Sunday, February 19, 2012

Useful Videos For Improving Positional Sense on the Soccer Field

The following is an e-mail I sent to the parents of my U12 boys soccer team prior to the Spring 2011 season.


I've spoken with a good few of the players about the importance of watching soccer matches and how it serves to reinforce the principles of the game that I've tried to impart upon them.

Unfortunately in my experience, in America even the most committed young players find the idea of watching the full 90 minutes of any game incomprehensible.

This is due to a number of factors ranging from the typical stop-start nature of the traditional American Sports, the increasingly short attention span kids have due to the way the media presents information over here and the simple fact that they don't see their parents watching soccer on TV. A young player in Europe lives in a different world.

I'm under no illusions that these cultural differences are ever going to change and so it is important to focus our attention on how to get around these obstacles.

This does not necessitate a costly subscription to ESPN, Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Soccer Channel Plus or a change in lifestyle as you seek to embrace soccer as your own new favourite sport.

There are hundreds of places and thousands of videos available online where kids can watch and re-watch the best players in the world in action and try to replicate what they see when out on the pitch themselves. I've mentioned sites to them in the past but I don't feel the message has hit home.

Therefore I've decided to change my approach by customising my video recommendations for each player.

It would be my hope that the guys would at the very least watch the videos I've suggested and take on board the ideas put forward. Nothing they see will be anything new necessarily but perhaps watching the various tactical nuances put in play will strike a chord with the lads. It would do no harm for them to use these recommendations as a springboard in developing a passion for the game.

Anyway I could talk ad nauseam on this subject but I'll save that for another day!
Without further ado here is the first group of videos for the guys to take a look at:
 


Gk:                    ZAC


I want Zac to use his box more, to be much quicker coming off his line when the opposition hit through balls. His starting position needs to be a few more yards off his line. Furthermore it is crucial that he does all he can to get a ball out of the danger area when he is forced to parry a shot.

Likewise the defenders need to make sure they are not bystanders when a shot comes in. They must assume the worst and chase in and cover after a shot comes in in the event that the ball spills out. Too often last year we conceded a goal because the other team anticipated the breaking ball better than us.
 
Shay Given, a Goalie who doesn't have height on his side has consistently regarded
as one of the best goalkeepers in the world the past decade. He compensates for his lack of height by his tremendous agility, his speed and great reflexes and being good with his feet:

Given saving from Zidane.
 

Left/Right Back:   BEN NICO CAM PAULIE TOMMY JACK MICHAEL
Everton left back Leighton Baines illustrating the importance of getting forward and supporting and supplying the attack.


Ex-England International and current England U21 manager Stuart Pearce on role of a full back
http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/tactics/positions/video/videoid=941260.html?autoplay=true



Centre Back:       BEN NICO CAM PAULIE LUCAS

Lars Lagerbäck discusses the importance of height, tackling, leadership and vision for centre backs.
http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/tactics/positions/video/videoid=519177.html?autoplay=true
Paul McGrath, Ireland's greatest ever defender puts in a colossal performance against Italy at the 1994 World Cup Finals. McGrath's knees were so bad at this stage of his career that he couldn't even train but irrespective of the limitations of age and wear and tear he nullified everything the Italians threw at him that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQqVsD_eK-4


Centre Mid:         LUCAS JACK NOAH PAULIE TOMMY MICHAEL
Passing and moving. Xavi and co. getting available to receive the pass. Passing backwards as often as forwards but most importantly keeping possession.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuGk_X85WcI

Ex-Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis on role of the central midfielder
 
Playing with the flair and confidence of Zidane  
 
Scoring goals from midfield
Pure and simple we need more goals from our midfield. Jack, Noah, Tommy and Lucas all got a few last season but not nearly enough for my liking. Here is a clip of Irish player Connor Clifford playing for Chelsea youths aged 17 and 18. He displays massive drive and desire to get on the ball and consistently hit the target.


Wing:                 CJ RILEY JOE OWEN MICHAEL
Ex-England manager Graham Taylor discussing the role of the winger

There is nothing that scares a defender more than coming up against a lightning-quick attacker Our wingers, particularly those with pace need to run at defenders more. There will often be times when it will be necessary to cut back but players with speed have got to use it.

Look at the damage Gareth Bale causes Inter Milan by utilising his main attribute - his pace. His direct approach and clarity of purpose when running through on goal sees him confidently dispatch of the European Champions.
 
Inter 4-3Tottenham:  
(2nd half starts at 2.35)
 
 
 
Forward:             CJ OWEN MICHAEL
Thierry Henry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgPH6NGbnwk&feature=related

Importance of being in the right place at the right time
http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/tactics/positions/video/videoid=519186.html?autoplay=true


General Videos:

Barcelona passing Liverpool off the park    
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuGk_X85WcI

Zizou (for some inspiration) :                 
         
                                                                   
There are also a few great videos highlighting the role of the midfield enforcer (basically the hard man of the
team who doesn't shy away from tackles and gets stuck in).
 
However, lest I be accused of advocating malicious play it would probably best if an adult was present in some capacity to make sure the guys didn't take the wrong message from some of these! Let me know if you would like a few links and you as parents could maybe view the clips and decide if your son could benefit from watching.
 
We really need to get a lot more aggressive on the pitch and that goes for pretty much every team I've seen in the US.   It's a contact sport after all. Sometimes it's all a little too friendly out there for my liking...
 
Anyway pass on these to the guys and I'll try to get another list out before I return.
 
Happy Christmas,
Kev.
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Robin Van Persie’s Annus Mirabilis


It has been said that the top flight of English football does not grow superstars and merely imports them (see Aguero, Shevchenko etc). With due respect to Feyenoord, the Premier League has cultivated a bona fide luminary in Robin Van Persie whose development has followed a strikingly similar pattern to that of Thierry Henry who joined Arsenal as a goal scoring left-winger and now is the proud recipient of a statue in his honour outside the Emirates Stadium. Van Persie has a long way to travel before even being considered for such an accolade  but his performances over the last calendar year have been an absolute pleasure to witness.

My initial impression of RVP was similar to that of Cristiano Ronaldo who had joined the Premier League a season before, a player with huge potential but ultimately was more concerned about individual performance and his own image on the pitch which hindered his overall contribution, as evidenced by his poor assist statistics in his first two years at Arsenal. A further constraint on Van Persie’s progress, apart from the burden of labels such as the next Bergkamp, Van Basten and even Cruyff, was his abysmal injury record. In comparison with his contemporary Wayne Rooney, who joined Manchester United in the same transfer window that RVP teamed up with Arsene Wenger, Van Persie comes up nearly one hundred appearances short in all competitions, a clear mark of an injury-hit period in his career. In essence, after his first few years at Arsenal, it looked highly doubtful that Van Persie would live up to the high expectations of his manager and fill the boots of the inimitable Thierry Henry.

However, the exit of Henry may have been just the thing Van Persie required in order to step up to the plate at Arsenal. As a consequence of Henry’s departure the focal point of Wenger’s team became the relationship between two of the most intelligent and creative footballers in the league if not the world in Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie. Van Persie often played as the lone-striker in the managers favourite 4-2-3-1 formation and the relationship between Fabregas, RVP and Samir Nasri really started to bear fruit. Granted, not in terms of silverware, but their contribution was the main reason Arsenal maintained their traditional designation as the nicest team to watch in the Premier League. Van Persie’s best goal scoring season to date, 2010/11, was largely thanks to the assists of both Fabregas and Nasri as well as their involvement in sharing the responsibility of hitting the back of the net. With these two central cogs in the Arsenal system being removed before the start of the current campaign one could be forgiven for thinking that RVP’s influence would wane but the opposite has occurred and 2011/12 has so-far been a huge success for Van Persie so much so that tabloid sensationalism has lead to him being linked with Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona. In my own opinion, the reason for this is that good creative young players and experienced ones have come into the Arsenal first team to replace Nasri and Fabregas, these being Wilshere, Ramsey and Arteta. An additional thought is that, never being blessed with great pace, RVP has benefitted from having two jet-propelled wingers outside him, in Walcott and Gervinho, to rip open and stretch defences resulting in more space for him to work his magic and as we have observed this season he is deadly when afforded time and space.

As mentioned above, there has been much speculation about RVP’s future at Arsenal, all I would say on the topic is that Arsenal would surely be a shadow of the club without his mercurial talent and I would much prefer to focus on a player who is defying the critiques of an injury-prone player and a club in decline and doing it in spectacular style. His volleyed goal against Everton this season encapsulated Robin Van Persie’s tremendous season so far and, for me, cemented his status as the current reigning king of Premier League strikers. 
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