2nd session abroad - how things can change quickly

As I touched upon in the previous piece, complacency is one of the most dangerous traps in football (and indeed in life in general). It can arise from the formation of an oversimplified view that you’re of an adequate standard for a particular level because your first training session with the team went well. This wasn’t the first time I’d been struck down with this, nor will it be the last. The most costly case of it was back some five or six years ago when I was on an extended trial for the youth team of a Ryman Premier side. In my first session I’d had a stormer – it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that with the exception of one lad (who oozed quality and was a pleasure to watch and play with), I had been the best player on the pitch. I justifiably went home that night with a great sense of pride, but the barrier between that and complacency is so blurry, so much so that many have trouble locating it and resultantly are insufficiently equipped to prevent part of the pride manifesting itself. I strolled into the next session so sure that the events of a few days back would repeat themselves and that, even if things didn’t quite go to plan, I had surely impressed the coaches enough to win enough favourability points. Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that, and the reality was harshly different. I didn’t play well at all in the next session and struggled to regain the standard I had set myself initially – needless to say I wasn’t accepted into the team at the end and had to continue my search for a club elsewhere. Somewhat disappointingly, I failed to learn my lesson even half a decade later, when it should have been clear that a positive start by no means balances the magnitude of settling into a team in a strange country where you don’t speak a word of the language (and hardly anyone speaks yours). The easiest way to identify the oversimplification here is to remember that all training sessions are different – in particular two in the same week are unlikely to contain the same content. In a weekly schedule, different days of training will of course be assigned to working on different aspects of the game, with no two situations identical. Just because the previous day I’d shone at running and in a 6-a-side possession game, no manager worth his salt would assume I’d be equally as adept at practising certain tactical manoeuvres involving team play, for example.

After the standard running in the warm-up, the tactical exercises were something new to me. The instructed player movements and fluid interchanges and passages of play required certainly gave the brain a lot of work. What made things immeasurably more confusing was the manager shouting orders in a language of which I barely knew a word. This made me appreciate the difficulties of being a complete stranger or outsider somewhere and the hard-work and savvy required to acclimatise before you get ostracised. The saying that in football everyone speaks one common language isn’t strictly true – you are still free to express yourself on the pitch, yes, but the surroundings can easily deprive you of that ability, especially when you need to listen to instructions and prompts – these things have to be grasped quickly if you’re to swim rather than sink. The first drill involved shooting with a couple of parts of interplay preceding it – with players in a line and then taking up different positions after one another, it’s something that’s difficult to follow if you’re out of practice with it, even in your own language. Two cones were stationed about 5 yards from each other and the drill ran such that the player standing on the first cone ended up being the one taking the shot. So the player at the front of the ‘queue’ would pass to the man on the first cone who would turn and play a one-two with the man on the second cone before taking a shot – the player in the queue would become the player on the second cone, he on the second cone would move to the first and he on the first cone (the shooter) would move to the back of the queue. The first one wasn’t too difficult but required concentration to not make a mistake – it certainly didn’t get easier.

I think the shooting drills became more complicated by varying the sequences of passes and accordingly the distances and directions the players had to move to get to their next station. The introduction of a tactical wingplay drill was the real killer, though. It involved players running in pairs through the centre (one initially playing the ball and the other in a starting position on a cone a number of yards in front) with somebody on each wing, with the concentrated wing changing back and forth after each drill run. The good thing about these drills is that there are many variations, and the manager made sure we went through a few possible sequences of passing. The kindest way to describe it would be that it keeps you on your toes – if you’re having to overcome a language barrier also, it confuses the hell out of you. An example of one cycle of play would be that the starting player passes it to the player on the cone, who receives the ball and plays it out wide (according to which wing’s turn it is). The two central players then progress forward and must make a ‘crossover’ run, so one of them receives the ball from the player on the wing to play a one-two with him. After the one-two, the two central players cross over once again and the winger plays across in where one of the two central players tries to make contact and beat the ‘keeper. Some attempts to execute a flowing move were amusing to say the least, and it proved that understanding what the manager says still doesn’t necessarily guarantee a problem-free run, but it must help. Whilst not enjoyable at the time if it’s not going well for you, I do enjoy in hindsight how such practices make you think as a player with regards to your next move and the positions of your team-mates on the field, something I wasn’t too used to back home.

On to playing a 7-or-8-a-side match, I made the mistake of using my performance the day before as a basis for the belief that this would be a doddle. Contrarily, I found myself off the pace and somewhat disgraced myself a little, faced with the additional weight of not being able to use a language fluency to save face. The style in which the players played reminded me somewhat of home also, with rushed, fast-paced attacking play producing some incisive moves on the one hand and frequent turnovers of possession on the other hand due to interceptions or the ball being passed out of play. I suppose my expectations that a more patient game would be played led to me being taken aback also, as not being ready for the pace of the game always catches you badly off guard. 

First taste of football abroad - first post in a while!

Continuing with my own footballing story, what has changed and how has it been going? Well, as I said I accepted a job offer somewhere on the continent and after a training period scheduled such that it made it impossible for me to train in the week due to the remarkably early start time over here and some struggles with shifts and constant needs to swap with others I managed to get cracking with playing again round about the first week in September. My keenness to get going in a foreign country was somewhat countered by the trepidation of trying to work out how I would be able to introduce myself to and communicate with these players – I did have a strong feeling that there would be a considerable language barrier to overcome, and I was proved correct. As I entered the gates to the ground which seems to be at the back of some sort of disused factory or massive industrial estate, I could see at the opposite end the players all gathered round the tables outside the steps to the changing room, presumably waiting for the groundskeeper to hand them the keys. In this situation there is no escape and the walk feels a lonely and long one – they have just seen somebody enter just coming from work carrying a satchel rather than a full-sized sports bag and dressed in jeans and a scruffy hoodie. Regardless of my nationality, I’m a foreign sight to them and there is nowhere I can hide and no tactic to appear subtly, presenting myself unexpectedly. As I edged ever closer it was clear I had become the centre of attention in their temporary pre-training boredom, I could feel their watchful eyes on me. As I reached the tables they seemed to sit forward in anticipation, expecting something interesting to come out of my mouth. Unfortunately my inability to speak their language would cause me to disappoint them, as I addressed who was clearly the manager in my own version of very broken, simplified English which should somehow be easier for foreigners to understand. The only foreigner present, however, was clearly me. I tried to repeat to the manager about 3 or 4 times the question of whether I could train that evening and the plea for reassurance that I had reached the club I had been looking for. He stared at me blankly, none the wiser, as if I had just landed from a spaceship and was exploring their planet for the first time – it certainly did feel that way. All of a sudden I was put at ease as one of the players sitting by him to my surprise blurted out “can I help you?” in very clear English.

The relief was overwhelming, and he translated my questions into his native language for the manager to understand. The stony-faced man in a tracksuit seemed unmoved, the answer being that I was permitted to play but I’d have to prove how good I was. In the changing room I could sense a lot of inside laughter and giggling, and sentences containing what was the country’s word for “English.” The most intense part was when a cluster of loose change fell out of my pocket which was met with a sort of "whoooooaaaaa-oooooooh!" from the lads. There is something incredibly vulnerable about being in a room with a team of players talking about you whilst you have no possibility of knowing what they might be saying. Most sports or even team activities have special initiations for newcomers, who knows what they could have been planning for the next couple of hours? As it was, it turned out OK. We were sent out on the pitch to warm up and the players were knocking balls around among each other and joking about, with me sheepishly jogging around the pitch with the faint hope that somebody might pass the ball in my direction. One lad eventually offered to have a knockabout with me. It felt like he was sizing me up as he drilled some hard and high passes in my direction, but I was surprised at how I managed to cope with them and soon I was feeling OK, striking the ball accurately and cleanly at others. Obviously looking at how well a player may control or strike a ball when warming up isn’t the best way of judging him, but when you feel like you’re being watched, this feels like a challenge to you and coming through it gives you a big confidence boost.

So training commenced with some standard warm-up drills involving cones and ladders where I made sure not to slip up. After that, having had a pre-season of intense running, I was pleased to find more intense running waiting ahead of me. We were divided into 3 groups of about 5 or 6 to complete a running challenge over the length of the pitch. The pitch was also divided about equally with cones into 3 sections – the first part you had to run at 50-75%, sprint the middle section and for the third section ease up again to 50-75% speed. One group would run, meet the next group at the opposite end of the pitch and then that group would run, and so on. All pretty simple and despite not having trained much for 3 weeks I found myself to be among the fittest players, which was pleasing to discover. Either I was extremely fit or the other players are just incredibly lazy in running drills, which I know can be the case. We had to do 10 lengths of the pitch in total and about halfway through, one of the other players there, who spoke English even more fluently than the bloke who had addressed me at first, asked me for confirmation that I was from England. I confirmed this, and his reply was “you must be used to this, then?” I was unsure how to take that – either training on the continent is not testing enough and he admires the comparative intensity of English training or he perceives a more physical approach on the Isles and is perhaps more used to ball work. I’m edging towards the latter or some version of this.

The running was all well and good then, and by this time I was looking forward to testing myself against the other players football-wise. We were split into three groups, with two teams playing against each other on a small pitch and the other working out with the manager. First up for my team was working out, meaning the football had to wait a little longer. I was a bit surprised when we were made to do all sorts of press-ups and sit-ups in unconventional positions using balls, and over training sessions since I’ve been getting pretty annoyed and fed up with it but overtime I’ve realised this is due to my relative lack of upper body strength and recognised the benefits of these – particularly as they are good exercises for the core of the body, which I’ve always needed to work on. Anyway, this didn’t last for long and soon it was time to play some football.

From a couple of glances while attempting to get a size 5 ball in my grasp to move in sync with my body during sit-ups the confidence grew inside me that I would be able to hold my own. In such a situation where you’re not sure what to expect, every misplaced pass and slip-up from a player reminds you that they’re human too and, specific to this level, not top international footballers who will leave you sprawled chewing the wet muddy turf while watching them glide towards the distant goal. Important to recognise, however, is that the mindset of a player can easily unwittingly transcend the boundary separating confidence and complacency. My experience of suffering this fate on repeated occasions helped me recognise that it had happened again to me when I was caught in possession a couple of times or misjudged an opportunity where I thought I could nick the ball off an opponent. I bucked up my ideas, wary of what the lads would be giggling about behind my back in an alien language, and showed I was able to hold my own. It wasn’t in fact too challenging, and it certainly wasn’t a game being played at full intensity, but my needy and insecure mind was satisfied that it had made a positive impression on a bunch of peers, not to mention my satisfaction that my ability with the ball hadn’t become too rusty. 

Football Punditry (Part II)

So it's taken a while again after my last post where I meant to complete a sort of rant about the standard of punditry. I guess I'll just have to carry on where I left off. So, we were on the opening day of the season and I spoke about a few comments on a couple of games, particularly what was said by Alan Hansen. Watching the following day's action on Match of the Day 2, Hansen was at it again! It seems like a witch hunt against the poor sod thus far so I’d like to state that I’m sure many other pundits will be picked up on later and I don’t think Hansen is anywhere near the worst of the bunch (step forward Mr Shearer to claim that accolade). In the analysis of the Chelsea vs Hull game, attention turned to Hull’s performance and their pretty passing having displayed the match statistics (503 passes and 48% possession compared to Chelsea’s 552 and 52%) and despite being impressed, he was quick to dismiss its lack of effectiveness on the game. His exact words were “with Hull, their passing we’re gonna show here – it’s all in their own half. I mean, it’s actually very, very good…they keep the ball very, very well but you know, he's up on his own [referring to the Hull striker] no problem there. [next phase is shown] This is actually even better. The passing here, it’s like, I think it’s absolutely superb, but: they’re going back to where they started! You know, they’ve kept the ball exceptionally well but they’re not over the halfway line. [he then summarises] Well it’s all about goals. I mean it’s all very well passing, but you’ve gotta be a threat at the same time.” All this analysis shows is that Chelsea are a much better team than Hull and Hull understandably find it more difficult to pass through a quality side up the pitch. There’s no evidence that going long ball or direct would have yielded a better result, nor does this suggest that the pass-and-move football they showed wouldn’t reap greater rewards against a lesser quality side. In his defence, he did add at the end “they weren’t enough of a threat today, but the easier games will come.” However, the comments in general were a bit wide of the mark, and again missed the point. The aim of the game is to score goals; that is true, but keeping possession goes a long way to help with that. And the “it’s all about goals” stuff is where a lot of people go wrong. As I said before, things like this filter through to grassroots level and players get told the same thing – should it all be about goals there? Or should we be working out the best ways to work towards scoring goals rather than just trying to score them in any way we can? 

Since then there have been too many similar instances to keep track of. The main one that struck me was the post-match analysis after Liverpool's home defeat by Southampton. Several occasions were shown in the highlights where Liverpool lost possession well into their own half after being pressed high up the pitch by Southampton, including the game's only goal where Southampton forced Liverpool into conceding a corner after passing in near their own box. The comments from the punditry team (I believe Shearer and Hansen) were along the lines that they "shouldn't be messing about with it there" and should "just go long if they might lose it." Southampton got their tactics spot on in this game from what I saw in the highlights but there seemed to be little mention of this compared to supposedly 'sloppy' passing from the home side. Really this is a teething problem that sides attempting to play a patient passing game encounter. It's not so much that the players are not good enough on the ball as the opposition team reading and anticipating the future positions and movement of the ball quicker. If one player has the ball and should have two options, the pressing side will close off the best angles to make passes to which mean that the team-mates of the man in possession will receive it under pressure or be forced to retreat to receive it in an uncomfortable position which in turn compromises the positions of other team-mates and the progression of play. Ultimately the end result is usually the opposition intercepting or the team in possession inadvertently playing into touch. This is NOT sloppy passing where a player forgets to think or it fails to fully register in his mind where his team-mate is before making the pass, or worse 'messing around with the ball'. There is nothing to suggest going long when under pressure would be a better option other than that the ball wouldn't immediately be lost in a dangerous area, and the players further up the pitch are more likely to have taken up positions which would help their effectiveness when the ball does move into midfield and then into the final third and having to react to a long ball would sort of be reverting to some sort of emergency status. It's hard to say either way how a team would have fared in one game if they didn't pass the ball around in their own half so much, such are the complications of football and tactics. 

In the same show Crystal Palace were criticised for their passing game which led to some cheap concessions of possession in their 2-0 defeat to Swansea. The reductive verdict from Hansen was something like: "if you can't pass the ball, don't do it, simple." - maybe true in terms of the main thrust of the argument, but how do you then get better at passing the ball? If a struggling side in a division attempts to play neat football, it is true that they will find it difficult to keep possession against better sides when playing a short-passing game, but the deeply ingrained attitude that we shouldn't try what we're not good at is the worrying thing. In a sense those who say this are correct - for a team that gets promoted, it's success in a higher division will invariably take priority over their style. If teething problems in playing a particular style will cost them a considerable number of valuable points, then in the interests of the club the manager and players are right to play to their strengths. At the same time, I feel those trying to play this way should be commended - in simple terms, in anything you start out at when competing against others, you tend not to be so good at first but you keep working on it and improve. Sometimes short-term results will take a hit before you arrive at some later consistency (not in the case of this Palace side, they'll go down comfortably, but I mean in general teams who are implementing this style of football). At a basic level of football, players will be more ready to play this style of football if they keep trying it despite struggling with it at first. Last weekend I read an excellent article in the Guardian with Dennis Berkgamp, one of my favourite ever players. He touches upon this point when talking about his time at Ajax, as a youth player and now as a coach: "sometimes you put your strongest player on the bench to let others shine. Or a right-footed player on the left side and force him to use his left foot. Of course in that game you will probably lose because you don't use your strongest players in their strongest position, but in the end you have a player who used his left foot when he was 12 and 13 and 14, and he can use both feet when he comes into the first team." By the time a player is already long in senior football, it can be too late to work on these weaknesses as it comes at the expense of results for the first team, which can have consequences. And I think these problems that come with attempted passing games and the reactions to it are yet more side-effects of us having got things wrong from the bottom up for so long. 

Change of settings and football punditry (Part I)

So that pre-season friendly took place at the very start of August and since then, much has changed. While on holiday, I was successful in a job interview for a company based abroad about which I had first been unexpectedly notified by email around the end of July. I accepted the offer, so that pre-season friendly turned out to be my final involvement with this team. I thanked them for a tough pre-season programme and wished them the best of luck for 2013-14. I'm not going to be any more specific as to where I now am based other than say that it's in Europe and I don't know the language at all - it's completely different to anything I've learned. Since moving I didn't manage to play any football for the first few weeks as my new job required a training period, the hours of which did not permit me to attend training sessions for the side I plan on joining. Nonetheless I'd been keeping something resembling fit and the temptation to sample the local beer every night was mostly quelled by the need to be up at 7am during the week. It was still annoying that I had spent a good month or so of pre-season getting myself in very good shape by being put through some gruelling practices only to have much of that undone by a sudden change in milieu where I no longer had such easy access to that kind of routine. But that's what relocating away from home does to you, I suppose. 

Thanks to my university's VPN network, watching the football back home is still a welcome possibility, and this is what I'd like to talk about for the moment. I have managed to get playing myself again but first I'd like to use the break in my own play as an opportunity to discuss something I've been meaning to for a while. . The standard of punditry on Match of the Day has always been a bugbear of mine – attempting to analyse at least half a dozen matches in succession for a couple of minutes each is both impractical and a thankless task to begin with, but I never cease to be amazed by how often ex-professional pundits who have played at the highest level miss the point in their analyses. What they say is very general, and they tend to offer no insight at all into why things happen and how they develop, rather opting for empty, general statements like something a player could or should have done (in a broad area of the game – by this I mean “he should defend this ball better” – obviously defending encompasses many different things) at a particular moment. What irritates me the most is their lack of understanding of players attempting to keep possession and appreciating its value. If they lose the ball, it’s just dismissed as poor play for one reason or another. The weekend of 17/18 August marked the start of another Premier League season and let's take an example from the opening day where the first game in the highlights was the evening kick-off between Swansea and Manchester United. Swansea pulled a goal back late on having been 0-3 down after United player Danny Welbeck lost possession in his own half having collected a cleared Swansea corner and trying to hold onto the ball. In the post-match analysis with this goal being looked at, Alan Hansen somewhat predictably commented that the striker was “trying to be too clever.” Hearing this irritates me because the people who use it don’t really know what ‘clever’ or ‘too clever’ means. If, when a corner is cleared, the ball falls to a player of the defending team just outside the box, he is probably positioned there because the manager wants him to attempt to set up a counter-attack in this situation rather than complete the clearance by hacking it forward to nobody. Clearly the former is more difficult to execute but also more likely to end up as a goal scored, so the player is being sensible first by looking to hold onto it and secondly by not just attempting the first pass he sees (if there is one at all). If he loses possession in this situation, it isn’t as simple as him holding onto the ball too long. If I remember right, in this instance Welbeck was closed down very quickly by about 3 Swansea players having briefly looked for a pass only to find nothing on, where he probably would have expected to have team-mates showing for it. So here there's nothing 'too clever' about him trying to keep the ball - he only tries to outsmart the opposition from the point where he's immediately surrounded, a point at which he has to try. At this point even an aimless clearance probably would have cannoned off one of their players such was the intensity of their pressure and their proximity to him. What's more, his attempt to keep the ball through close control and working some space despite seeming almost impossible is successfully managed by players every week – for me it’s having confidence in your own ability and applying your mind to the game rather than trying to be too clever. And how clever is too clever anyway? As I mentioned earlier, discouraging players from doing certain things will cause them not to do it, revert to a safer option and they won’t improve at it. OK, obviously in this case Welbeck isn’t going to be taking MOTD analysis as advice for his game, but we need to think about a wider scope here. As a younger player I was far more impressionable and receptive to this kind of commentary and I doubt I was alone. There must be plenty who take the "advice" and repeat it (I know as a teenager I used to take bullshit clichés I saw on TV into playing in the school playground or indeed in a proper competitive match and repeat them there), running the risk of not developing as broad an understanding of the game as they should. I hate to generalise, but I know a number of managers and coaches at grassroots level who are ardent listeners to football phone-ins and such stuff. Trying my best to sound as unpatronising as possible, they relay this limited idea of the game to their players. From playing at junior level and watching either friends or younger relatives of mine, the number of times I've heard "don't fuck about with it there!" or "that's too casual!" or "if you can't pass it properly there just clear your lines!" and a myriad of similar phrases, could fill a viewing of Modern Times Forever (Google it to get the reference). The reality is that trying to keep the ball all the time immensely helps you as a footballer. The rule of practice makes perfect applies here – you’ll lose the ball quite a bit at first, sometimes even in dangerous areas which occasionally leads to a goal, but as you take more opportunities to try it you become more adept at it. That’s better than taking the safest option most of the time, not really trying to cope with more difficult aspects and then being in a spot of bother when finding yourself in a tricky situation on the pitch. The sad truth is that losing the ball makes you look bad as a youngster and you get picked on – nobody wants either of those things in football. It makes the problem a difficult one to get round.

Elevating this to a top professional level, I remember watching Match of the Day on the first day of the 2012/13 season too and seeing analysis of West Brom vs Liverpool, which finished 3-0 to the home side. It was Liverpool’s first match under new manager Brendan Rodgers and he clearly planned to implement the same passing philosophy which had served him so well at Swansea. Clearly such systems don’t happen overnight and take some getting used to – inevitable teething problems arise when a new manager comes in and overhauls tactics and systems, meaning early results and performances often aren’t great and some mistakes are made which seem basic – as the cliché goes: “a professional footballer shouldn’t be making that sort of error!” – but it’s really players trying and learning to adapt to a new system, a new methodology of playing for their football team. In this very game, one West Brom goal indeed came from Liverpool trying to play out short from the back and losing possession very close to their own penalty box. Depressingly, in the post-match analysis (and I think it was Hansen again), the comment on this goal was something like “basic errors again – he’s just got to get rid of it there but he gives it away and they go and score.” I was so wound up by this I wanted to cry myself to sleep, and I was on holiday at the time. I’m sure as ex-professionals these people have been present when a new manager has come into the club and changed the team’s approach, with the players struggling with it early on before getting to grips with it and improving (which is pretty much what happened with Liverpool last season), and you hardly need to be a professional to even work that out, hence it irritates me when pundits consistently come at things like this from the wrong angle. 

Game #1 of pre-season - nerves, concentration and 'just get it up there!'

So the time had come for me to play (or rather feature) in the club’s first pre-season friendly. It seemed an oddly late date to have your first pre-season friendly only 9 days before the start of the season (2 more after this had been scheduled) but arranging fixtures at this level can be a difficult task. The club has a big squad this season and we had a squad of about 18-19 players for the first friendly, with about 5 or 6 first-team regulars missing through holidays or injuries! Our opponents were 2 steps higher than us in the pyramid, which did fill me with a fair amount of pre-match nerves as it would be my first game at this sort of level for almost 3 years. I did, however, take comfort from remembering that the last time I played a first-team friendly for my last team at the equivalent level, also against a team 2 steps higher, I came on at half-time with the scores level, had an absolute stormer despite being physically roughed up a bit and we romped home to a crushing victory (I like to tell people that one with my tongue firmly in the cheek when they take the piss out of my ability). If I'm out of practice, I get very nervous before games – I can remember every single game I’ve played where my nerves have been very intense and it really isn’t pleasant, especially as I was a sub for most of them. Strange as it seems, in most of these games, if not all of them, I’ve gone on to put in good performances. At this point I would like to mention nerves. In my experience a number of managers are very dismissive towards nervous or nervous-looking players and don’t know how to deal with them. Being nervous before a game is not necessarily a bad thing – a common cliché is that “if you go out there with nerves you’ll make silly mistakes”, so instead you’re told to “stop being so nervous”, “be confident”, or even worse, “man up”. It isn’t so simple that a player will suddenly gain confidence if his manager tells him to. Nerves come for various reasons – lack of match practice, inexperience in a certain situation, lack of morale following poor performances or a myriad of other factors, and so on. It’s not necessarily ostensible either when a manager deals with player nerves. He won’t necessarily have a go at the player, instead maybe ignore him or exchange uncertain glances, which in turn would be more likely to increase the player’s unease. Subconscious rather than conscious. As I said, though, it’s OK to be nervous as firstly footballers are human beings with changeable emotions and secondly nerves can be harnessed to increase performance. When I get nervous, it usually increases my concentration and keeps me switched on during a game, meaning some mistakes (e.g. losing my marker, failing to cover a team-mate or spot danger) are less likely. 

Of course, with different players nerves can have the opposite effect. What they may do also is affect a player’s ability to physically do something like control a ball or accurately place a pass, but as these things aren’t the hardest tasks to execute on a football pitch, they can be and are usually overcome. Once I had my first couple of touches my nerves would usually disappear and turn into confidence, so I feel treating nerves with disdain rather than encouragement is unnecessary, and in fact shows a fear of nerves themselves. When I was about 15, my old Sunday League manager who ranted at me during training and told me I hadn’t improved in 3 years had a go at me before a game. I was selected to start the game and he was giving his pre-match ‘team-talk’ before he gave me a few instructions. I can’t remember what they were, but I nodded silently in acknowledgement of what he said (I was a very quiet one, and very different to most people my age). His reaction to this was to direct at me a volley of criticism for “acting frightened” in front of the squad, before ordering me to “brave myself up.” He then gave me a load of rhetorical questions – I just stood there blankly, shrugging. My lack of response triggered further wild epileptic gesticulations and facial expressions from him before I quietly said “I dunno what you want me to say”, to which he flapped his arms a bit more and turned away in disgust. I guess I gave off quite a sheepish look when I was younger, the manager of my very first club asked me why I looked so sheepish before I played my first ever game for them. Anyway, I duly had a shocker and was subbed at half-time, with the manager telling the lads in the team talk that I would be coming off because “I can’t play football”, but that’s another story. There will be plenty on that prick in later entries. Being nervous is such a horrible over-simplification, and I've found that not enough people manage to deal with this effectively - a slap on the back is a nice little gesture but that's all it is, a little gesture. The words it tells equates to little more than a motivational soundbite. 

Back to this pre-season friendly, and we left the changing room to warm up on the pitch 45 minutes or so before kick-off. We did a few drills of various body movements to get the blood flowing and then some passing stuff. At one point the manager told us we “looked like a Sunday morning side” and to be switched on. Then, during a passing drill where the ball was continuously played square along the start line before players made diagonal runs to an opposite cone, I managed to misplace a pass (I’ll say it was the bobbly surface) which sent the manager into a stern monologue of “if you can’t make a basic 5-yard pass without the ball bobbling you shouldn’t be here.” Credit where it’s due, this guy does make sure you stay switched on. Obviously criticisms like that (especially those which infer your ability is lower than the level you’re playing at) aren’t nice to hear but I guess (speaking from my experience here) when you’ve heard enough of them you learn the importance of not taking these at face value. It doesn’t actually mean that the manager doesn’t rate you – it’s just his way of telling you that you’re better than that and trying to keep you at the standard he believes you to be. I suppose, depending on the type of player you are, it can drive you on not to make a mistake or make you more nervous, but mistakes can happen for various reasons, so we shouldn’t be making too much of off-the-cuff remarks. Perhaps I should have learned all this earlier. And some people won't, and that is a problem. 

In the changing room again, the pre-match team talk consisted of the manager telling us that this team, despite being two levels higher, wouldn’t be any better than us technically or as individual players, but we would have to stand up to their physicality and not be overpowered. I actually managed to record some of the talk on my mobile phone – it mainly consists of him emphasising the value of effort, ‘giving 100%’ and teamwork. He mentioned how the club would be operating with a large first-team squad and that competition for places was very high and no positions were safe. Therefore, the players had to be (seen to be) giving 100%. He made a point that about 6 first-team regulars from the previous season were missing that night through injury, holidays or other commitments so every player would be assessed starting from this game. After the stern words of warning, we were told to enjoy the game before the customary rousing applause and shouting in a farrago of masculinity as we prepared to leave the changing rooms. This is something I’ve never understood nor been able to immerse myself in. I realise the aim is to get the players pumped up so they feel ready for the start of the game, but I don’t need aggression and shouting for a release of adrenaline in my body. I just find it weird, and I’m not sure how it’s meant to intimidate the opposition either. It’s happened at pretty much every club I’ve played for, including playing for a mate’s team in a non-competitive league. For me, there are plenty of other ways to motivate yourself for a game, and it seems to be a symptom of the attitude we adopt to football based on power, aggression and so on.

On to the game itself, and the manager was proven right for the most part. The opposition weren’t anything special and watching from the sidelines from the first half, our players were more than capable of matching them. I was both heartened and unnerved by how comfortable our players looked in possession for most of the game – on the one hand, it seemed our players often had plenty of time and space on the ball to find their passes accurately, on the other hand, the cynic in me noticed that I had a high standard to match and couldn’t let the side down by getting the basics wrong. This is just general nerves, really, and you work out how to use them to your advantage – it can be comforting for you if a team-mate misplaces a simple pass, for example. It isn’t a case of Schadenfreude, it doesn’t mean you want them to make a mistake, it merely reminds you that they are humans themselves, and prone to mishaps. Again, I suppose it’s my way of dealing with jitters – I don’t think I can pretend not to feel nerves. That will apply to many people, and many other people need to start understanding that. I’d like to make a point about observing the game as a substitute too. I feel it’s useful to pay attention as much as possible when watching from the sidelines, when from my experience most people at a lower level of football prefer just to have a chat. They’ll still be watching the game of course and making observations, but not really taking it in, not in the true sense of the word. That’s what I’ve tended to find anyway. For me, it’s important to balance your interpretation of how the game is unfolding and therefore what you might be expected of you when you come on with keeping the body warmed up. From concentrating on the game I might work out particular runs that an opposition player makes and figure out how to stop him, or even runs that my own player is making and figure out how I can play the ball onto one of his runs. From this game I noticed that the opposition central midfielders rarely went with their opposite number if they went towards the defence to collect the ball, and even if they did it wasn’t high-intensity pressing, meaning I could have space to pick out passes in my own half and perhaps build from the back if I came on in my preferred position. Of course, you can’t do this too much at the expense of losing your blood flow, so concentrating on yourself from time to time and performing a routine of warm-up exercises and stretches is also advised so you put yourself at the minimum possible physical disadvantage when coming on.

We took the lead in this game with a well-worked goal but they equalised with a penalty after half time (the lead-up to which I missed although our players were adamant no offence was committed). At times they did play percentages to press us back towards our own goal but they were capable of playing neat stuff once they’d got up the pitch. Our manager didn’t always agree with our style, mind. At one point in the first half, we had a free-kick near our own penalty area and our manager wanted us to force an attack from it. One of our defenders played it five yards square to his team-mate which gave rise to a flurry of cursing from the manager. It was exacerbated when we lost the ball in our own half a couple of passes later, prompting questions of “why didn’t you just get it up there?” Obviously it’s frustrating to lose the ball like that when starting in possession under pretty much no pressure, but it’s equally frustrating to hear shouts to get it forward. What’s more, the risk of misplacing a short pass in a dangerous area shouldn’t deter players from trying to play there, but shouting at players for trying to build a move from deep rather than getting it forward quickly discourages them from it, even though next time they may successfully work the ball up the pitch. At the very base of grassroots football we shouldn’t be surprised if this happens and it obviously needs to be addressed, but to still hear stuff like this halfway down the non-league pyramid annoys me. The thing is, this could happen as managers may be using a tactic of aiming for a big striker up front to win a flick-on and an indirect free-kick presents us with a perfect opportunity to do that. Not only that, but he (from a club-centric point of view, rightly so) sees winning and success for the club as more important than playing possession football. Even in a pre-season friendly where no points are at stake it is still important these games are for trialling systems and getting the players used to playing in them. It’s a very tough dilemma when you bring our footballing culture into the picture. I suppose again it would have to start at youth level, but I think it would be a fallacy to say that academies of pro clubs don't encourage their players to keep the ball in defence - the very grass roots that feed these academies will need to learn more broadly the significance of playing it short in defence, even when the temptation is there to launch it forward.  

I eventually came on for the last 15 minutes of the game when our manager decided to make his last batch of substitutions, and got to play in my best position. I was surprised at how well I did considering the last time I played at this sort of standard, and didn’t suffer any confidence crisis when I went onto the pitch. I saw plenty of the ball as we built from the back lots and got into good positions to receive it from them and then pick out subsequent passes. I would say I was disappointed that the game didn’t last longer but that would be a lie, as despite the encouraging cameo, I was already blowing out of my arse by the end – a combination I think of a lack of serious match practice, my body feeling the effects of the constant pre-season training and other aerobic exercise I’d been doing other days, and probably not warming up quite well enough as a sub (I started to relax around the hour mark as I didn’t think I’d get on – a fatal and naïve error I know). It was a promising start for me and a nice confidence boost before I left for a week’s holiday the next day. 

Lazy...or just playing a different way?

Apologies for the lack of activity, it's been an incredibly busy week and my girlfriend was over to visit last weekend, so this has been inadvertently relegated to secondary status. 

After some despondence following confrontation about effort, there wasn't much to grumble about in the following session, I don't think! I was introduced to two new drills involving both running and a football. The first involves three players and three cones, with one player doing the work, one dictating and one feeding. The set-up is a ‘T’ shape with the working player starting at the tip – the cones are stationed at each point of the T. The dictator (for want of a better word) then calls out either 1 (sprint to the left cone), 2 (sprint to the right cone) or 3 (run backwards to the rear cone) – obviously not in order, and the player has to get to the correct cone and back to the middle before being fed the ball and setting off again – players work for I think 45 seconds to one minute. Methods of feeding included ground passing, volley passing, chest and volley, sit-ups with headers and press-ups with headers. The second was a lot more complicated for the brain. It involved groups of six, sometimes eight (with two players working) – the feeders would stand in a sort of square and the workers would be at the bottom on each side, facing one of the feeders. Players run round the square doing ground passes, volley passes, (sit-ups and press-ups) headers etc.; on the first go they must cross over and go to the other feeder at the bottom of the square before running up to the top to be fed by one, and crossing over again at the top before arriving back at the opposite feeder at the bottom. If in a group of eight, the players would cross over again in what would become the middle before running to the top and crossing over again before arriving back at the bottom. Players bumping into each other and veering off in completely the wrong direction was not an uncommon occurrence.

So, onto Saturday morning’s session and numbers were vastly reduced as a number of players had gone on the club's tour. The first drill was not quite as intense as others have been as it involved working primarily on the spot for about a minute but it did still require being switched on. In groups of either three or four, with one player working, the player working will be fed the ball in turns by the other players through means of volley passes, chest and volleys, headers, sit-ups plus headers etc. – in a group of three, the player working returns the ball to the player who has fed it him, whereas in a four he gives it to the feeder without a ball (the exercise always involves two balls, so with three feeders one is always without a ball). I enjoyed this exercise as it really does seem to refine your technique if practised enough, making a simple firm side-footed volley or header come naturally. After that was the 12 laps in 12 minutes again, though the manager did challenge us to do 13 if we could manage it – I did. There was also the sprinting and passing etc. for 45 seconds sandwiched in between a 6-a-side game.

In the second part of this six-a-side game, something started to bug me and I left feeling puzzled at it. I hadn’t played my best and had been sloppy with the ball way too often for my liking, but it wasn’t that. Several on my team, myself included, were feeling pretty tired (once again) after all the running we had done. Clearly to recover some energy, we tried playing a slow, patient build-up when in possession, and without the ball, allowing the other team possession in their own half whilst carefully altering our positions accordingly in order to shut out channels for ‘damaging’ passes. If they did manage to breach a line, we would quicken our pace and attempt to shut them out. The manager instructed the team which didn’t have the ball to adopt a high-tempo pressing approach with lots of closing down, stating that “anyone just marking space isn’t helping their team.” I realised about a couple of hours after I’d got home from training that it was the manager’s words which had annoyed me. Ordering us to switch from a containment defensive style to high-tempo pressing is fine in itself, and it’s very beneficial for teams to learn and master various styles of defence in order to gain flexibility and adaptability (although perhaps this should be practised more with better organised training at this level – admittedly may be difficult to implement). His motive for demanding a change in our approach, however, seemed to be because he thought we were being lazy and not working hard enough – indeed he said we were “lazy” if we weren’t closing down, and of course football isn’t quite so simple, and even when trying to organise something quickly it upsets me to see the game spoken of in a way that reduces tactics and systems to a very simplistic form. Having expended a great deal of energy running earlier, high-energy pressing to regain possession is even more energy-sapping. If not done properly, which is likely when energy levels are low, it is a very risky strategy – if you press high up the pitch and commit yourself, once the ball has passed you, you are pretty much taken out of the game, giving the team in possession a massive advantage. I get that pre-season is also about fitness and the manager would want to push us so we can compete in matches, but you don’t just have to keep running at full pelt for the sake of it, not to mention that a containment game requires high levels of sustained concentration, and the knowledge of subtle positional nuances. The ‘lazy’ excuse is just pretty poor, in all honesty. Pre-season is about fitness and several other things too.  

Effort, 100%, Passion, Desire, "Going In" etc.

So, continuing from yesterday, the structure of the training sessions in these two sessions brings me to my next point. A rule was implemented in the games whereby if a team concedes a goal they must run a lap of the pitch they’re playing on. Even though a team can only score with a one-touch finish within the penalty area, I feel teams adopt a fearful attitude towards defending. There isn’t a lot of hoofing but play is very rushed – it’s back to front very quickly with not a great deal of slowing things down, ‘recycling’ or changing direction. The main flaw is that if a player wanting to build a move from within his own third rather than rush it forward loses possession near his own goal, giving the other team a clear opportunity, he is punished for trying to keep possession, even if there's nothing on in front of him. Admittedly, sometimes there are some lovely bits of interplay in quick transitions from defence to attack, but the move quite often breaks down after a few passes. The best option might be to check back towards your own goal into a bit of space and then calmly play a square pass across the pitch. If this goes wrong, however, there's a high risk of conceding as the ball is lost in such a dangerous area. But players who are discouraged from trying this won't try it, and therefore will never improve in executing it. Most footballers at my level can pass, but there is a difference between looking to pass and not just passing for the sake of it/making the earliest available pass seen – as my mate put it, "actually realising the ball is a football and not a fucking grenade." Even in a training match, players resort to a panicky attitude in defence as they are playing with added pressure – obviously neither team wants to run a lap of the pitch for conceding a goal, and even more so given that they have 30 seconds to get round before the ball is thrown back into play. And believe me you don't want to be the one that fucks up and makes your team run round the pitch. The safety first mentality that develops brings players to think “well at least we didn’t concede and don’t have to run”, which is a dangerous attitude to bring into future competitive games. 

Even though a number of players are technically skilled, the need to play the ball forward quickly and go from there rather than pass around the back and the middle, giving everyone a touch, probing patiently and seeking openings, causes more turnovers of possession, as it requires a lot of work from the midfield players and even the fullbacks to get up into the correct positions to support the attack. This, I feel, is where many grassroots clubs across the country go wrong – our problem isn't as simple as not being technically proficient. Whilst it can be, and often is an issue, many players at all levels of the pyramid are technically skilled, but the problem extends itself to mentality also, how we view possession football. Obviously it's not just players either, fans and paid journalists are guilty too. At this point I'd like to say it's a lazy assumption that supporters would just prefer substance over style, so to speak. Whilst yes, most would give 3 points for their team greater importance than how they play, I feel many would prefer to see their team play attractive football. However, more often than not it would have to be fast-paced play rather than patient passing - I've been to enough games where a side is probing in midfield and looking for an opening where people around me begin to shuffle about uncomfortably in their seats and the odd shouts of "forwards!" and "you won't score playing with it there!" are heard, but 'aimless' (I put this in inverted commas because they often seem aimless but there probably will be an idea behind them) balls forward which sail harmfully to the opposition are met with similar groans of disdain. So quick, more direct passing football gives the best entertainment - this is perfectly captured by the reaction you'll almost certainly see if a player has the ball out wide in a decent position to cross but chooses to pass back inside to a team-mate - and you only have to look at how supporters and journalists for top sports sites view Spain and Barcelona's style of play as 'boring'. Honestly, during Euro 2012 I saw a tweet from a top BBC Sports journalist written in a rather patronising way which went something like "so would anyone like to tell me what subtle intricacies of brilliance [from Spain] I've missed during this match so far?" Seriously? And furthermore, although not a very good indicator of opinion I accept, the BBC ran a vote during the Confederations Cup this summer on Spain's style being boring or brilliant, and you can guess which of them won. I feel true understanding of the value of patient play, rather than being rushed most of the time, is sadly lacking for the most part, and that's shown in mentality.

The question of mentality brings me nicely to my next point about how it affects our perception of what is happening on the pitch. How we interpret certain instances or passages of play. First of all, it is undeniably frustrating to see one of your team-mates not trying, but what constitutes 'not trying' is very subjective. Probably my biggest hate in football is the saying that a player ‘isn’t showing enough passion’ or ‘looks disinterested’ (what a terrible word that is) if he doesn’t run around a lot or have a full-blooded style – this doesn’t confine itself to moronic supporters either; players and managers not just at a lower level still hold this view, and TV and radio pundits (i.e. retired ex-pros) come out with it on quite a regular basis. Of course, it can be the case that a player who isn’t running much or very hard does lack interest, and no player plays at 100% effort all of the time (we’re human, after all), but it isn’t anywhere near that simple. During the training match that Tuesday, feeling shattered from all the running, pressing and squeezing I’d had to do as a wing-back, there were a couple of loose balls which I couldn’t get to quickly enough to win – this would make me look lazy to those with the mentality just alluded to. One player in our team (not the organiser of positions) was very vocal; constantly talking to others and telling the team what they needed to be doing and where they needed to be – not in an aggressive way, indeed it was helpful and beneficial to listen to him. However, he didn’t particularly like the fact that I hadn’t managed to get to a couple of balls that he felt I should have won, and told me “mate, you need to make more effort when you go in for those” and “you just have to go in mate! Just GO IN!” I snapped back at him and told him it was fatigue that hadn’t enabled me to move any faster in these instances rather than a lack of effort, and he repeated “you just go IN!” A player on the other team, whom I think I’d in fact been involved with in one of these supposed 50-50s, patted me on the back and told me not to worry, that I was doing well and that he agreed with me. I don't like generalising on the basis of one small incident, but the player who told me not to worry was French. From my experience in football, it said something to me. What’s more, the team-mate with whom I had the altercation is certainly no lumbering clogger – on the contrary, he’s a very, very talented player, who’s very comfortable on the ball in tight situations and seems to be able to relax in possession and maintain it with ease. In fact he was one of those encouraging what I mentioned earlier; to rest in possession rather than attempting to play forwards as quickly as possible. Yet he still had this odd perception of effort. It was at this point that I realised that such an attitude towards this area of football does not confine itself to players trying to compensate for a lack of ability. Dispositions to playing with the ball can differ from those to playing without the ball – the two certainly don’t have to be synonymous.

All that aside, the fitness work was tough as ever, and the benefits I’m sure will be splendid. The main running was working in groups of 3 taking it in turns to do 10 sprints to a pole placed about halfway up the pitch and back, and whilst recovering doing sit-ups, press-ups, squats, volley passes or headers. The 10 laps in 10 minutes whilst having to get to each corner in 15 seconds was also done again. As well as this was working in groups of three, with one player working very hard for 45 seconds and in some cases one minute. This involved sprinting from cone to cone to receive a two-yard pass, then stuff like volley passes, headers, sit-ups with headers, press-ups with headers and dribbling the ball to the end cone before passing to the end player whom you would loop around before he laid it off back to you. Good stuff.