objects, or a minivan for their two kids. You may think you look cool, but I can park in more easily accessible spaces, get through average sized gaps, and waste less fuel, in my normal sized car.

Essentially, you're telling us that this guy is not an athlete, or that this is not athletic...

Nothing athletic about that, right? Americans would rather have a player that looked like Akinfenwa than Messi. It's this strange delusion. If you think Messi is not athletic, you're an idiot. Observe his agility, his balance, his coordination. Look at the acceleration, his ability to change direction, how he ducks and dives to avoid challenges, his explosive pace, how he fends off physical assaults from opponents, and how he does all this while keeping the ball attached to his left foot using an invisible piece of string.

This athlete theory has been tested at least once, to my knowledge, with Usain Bolt. He loves football, and was begging Manchester United for a trial for years. Eventually, Borussia Dortmund invited him to train. The idea may have been that his speed would be useful for their gegenpress. They didn't sign him. He couldn't trap a bag of sand. He was tactically unaware. His passes went astray. Ironically, he couldn't keep up with the pace of the game. That's the key difference here. That is what needs to be understood. I have been bigger, stronger, fitter than many opponents, yet still been outplayed. Their passing and moving was too good, I couldn't get near them. Their first touch so perfect, I couldn't take the ball away. Their decision making so quick, I couldn't read them.

The way the game is viewed here for Americans, is that you find a big guy, get him in the team, and his size will take care of everything. Let's bring in LeBron, Odell, Brady etc. and watch them Jason Roberts their way into the goal.

How about then, as the suggestions go, we get an entire team of big guys, and play a style that makes use of the height and strength advantage? How could all these other countries defend at corners and free kicks if they have to mark 6'8'' opponents. You'd still need one player, like Morten Gamst Pedersen, to be an expert deliverer of set-pieces. So ten brutes, and one tiny Norwegian. Again, it's been tested, by many teams, with mixed results. Bolton, Stoke, and Blackburn all did it, and eventually went on a long cup run, or qualified for UEFA Cup/Europa League playing that way. It didn't bring any real success, only relative success. It's a way of staying in the division, not winning it. When it was pointed out to Johan Cruyff that his Barcelona team were terrible at conceding corners, his response was "Well, let's not concede any corners then."

If your entire game relies on set pieces, what happens when you are starved of set pieces? Rovers, Stoke, and Bolton would often pick up good results against Arsenal, but couldn't go much further than that. You see, when they played good teams, as much as they fought, and fought, and fought, they just weren't good enough when it came to actually playing football. They may have scored from free kicks and corners, but there weren't enough free kicks and corners for them to win every game. And that's the problem. The objective of these teams was to pick up enough points to remain in the division, with the ambition of finishing maybe tenth. Points would come from Portsmouth, West Ham, Aston Villa, Everton, Sunderland, but would not come from Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea. When playing against opponents of lower quality, you can beat them with your physicality. When playing against teams of higher quality, you won't be able to beat them if you can't take the ball off them.

How about an entire team of Chris Sambas? To any Americans watching, Samba is the ideal player. 6'4'', 220lbs, fearless, aggressive, tough. Look at his highlights. He must easily be one of the best players ever, right? Unleash the Samba Beast, and all Hell breaks loose. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The video shows him scoring important goals against awful opponents (including Arsenal), and a consolation against Manchester United in a 7-1 defeat. It's like Luke versus the rancor. It's big, scary, and has large, sharp teeth. What the punters at Jabba's Palace neglected was Luke's cunning and skill.

It's no surprise that a society that doesn't value intelligence does not recognise or value intelligence within sport. In pretty much every other sport, they are running plays, or following orders to the letter. That's not how it works in football. It's impossible to micromanage every interaction in the game, so we train them well to give them the tools to do it effectively without our input or help.

Is anti-intellectualism killing America? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201506/anti-intellectualism-is-killing-america

America hits peak anti-intellectualism as a majority of Republicans think college is bad - https://www.salon.com/2017/07/11/america-hits-peak-anti-intellectualism-majority-of-republicans-now-think-college-is-bad/

American idiot - https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/nicholas-baer/american-idiot-rethinking-anti-intellectualism-in-age-of-trump

We prefer comforting lies that fit with our narrative, rather than harsh truths.