I seem to have a predilection for numbers at the moment! My critique of the Cardiff game centred around the obvious training and coaching deficiencies which have become self-evident out on the pitch, so I thought that I would follow up with another piece written purely on modern coaching developments that I am personally aware of – not necessarily aimed at Ipswich Town but equally as pertinent.

I understand that this blog will not suit everyone but if, like me, you share a desire and understanding of coaching techniques I hope this makes sense and you enjoy the read.

So why 2+2=5? In all honesty what I am hinting at is intelligence (or lack thereof), it is a common perception that footballers are not the brightest of individuals and in some instances evidence exists to prove this theory.

Is football generally a sport more attractive to those individuals who ‘struggle’ through school or do we not give players sufficient credit allowing them to develop into what we see and read about in the tabloids?

The youth academy at Ajax placed a large amount of effort on developing the young players to take an ‘active and positive role in society’ through dedicated schooling and teaching around their footballing development. Johan Cruyff once famously stated that football ‘is a game you play with your brain’ and when working on developing the Barcelona youth system we see today, he placed a huge emphasis on the intelligence of the youngsters enrolled within the academy.

As with Ajax, the emphasis was to produce well-rounded individuals who could handle a life away from the pitch – the result, Barcelona’s youth academy has produced more doctors and lawyers than professional footballers.

For Ajax and Barcelona this approach has worked well enough, I struggle to find derogatory tabloid stories of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi getting into trouble but what interests me is the side effect that has been identified and developed and hints back to the statement by Cruyff.

I make no apologies for using Barcelona as an example, as a pinnacle of youth development I would rather use them than anyone else. When the players are developed and in the first team what we are watching is the end of the production line, they can develop the attacking moves as quick or as slow as they want, change the angles of play around the pitch and modify the way that they play around the opposition. Now this doesn’t always work (that’s what makes football so interesting) but when it does it is often mind blowing to witness.

To play at this kind of level takes technical ability but also requires a level of mental concentration we would not normally associate with modern footballers.

Overloading the brain with information is key and the likes of Belgian coach Michel Bruyninckx has started to develop coaching techniques geared specifically toward enhancing this underdeveloped area of the footballer: “Football is an angular game and needs training of perception – both peripheral sight and split vision.

"Straight, vertical play increases the danger of losing the ball. If a team continuously plays the balls at angles at a very high speed it will be quite impossible to recover the ball. The team rhythm is so high that your opponent will never get into the match.”

Effectively the players need the ability to multi-task to see the options that they have in front of them, analyse the best ones and act accordingly all within very short timescales. This is not something which is developed by running laps or dribbling around orange cones, it is done by developing their brains.

UEFA qualified coach Kevin McGreskin (and now manager of Kiribate – look it up!) makes a telling statement ‘in England players are coached the same way all of the time, but we still expect the end product to be different and somehow think that talent will just magically appear.’

This leads to boredom; players need to be stimulated – well in the legal sense at least by increased complexity of training methods, overloading the brain to a point where they are processing information at such a rate that they can operate in complex scenarios comfortably and at pace.

Maybe then when selecting players at a young age we should also be looking at their ability to understand and learn and not just their technical skills? In England we have generally decided by the age of 18 that the youngster will progress or not, but the brain doesn’t stop developing until we are in our mid-twenties so are we missing a trick here?

Evidence exist that clubs select players based on physical maturity first, and stattos will love this – in the 2008-09 season, 57% of players at Premier League clubs were born between September and December whilst only 14% were born between May and August, suggesting that the more physically mature children in any given school year are being selected by clubs. The theory then goes that an English Lionel Messi (born in June) or Andres Iniesta (born in May) is unlikely to turn up soon! My thanks to The Blizzard for this wonderful little stat!

I am not stating here that we should now only allow players into the academy born after the end of April, what I am saying is that our selection and development criterion needs to change. We have become staid and arrogant here in England believing our own hype that as ‘inventors’ of the modern game we need no longer change and develop it further – rubbish, we need to force ourselves back to the forefront of footballing development lest we are left behind.

The new youth academy categorisation will prove to be a challenge but if Partick Thistle can embrace Michel Bruyninckx's philosophy for development (as they are doing at youth level) then I’m sure we can capitalise on it too.

jpbrooks1 added 11:15 - Oct 19 Good blog. However I doubt the powers that be within the ITFC management/coaching staff have the ability to understand what you are getting at. Month after month of repetetive mistakes within the team would indicate a lack of understanding of a concept such as this.
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Steve_M added 11:23 - Oct 19 None of this thinking rubbish, kick it to the big lad up front. Nice blog, although I fear that attitudes to football are too deeply set in the UK to change quickly.
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La_Paz added 12:26 - Oct 19 Certainly we've got a long way to go in this country, as demonstrated admirably by the senior national side over many years. Maybe St. Georges' will help, who knows. On a club level though, progress can be made but needs continuity. We started the season playing some good football (Blackburn, Watford) after PJ stated that he wanted to improve and emphasise our passing game this season, but then we give the ball away, concede a couple of silly goals as a result and everything changes. PJ comes out with his 'we can play football, but only in the right areas' statement i.e. lump it out from the back, and we're back to square one. This is in contrast to Rodgers, Poyet, Martinez, and dare I say it, Burley, for example, who back the players and the system, give it a chance to bed in and then reap the rewards. Like our transfer policy, this is another area where we seem to be lurching from one extreme to the other in search of a short-term fix. This club needs consistent coaching and selection from the youths upwards to improve, and we have surely learned by now that simply throwing more players at the problem doesn't make it go away. Interesting blog, thanks.

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Blue041273 added 12:52 - Oct 19 Fascinating insight into what football can or should be. However as a long time ex-player myself I struggle with all the modern coaching concepts although I consider myself to be fairly quick to realise the tactical deficiencies endemic in the ITFC game plan in recent seasons. I think for most people Steve M's tactical approach makes sense particularly if we had a big lad up front. After all it's only a game (as my wife would say).

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budgieplucker added 18:43 - Oct 19 Well done Bluetaff an excellent contribution/blog. I have read the stats before and would recommend Mathew Syed’s book " Bounce" re: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, whilst sports examples are abundant in this fascinating book it also demonstrates many other examples of non-sporting professions as well. We may have wonderful new facilities at Burton-On-Trent, which are a BONUS but this will not improve the English game if the mind sets of the coaches don’t change. The depressing thing is even if we wanted to start something new in our academy tomorrow it would probably be several years before we start to see the real benefits of the results and even then players may be judged too early and moved on – BUT that’s no reason not to learn from successful models in the past like Ajax and Barcelona. But I think it is a very pertinent point about the intelligence levels of the players and the possibility of these youngsters maturing far more quickly than many of the youngsters that are currently selected. I don't think Bluetaff's comments should necessarily be confused with tactics and thrusting these on youngsters too early on life but more about feeling comfortable with the ball and awareness of space and how to make it and use it. Practice these drills time and time again using different angles will produce players who almost play on autopilot like other top sportsmen and the rest is just going into overdrive at the appropriate time.

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harlingblue added 21:11 - Oct 19 Great blog Wiel Coever was the (Dutch) coach that I had a great time for, when I did youth football, he concentrated on skill and intellect. Keep training interesting and varied and most of all keeping the mind alert. Yes I am going back in time, but before money ran the game, I saw young Dutch teams being beaten BUT still playing the technical game, but when the got older...they won.

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