I'm a Rambling Man.

I suppose it is due to a wave of nostalgia that swept over me when our youngest son completed his last season of high school soccer?  My thoughts have been wandering back to the days when our sons, hardly more than toddlers, began playing the beautiful game and back again to these last days of our youngest sons high school career.  Those thoughts have not taken a direct path, but have strayed here to there and from child to child.  This article will likely ramble about just as much as I attempt to formulate some of these thoughts into cohesive ideas about this game the world refers to as football or futbol and that we know as soccer.

Having the analytical mind that I do the general premise behind this "typing out loud"  is to consider a better development model for soccer here in the United States. Not only am I considering how my sons learned the game and I along with them, but I am also attempting a bit of reverse engineering in studying foreign exchange students and foreign players in the MLS. It's an ambitious undertaking, for sure. Purely unscientific as well.  I am using my powers of observation, deduction and analysis in an attempt to find a better way.

Calm and poised are adjectives often used to describe how my sons play the game.  Grant came to this in spite of my coaching.  I think Grant would credit Graham Ramsay with helping him learn to think the game differently than many of his peers did and perhaps still do.  Treg benefited from my increased awareness of the similarities between my first love of basketball and my new love of soccer but Ken White had a huge influence on his play as well. Lance is the best of the lot in how he sees and interprets the game and his play reflects this.

Over the years we have had several foreign exchange students play for our club and with the high school team. Some of them have been quite good while others have been average at best. Still, all these young men, every single one of them, stand apart from their American counterparts in their ideas about the game.  I have long believed the foreign exchange students think the game differently than our own players do. Only recently have I began to consider the reason for this being their seeing the game differently than we do.  Therein lies what I will call the subtleties of the game. These subtleties of the game might be difficult for me to articulate to you in no small part because my vision of them is still evolving. Please bear with me as I try my best.

Simon was a JV player at Shawnee. Why he never played varsity is a mystery to me although I suspect it was because he was a cerebral player more so than an energetic whirlwind of physical activity. Simon had great ideas on how to play this game we call soccer. Decision making and quality of first touch are what set him apart from most of those around him.

The decision making aspect was indicative of Simon's vision or game intelligence. He was most definitely a game watcher as opposed to a ball watcher. His play was rarely frenetic. He was a player, who by US standards, might have been considered lazy.  This is one of the subtleties I am writing about - if you are a game watcher you don't have to have a constantly high physical work rate to be effective.

In high school soccer it seems high physical work rate is valued more than high mental work rate. It's a work harder, think less approach to the game. This is the issue at the heart of the overly direct play that dominates high school soccer. With our foreign players mental work rate dictates physical work rate. That is one of the subtleties of the game I am writing about.

Quality of first touch is one of the areas where mental work rate dictating physical work rate manifests itself most and in the clearest fashion. Our exchange students have been very adept with their first touch on the ball.  However, their first touches on the ball have often been of an unconventional nature. One might describe many of these first touches as being executed with improper technique. 

This might be best illustrated by describing how another of our exchange students, Goncalo, executed in a warm up exercise known as breaking lines.  The basic concept of breaking lines is to pass the ball around the outside of a grid using proper sequences of touches. It is all done two-touch utilizing inside of the foot "reception" and the push pass in the following combinations:

Right foot first touch leading into a push pass with the right foot.  Right / Right
Right / Left
Left / Left
Left / Right

I need to backtrack to another idiom characteristic in foreign players. They tend to arrive to training and games in street clothes with their kit on underneath. 'Calo was one of the "worst" of the lot at this. He would even take the field for warm ups dressed in jeans and a polo.  Yes, I allowed this to happen and I will relate why a little further along in my ramblings.

I explained breaking lines in specific terms to the group and set them off on performing it. It wasn't long before my attention was drawn to Calo's touches.  It seemed he would use the inside of his foot when convenient but was quite content to use the outside of his foot or any other part of his body for both receiving and passing the ball. I watched intently for  awhile thinking I would stop the exercise and make a coaching point from one of Calo's touches.  I never did though.

Breaking lines is a warm up activity that I was using to reinforce proper technique with the players. Toes up, heel down, change the path of the ball when receiving. Toes up, heel down, strike with the ankle bone when passing. 

Calo viewed breaking lines for what it was - a warm up exercise. He utilized it as preparation to train or play with a focus on moving the ball around the outside of the grid in as efficient of a manner as he could. If that entailed using other techniques than the inside of the foot first touch or push pass, did it really matter?  This was Calo's thinking.  Effectiveness was preferred to adhering strictly to "proper" technique or technical excellence.  Another subtlety of the game.

As Americans we marvel at the creativeness foreign players often exhibit in their play.  We lament the lack of creativity to be found in American players.  The difference might lie in the difference between how we viewed breaking lines and how Calo viewed breaking lines.

When my sons play, they put on their uniforms at home before heading to the pitch. If it is cold outside they will wear warm ups over their uniforms. About the only article of clothing they put on at the pitch is their cleats or boots.  Foreign players often arrive in street clothes. Sometimes they have their kits on underneath. Sometimes they go to a restroom to change into their kits. As a general rule, they are always late arriving on the pitch to warm up.  I generally like a 30 minute warm up before a match. Our foreign exchange students seem to prefer about 15 minutes and more than once they have warmed up in street clothes.

I think, in part, it is a marvelous way to keep everything in perspective. These exchange students love the game of soccer as much or more than their American counterparts, but are not consumed with soccer. The game has its place in their lives, a big place in their lives, but it is not who they are. Soccer is something that they do, then it's back to their regularly scheduled lives. Perhaps another subtlety in the game?

Most American team sports are coach driven games. That is, a preponderance of the decision making that occurs in-game is scripted by coaches.  Football huddles up for the quarterback to call plays sent in from the sideline by a coach.  In basketball coaches often call out plays and defensive sets from the sidelines.  Even in baseball the "hit and run" or steal of a base is called from the dugout. Sometimes every pitch is called from the dugout. 

Soccer is a player driven sport.  There are limited opportunities for set plays. There are only general patterns of play to be used as a template.  No timeouts. The playing surface is usually 120 yards long by 70 yards wide with players spread over a good portion of it making in-game verbal communication from the sidelines a sketchy proposition at best.  In-game problem solving in soccer lies squarely in the realm of the player.

And here is yet another subtlety of the game.  For most American players soccer is a ball driven game. For our exchange student athletes football is a space driven game. It's as if Americans see one ball to be shared by 22 players while our exchange students see 120 yards x 70 yards of space for 22 players to play with a ball in.  That is probably about as clear as mud to many of you, so let me try again in another way.

Something I noticed with many of the foreign players we have had on our teams is the idea of moving without the ball against the grain of the defense.  American players tend to stand waiting for the ball to be played through the defense to them or they are found moving in the same direction as the defense is while looking to receive a pass.  Instead of running full speed into the attack, many of our foreign players have moved more slowly looking for and watching space develop before moving strategically into that space when it is most advantageous to do so.  They realize there is only one ball for 22 players and the best way to have a teammate share the ball with you is to find open space (time) for you to play with the ball in.  Another subtlety of the game.

And this particular subtlety is one I have based our entire attacking system of play upon.  The general coaching phrases I have taken up are ball movement is predicated on player movement  and the purpose of possession is not to move the ball, but to move the opposition so it is easier to move the ball.  

In my mind, these subtleties of the game are what need to be introduced much earlier in the development of young players. The place to start is with coaches recognizing soccer is a player driven game. And for players to experience and explore the game from a perspective that soccer is game played with the brain.