100% passing accuracy

At the risk of this blog becoming a Barcelona love in, I couldn't let last weeks incredible achievement from Xavi go without a mention - Playing for Spain against Columbia - 76 passes attempted - 76 on target -100% passing accuracy - unbelievable

Passing Accuracy - A world cup perspective

The Spanish approach to Football is well documented - possession is King - if you have the ball you can't concede but you can score. I thought the following stats from this years world cup illustrate the significance of passing accuracy within such a philosophy.

Figures in brackets are the Number of passes the % figures represent the success rate of each of the types of passes

Attribute	Spain	Holland	Germany	England
Short passes Under 15m	81% (948)	70% (718)	70% (712)	74% (493)
Medium Passes 15m -30m	85% (2627)	80% (2030)	80% (2094)	80% (1248)
Long passes Over 30m	64% (631)	51% (618)	55% (551)	51% (435)
Passing accuracy	81% (4206)	72% (3366)	74% (3357)	73% (2176)

As can be seen from the above the Spanish walk the talk regarding their philosophy.

This is further emphasised when each players passing stats are evaluated

Puyol 88%

Busquets 88%

Fabregas 85%

Pique 85%

Capdevilla 82%

Ramos 81%

Alonso 81%

Xavi 81%

Iniesta 76%

Pedro 74%

Villa 68%

Torres 48%

As can be seen from the above the front players operating in the final third understandably have the lower accuracy levels and conversely the defenders have the higher accuracy levels - seems to change the perspective regarding the big bruisers who can win it and clear their lines - incidentally England were 2nd in the clearence tables during this years world cup

Opposed or unopposed - Myelination

For all those who have been through their coaching qualifications, you will be only to aware of the discrimination between technique and skill based drills - unopposed or opposed.

The simple rationale being we have to know what to do before we can apply it in a competitive environment. Hence the technique/unopposed emphasis should be the initial part of the coaching process i.e. explaining how to do something. However the majority of my coaching observations seem to highlight coaches repeatedly doing the same unopposed drills. From my observations repeated exposure to unopposed drills will create players who are fantastic at unopposed drills e.g. Do a lot of SAQ and you will become excellent at SAQ but weak in an opposed environment - namely a game. It is also easy, self gratifying and ensures the coach stays the fountain of knowledge rather than the enabler of mastery and of course repeated exposure to drills that have a tendency to be boring and easy will ultimately become detrimental to development, thus coaching becomes destructive rather than constructive

Football is waking up to the concept of Myelination -if you don't know what it is - here is a brief explanation of how it applies to world of Football coaching

Definition

Myelin is a dielectric (electrically insulating) material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath, usually around only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system

What that means in Football

Myelin is an insulation that forms around the neural pathways - the thicker the insulation the faster and more precise the brain signals. Thus performing a delicate football skill is a consequence of continued practice - i.e. the more you practice a particular skill the thicker the myelin becomes - hence repetition is the root of mastery BUT only the right repetition fuels the act of myelination. A simple example would be the guys who are brilliant at Ball juggling - they are incredible at feats of juggling but not the driving force we would expect in a game situation because they master juggling rather than the game of football

Daniel Coyle has written a book entitled "the talent code" the book goes into great detail regarding sport, mastery and myelination. The Football perspective is however slightly different. A golfer has few variables to deal with when playing a shot i.e. lie. distance, weather and obstacles, hence golfers practices will be dominated by unopposed practice whereas football has multi-direction, moving ball, distance, opposition positions, moving team mates etc, etc

Hence we can only achieve meaningful attainment of mastery by repeated exposure to the conditioned drills that replicate the environment to which they will be applied i.e. TEACH THE GAME NOT THE DRILL

So do unopposed drills have any value - YES when introducing a concept but if you stay in this stage for too long player development will be hindered rather than enhanced. Ask yourself how many of Lance Armstrongs 7 Tour De France wins do you think he attributes to his time spent on stabilisers - thats the equivalent of unopposed drills - how often do think Lionel Messi attributes his wonderful skills to the time he spent amongst the dribbling cones on the training ground

Philosophy First, last and always

The goal of all Academy football is the creation of first team players, hence Academy Football should be the purest expression of Football - where else in the world of professional football does the way you play carry greater significance than the result of the game

The challenge for us all - how do we best develop the players at our disposal:

What do we coach

How do we coach

When do we coach

etc etc:

All the above are driven by the good intent of the coaching staff but without an under pinning playing philosophy how can player development be consistent and fully effective. Perhaps the best example of this approach in its clearest representation is the current Barcelona squad - of the 14 players who took the field in the recent 5-0 drubbing of Real madrid - 10 of them were from their own Academy -all of whom have been schooled in the Barca playing philosophy for 10 years or more

The Barca example is of course the exception - where academy and first team are totally aligned. My own club is now in a position where our academy philosophy dictates our training routines. Below is an example of how we are currently translating this approach -the example below relates to the current practices at our Newport Advanced Development Centre - u12-u16 age groups

Academy Philosophy/Style of play

Possession based attacking Football - hence we are trying to develop players who excel within such a style of play

Strategies to achieve our philosophy

1. Pocket play - no explanation required

2. When pressed - play 1 touch the way you are facing - see the video link below for a simple illustration of this - this enables passes to players who are marked

3. When receiving in space - you dictate the tempo

4. If we are to be possession based, we have to win it back - Quickly

5. Our first preference is to play the ball on the floor

Please watch this link of the Barca v Real game - A great example of all of the above being applied in a game

A session inspired by Lionel Messi

Under 11's - dribbling skills - Monday 1st October - 12 children

Great session tonight, Over the past week I have watched Barcelona on a number of occassions, particularly Lionel Messi, display football of a higher level. Most noticeable is Messi's ability to cause havoc in defences.Interestingly he does it all without any of the conventional Ronaldinho/Ronaldo style tricks, he does it all with dramatic and very fast changes of direction.

Consequently the session centred on the players ability to beat defenders by dramatic changes of direction. The kids loved it, the nature of the drills enabled meaningful and discreet interventions, amazing how breaking down this most profound and basic skill engendered rapid improvement and much deeper understanding. All the drills were contained within games, in some cases there was minimal queing. In this case the queing a maximum of 2 people facilitated the necessary rest periods, due to the high anaerobic content of the individual efforts

The key to the success was ensuring the learning was a natural outcome of the drill rather than an instructed, pre-meditated prescription of specified moves. All the players achieved success, it also aided my analysis of the players development needs, At the start of the session some of the children could not beat a player head on, with discreet intervention it was relatively easy to facilitate success

The kids evaluation at the end of the session suggested we also addressed , closing players down, taking your first touch on the run, The importance of speed and when to dribble and when to pass - More than happy with that

What went well?

Inter Centre tournament - Friday 21st Sept - Under 10's + Under 11's

Traditionally these have been the usual 8 v 8 inter Development Centre games - However we decidied to try a different approach for this session. The pitches were arranged with 8 x 4 v 4 games - including the goal game, The line game - the 4 goal game and the cone goal game.

Instead of playing the respective centres against each other we decided to mix the players up and thus enable our coaches to evaluate the abilities of the players on display, not who was winning or which centre they represented.

To further supplement this parents were given sheets to record how many touches a selected player (not their son) managed in each of the games

The evening proved to be an immense success - a summary of the findings is shown below:
The positives:
1. Number of touches per player off the scale
2. Player social development excellent - took them no time to integrate with other palyers they didn't know
3. Player problem solving - more dynamic - sustained exposure to specific problems e.g 3 v 4 enables more experimentation and thus more success and refined problem solving
4. This approach enables coaches to concentrate on player evaluation , not on team performance - Personally I thought this element was a revelation, I found myself completely absorbed by the talents and the potential talents on display . As we were looking for outstanding players I spent very little time evaluating errors or poor performance - can't believe how much I learnt about the new intake at our new centre
5. Greater integration from the coaches
6. The approach is player focused
7. Kids loved it - everyone scored at least 1 goal - not bad with 60+ kids
8. Game Structure - created a positive environment
9. Parent observations
10. All coaching interventions were re-inforcements of positive actions - no negative feedback, this has to be good for player development

Areas for improvement
1. Identify the team sheets before we arrive at the venue
2. Get the kids at the venue 15 mins earlier e.g. 45 mins before kick off -more time to get the kids ready
3. 1 of the vulnerabilities of the approach is that it does not encourage an expansive game - play is dominated by short passing and dribbling - Thus the balance between 4v4 and 8v8 is a necessity
4. Make the parental contribution more systemised

Overall
I thoroughly enjoyed the evening great watching football in its purest form, we will use 1 of the 2 games per 6 week block in this form and the other for conventional 8v8 format

I don't get this?

under 11 - 17 children - 17th September 2007

The purpose of this session was recieving to pass or shoot. General overview of the session was very positive, 6 individual interventions during the session, immensely influenced by the Skillful neglect approach. The kids now demonstrate much deeper understanding when answering the questions. The drills were predominantly 4 v 4 based games with lots of opportunity to pass or shoot.

However when explaining 1 of the new drills 1 of the kids shouted, I don't get this? Interestingly he quite often shouts this prior to a new drill starting. This has enlightened me in a number of ways:

1. I've resorted to instructing the kids rather than showing a picture and letting them experience the drill before starting it i.e. I'm only helping the kids who favour auditory learning thus not helping the visual or the kinistetic learners - Ill rectify this next session

2. The lad who frequently shouts I don't get this is a Kinistetic learner i.e. He needs to experience the session before he can understand what is expeected of him

I'm sure he's not the only 1 but he's the 1 who is prepared to tell me - more learning for me