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The Kansas City Legends Method – A Unique and Better Way to Train Players - by Andy Barney – Director of Coaching

Introduction

Optimum growth depends on constantly treading the right path. An athletic career is already shortened to great degree by ageing so there’s not a moment to waste. The fastest improvement depends on constantly refining the technical, tactical, physical and mental aspects of performance in the manner that gets the player from the start point to the objective in the quickest time and keeps them motivated to stay involved.

Traditional coaching theory promotes the type of practice that isolates one aspect of the game. This may be a technical aspect such as heading or a tactical aspect such as set plays. Unfortunately, while a coach and team are working on one aspect of the game the other areas are neglected. The Legends way is to teach players the two most difficult techniques of soccer i.e. tremendous deceptive dribbling and finishing abilities and then to develop all of soccer’s vital technical, tactical, psychological and physiological components in one type of practice structure. This is the quickest way to develop the “Complete Player”.

Just as in our schools there is a quickest way to develop mathematical knowledge there is a quickest way to develop a great soccer player. This is achieved by structuring each and every practice so that all your players have to use all the “big play” techniques of the game, all of the clutch defensive and offensive tactics, all three physical fitness systems and the extremes of their psychological capacity for creativity and aggression to the maximum in every practice. Once the basic shooting and dribbling practice phase has been completed this “total soccer” development should occur in all training situations. The Legends camp program makes a solid beginning to this creative skill development approach while maximizing the enjoyment and motivation of all players in the week long camp.

The unique Legends coaching/teaching approach and club philosophy optimizes the following essential components of sporting participation:

  • Fun
  • Skill
  • Physiological Fitness
  • Intelligence
  • Leadership
  • Character
  • Knowledge of Results/Progress
  • Teamwork

Fun – “The essential element”

The young player loves to dribble and shoot. Give her a basketball hoop, a soccer goal or a hockey net and she will dribble and shoot for many a fun hour. Add to this by teaching her the fakes and moves and finishing techniques that allow her to feel her skills constantly improving and the extra success will help her to love the sport. Dribbling and shooting are the most enjoyable skills. This is because until approximately age twelve when the "dawning of tactical awareness” occurs, children are very “me” oriented and will enjoy activities where they get to be the center of attention over and above those that relegate them to support roles for much of the time. Passing and receiving relegates a child to that less enjoyable support role whereas dribbling and shooting gives them center stage and satisfies their inherent need for self gratification. The enjoyment of ones fantastic individual skills leads to hours of absorbed play with the soccer ball. The greatest players ever i.e. Pele, Cruyff & Maradona have documented histories of love for long hours of play with the ball. This enjoyment of ball contact taught them incredible skills and provided the basis for a greater range of tactical options than the next strata of famous players of their era.

Skill

The Legends program emphasizes:

  1. A desire to develop the more difficult creative skills
  2. A willingness to allow young players the opportunity to lose the ball while learning how to dominate it
  3. A commitment to the long-term goal of incredible individual skill and speed of play.

With the coaching philosophy of the Legends the players develop tremendous self-confidence and creativity plus all the above benefits of this unique coaching system. This is because each player learns to be individually brilliant with ball and eventually has the self-concept and improvisational ability to hold the ball until the time is right to make the pass or take the shot.

Without doubt, the two skills that set the greatest players apart from the thousands of others who have played international soccer over the decades are dribbling and finishing. Their dribbling defined the unique genius of these players by illustrating tremendous ability to cut, spin, turn and fake with incredible speed, dexterity and disguise, in tight areas, under pressure from one or more opponents. It was their seemingly effortless ability to do all this without looking at the ball, (except for the occasional quick glance), while reading the movement of defenders and the runs of team mates, thereby recognizing and exploiting opportunities at the very first instant, that elevated them from the toil of mere soccer mortals to the realms of the soccer gods.

Their finishing demonstrated the ability to assess the correct finishing option, whether power drive, chip, banana, side foot, volley, half volley, relative to positions of defenders and goalkeeper and perform it with the greatest disguise, speed, accuracy and technical efficiency giving opponents no chance of denying the score. This sheer brilliance in both dribbling and finishing elevated them from the respect due to the very good, to levels of worship attributed only to the sublime.

Many of the problems in soccer coaching is due to the emphasis on winning games. Too many coaches are in the game for their ego. Passing or, at worst, kicking the ball forward, achieves the short-term benefit of territorial advantage. This minimizes the risk of giving away possession to the other team in the defensive third. To the coach who is interested in the statistical win this affords only his team with the opportunity to score because if his players consistently use the "big boot" to get the ball deep into the opponent’s half of the field then there is a greater likelihood that only his team will score and the other team won't. By using this method they score more goals than the other team and the coach can walk tall because his team “beat” the other team. This approach is the “risk free” approach. The players take no risk outside of the attacking third, therefore, there is no risk of dispossession in danger areas. Unfortunately, because of this attitude there is no risk of most players developing any creativity because to do so increases the risk of losing which cannot be tolerated.

The success of failure

Some of the most innovative and creative people are those who are willing to undertake projects that will probably fail. Creativity depends heavily on exploration, and when you're exploring new territory, you often run into dead ends. When you do have to turn back, when you do have the experience of failure, that's not a sign to abandon the endeavor. In fact, it's a signal that you're making progress. After all, you've learned what doesn't work, and that will help you to eventually discover what does work. The most successful soccer players are taught to look at failure as simply another step in the process of success. Failure is not a reason to stop - quite the contrary. Indeed, each failure becomes a new and more advanced starting point.

An important part of the determination to succeed is the willingness to fail, and the confidence to see every failure as temporary. So players need to be encouraged to explore new ideas. Attempt new and ambitious plays. Of course they'll make mistakes. Sure, they'll run into some dead ends. And each time they do, they'll be moving forward toward ultimate, certain success.

Younger Legends trained players who perform the fakes and moves under pressure will often lose the ball. If we look at the number of times a player keeps as opposed to loses the ball players encouraged to use this method will take a statistical beating as they are learning. However, if we look at the degree of difficulty i.e. the amount of individual skill, (moves and fakes), attempted and the number of touches the players enjoy, the Legends trained kids will have many more ball touches and win the stat's game by a significant margin.

Legends camp coaches appreciate the importance for each individual child to be encouraged to keep trying the individual skills. Legends coaches also encourage the children to take the risk of trying their fakes and shooting even in the most difficult circumstances, knowing that they will lose the ball often if they do. This is because it's the only way they will ever develop the confidence to do these things at the highest level. Only the players who have tried it enough and made enough mistakes will eventually succeed against the best teams. The process of trying and failing but being encouraged to "go for it" again will immunize them to the risks of losing the ball until they get good enough at the fakes and moves to enjoy the reinforcement from keeping the ball more often than losing it and scoring goals on a regular basis. For some of the players it may be a while before this occurs but, as with all the Legends players that have been coached in this manner, it will definitely happen. It's a lot like learning to walk. We all fell over hundreds of times in the beginning but our parents encouraged us and eventually we succeeded. Because Legends coaches reinforce this philosophy and encourage the players to take the risk of trying the moves they eventually succeed more often than not.

Unfortunately the more impatient coaches and parents who can't put aside the need to win the game may have a tough time with waiting until this occurs.

For those parents who have difficulty handling the emotional negatives of watching immature players lose the ball it is worthwhile to note that over 85% of the graduating players from the Legends Soccer Club in KC have gone on to play soccer in College. These players all went through the same challenges of losing the ball most of the time against good players until they gradually turned things around and learned to keep the ball and really impress the college coaches with their skill and composure under pressure.

The most difficult clutch skills are those that create goal-scoring opportunities. By their very nature these skills have to be the quickest, most incisive and deceptive in the game. It has been said that, “great creativity is the product of exceptional technique,” (Michelangelo). The two techniques of the game in which exceptional creative ability is extremely rare are: (1) Dribbling and (2) Shooting (finishing). This is due to the nature of the challenges inherent within these skills and the situations demanding their utilization.

Goal scoring situations are subjected to pressures never experienced in any other area of the field.

Firstly, finishing is a skill performed only in the area of the field crowded with the highest number of opponents focused entirely on denying the goal scoring opportunity.

Secondly, in this area the individual pressure and attention given to the striker by his marker is maximal.

Thirdly, the constraints of the offside rule limit penetrating movement and space.

Fourthly, the goalkeeper provides an obstacle and a unique skill set that limits the viable target area significantly.

Fifth, the need to apply power to the ball increases the potential for inaccuracy.

Sixth, the incredible importance of finishing carries an immense, inherent, psychological burden because the striker may have the one viable opportunity to win the game.

Ball wizardry in the guise of exceptional dribbling talent also brings with it many unique challenges.

  1. The recognized ball wizard is usually assigned to the most effective, (and often rugged), defender.
  2. The player carrying the ball receives the highest level of individual attention and pressure.
  3. The dribble is subjected to the greatest level of physical intimidation.
  4. When dribbling to beat an opponent in the final third, the ball carrier may have to allow for limited space and covering defenders who are focused upon limiting penetrating options. Therefore, the dribbler must have great balance, coordination, agility, strength and deception under pressure from opposition.

For all the above reasons, situations where dribbling or finishing are the appropriate tactical choices will demand an exceptional level of technical ability and self-belief if consistent success is to be expected. The fact that these skills are most commonly the hallmark of great goals also helps identify them as the true “Clutch Skills” of soccer.

When shooting, players need to be able to shoot with power from distance, finish with accuracy from close in, swerve the ball around opponents and put the ball over opposing defenders and the goalkeeper. They must be taught to drive, bend, chip, volley, half-volley and side volley the ball with both accuracy and power. They also have to be able to do this with both feet under pressure. It is therefore obvious that significant time needs to be spent on shooting in order to develop all players to the point that they are able to make the big play.

If we take our analysis deeper and evaluate the relationship between shooting and passing we will realize that a pass is simply a much easier shot. A deadly finisher who has been trained to quickly move into position to score the goal and to place the ball with accuracy and power in the only place where the goal is guaranteed, will definitely be a very accomplished passer. Therefore the Legends are training the very best passers and the very best finishers by focusing entirely on the type of movement needed to get open in the penalty area and the finishing techniques and tactics needed to take advantage of any opportunity that arises.

It should now become apparent that by focusing 50 % of our total available time on the more difficult skill of finishing under pressure we develop the very best passers. This is why we don’t waste practice time on teaching passing and yet produce Kansas City’s best passers and goal scorers.

Moving on, the only other clutch skill that we really need to work on intensively to make the young player into the most devastating attacking playmaker is dribbling. To maximize the creative dribbling capabilities of each player the remainder of a coach’s time after finishing/shooting needs to be spent on deceptive dribbling to beat defenders at close quarters in and around the penalty area.

The added bonus is that because the main physiological components of both dribbling and receiving are touch, coordination, balance, agility, strength and deception under pressure, (all the components of receiving), the great dribbler automatically becomes an excellent receiver of the ball. Therefore, because deceptive dribbling in the attacking third of the field, under pressure from aggressive defenders builds these physical factors to the greatest degree there is no need to waste valuable practice time working on receiving.

In this way we accomplish tremendous learning of the 4 key clutch skills, shooting, passing, dribbling and receiving in half the time of other programs. These are the crucial “big play” creative skills for the younger player and are developed in the most highly pressured area of the field because our goals are placed 20-25 yards apart at every practice. Therefore, the children we coach are conditioned with a desire to make the big play in front of goal as if this were the most normal occurrence.

The self-concept and confidence this develops in the young player is a joy to behold. This should surprise no one because players who have the ability to make the plays that can win the game for their team will automatically become highly motivated leaders.

It must also be emphasized that this approach is also to the benefit of the defensive clutch skills because all the live situations that are used to develop great dribbling, passing and finishing skills also provide maximal learning of big play defensive abilities.

As a result this unique coaching approach will not only develop the brilliant attacking player but also the quick, aggressive, accomplished “clutch” defender.

Therefore, our players develop five skills for the time cost of developing just two. Add this to the fact that the skills that the Legends Soccer Camps develop are the “clutch” or “game winning” skills and the reasons for pursuing the “Legends approach” become ever more compelling.

Individual Compounding

One of the most resounding justifications for a dribbling approach to coaching soccer between ages 5-14 is provided through analysis of the subsequent behavior of supremely confident dribblers in pick up, scrimmage or game situations. If duration of time in possession of the ball is selected as the criteria for statistical assessment, these individuals are the dominant players. Therefore, dribbling development compounds itself because a greater percentage of each and every soccer situation involving one ball and a number of participants will be enjoyed by those players with more refined dribbling abilities. No other of soccer’s skills has this compounding effect because they are all reception or release based, therefore, the incidence of their occurrence is dictated, to a large degree, by both opponents and teammates.

Small Group Compounding

An additional compounding effect occurs in any situation where a few players trained to be very creative, self-confident dribblers play together. Players trained to dominate the ball deceptively will enjoy more cumulative possession together in small-sided environments against opponents trained traditionally to pass, thereby guaranteeing themselves more skill development than their opponents.

Team Compounding

The logical progression is where the players on a whole team that has been trained to hold possession with deceptive moves enjoys a significantly greater percentage of individual and cumulative time in possession than a team encouraged to pass quickly or play long-ball. Any player on a team with a whole squad of players trained to hold the ball with deception under pressure until the time is right for a pass or shot will enjoy more ball possession and, as a result, a far higher learning factor in each and every game.

Physiological Fitness

Physical System Development

Soccer is physiologically the most demanding all round sport. It uses an extreme combination of all three energy systems; a) the primary anaerobic, b) the secondary anaerobic, and, c) the aerobic. These can be alternatively defined as; a) short term power (10 seconds or less), b) mid-term power (10 seconds to 2 minutes), and c) long term stamina (upwards of 2 minutes). For 90 minutes the adult soccer player will need to alternate between walking, jogging, running and sprinting. Throughout the game he will switch between energy modes in accordance with the demands of play and his own fitness level. The average professional mid-fielder will cover approximately 7 miles during a single game.

Legends coaches create practice scenarios that involve constant anaerobic and aerobic demands. If the maximum demands of the real game are to be exceeded in training then practices must consist of intense short duration, (2-4 minutes), of intense activity with limited, short term breaks in play, plus numerous segments of anaerobic overload with active recovery.

The Legends Camp program involves

  1. Practices of 3 hour duration.
  2. Statistical recording breaks that approximate the length of time lost for ball out of play and other breaks in game situations.
  3. Technical requirements that require numerous energy sapping short term bursts of power (i.e. deceptive dribbling and tackling).
  4. Practice segments of an intensity and length guaranteed to ensure regular anaerobic overload (Usually between 3-5 minutes).
  5. A length and intensity of practice that guarantees ever increasing stress and development of the aerobic system.

By structuring practice to include the above Legends players will be constantly subjected to a greater aerobic, primary and secondary anaerobic stress than that encountered under game conditions, thereby maximizing specific soccer fitness.

Please note: The players are challenged in the above manner during the work segments of the camp but are given plenty of water breaks and also play fun games at appropriate intervals so that the camp is fun and optimally developmental.

Coordination, Balance and Agility Development

Legends trained players are asked to perform the world’s elite fakes and moves, (the most difficult neuromuscular movement patterns in soccer). These actions are soccer’s equivalent of “Rocket Science”. As a result of the total focus on soccer’s most difficult “big play” skills Legends players develop levels of specific agility, coordination and balance that are far superior to players trained in the traditional “meat and potatoes” pass and receive mentality.

Intelligence (Tactical Understanding)

Soccer intelligence is developed by gradually increasing the number and speed of decisions made by the player. On the one extreme of the tactical continuum is the 1 v 1 situation. This circumstance is the smallest tactical unit of soccer and has the tremendous benefit of maximizing ball touches and the number of micro-tactical decisions. However, it has the disadvantage of minimizing the number of intelligent macro-tactical decisions needing to be made. On the farthest end of the continuum from the 1 v 1 is the 11 v 11 game. This has the obvious advantage of necessitating the maximum number of intelligent macro-tactical decisions but has the disadvantage of restricting ball touches to an absolute minimum. So the normal club either develops tactical strength in 1 v 1 situations at the sacrifice of the bigger picture, nurtures the ability to read 11 v 11 situations at the expense of the 1 v 1 or spends time on 4 v 4/5 v 5 where neither the individual or team tactical extremes are experienced or conquered. However, Legends coaches create an environment which maximizes touches on the ball and provides significantly more micro and macro variables than the real game.

This is how it’s done:

When the real 11 v 11 game is examined it can be seen that the greatest creative tactical challenge is encountered in and around the penalty area with multiple defenders and attackers plus the constraints of the offside rule. Here the tactical abilities of the player are not only challenged by numerous alternatives, (including shooting), but also by restrictions of space, time, psychological pressure and offside. Normally, there won't be any more than 16 players in and around the penalty area in the full game except perhaps on a corner when 18 or 19 players may be in and around the box.

Legends coaches establish a combined technical and tactical challenge greater than that encountered in the most challenging part of the full 11 v 11 game by creating a practice environment which has the following characteristics:

  1. 2 full size goals
  2. 15 or 16 players all playing in the small area in front of goal
  3. 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 small sided games
  4. Small playing area between the goals
  5. Everyone playing on same small space shooting in same goals
  6. No bibs (To facilitate head up recognition and verbal communication)
  7. Game rules and conditions i.e. 1 touch, 2 touch or fake before second touch to encourage early decision making and speed of play.

In this way Legends coaches create an environment that guarantees the development of creative intelligence by maximizing the number of variables that must be constantly analyzed. This will guarantee many opportunities to attack or defend in 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 situations but will also demand that players continually have to assess 15 other variables. To maximize both the ball touch benefit and the 11 v 11 maximum decision variable, (intelligence), benefits the younger Legends players play only 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 in practice. In this way both individual skill and decision making is maximized.

The Zone of Altered Consciousness

Many young players have the genetic capability to experience soccer's “Zone of Altered Consciousness”. The great players of the last three decades have all had the ability to combine vision, tactical awareness and exceptional technical skill in highly pressured situations. Practicing the “big play skills”, (dribbling and shooting), in restricted space and crowded circumstances will maximize the chances of players entering "The Zone" and reveal many more ways in which to dominate an opponent and develop the intelligence and self concept that is so essential for a happy and successful soccer career.

Leadership Ddevelopment

The hardest part of teaching is training individuals to take a leadership role. Only by making a person feel exceptional will a coach reap the rewards associated with a team full of leaders. Having a full squad of players who are all capable of stepping into a leadership role at the appropriate moment is a coach’s dream. The dream becomes a reality if the coach adopts a total creative, (100% dribbling and shooting), emphasis from day one and pursues the most difficult and challenging techniques, (positive risk taking), relentlessly, throughout the young player's youth career. It will enable him to make the travel team, the state select squad and high school varsity as a freshman or sophomore. It will give him the ability to get a college scholarship and a reason to believe in himself in a world where the main barriers between “I can” and “I can’t” are self-concept and confidence. Eventually that self-confidence will permeate his every daily action and trigger positive solution oriented responses to even the most difficult of circumstances.

Practice content is the springboard to the stars or the trapdoor to the cellar. Good coaches will make their practices a festival of fun and creation. Practices should be a celebration of deception, competition and power for their players. They will demand the unusual, encourage the unique, promote the attempt for a faster and more deceptive move or fake. Not only for its value to the team, but also for its motivational, individual leadership benefits and agility developing characteristics. In this way great coaches will develop players who are able to move into areas of leadership challenge such as teamwork and tactics with far more success during the teenage years. This is because offensive tactical options are enhanced and multiplied by creative technical ability and leadership characteristics. A whole squad with great individual technical, tactical and leadership capabilities will have more pieces with which to solve the tactical puzzle and more weapons with which to win the war.

The need to focus 100% of practice time on dribbling and finishing

Every coach I have ever met splits time between various skills of the game at the younger stages of development. At first, this approach seems to make sense because players need to be proficient in passing, receiving, tackling and heading. However, after much experimentation it has become evident that unless the emphasis is 100% on dribbling and finishing the player will take the easy way out and give the ball, (responsibility), to a teammate instead of trying the fake or taking the shot.

In Soccer as in life it is far easier to give away or refuse to take responsibility. Dribbling is one skill where the player has to walk tall, take a leadership role and attempt to make something special happen when all eyes are upon him. Shooting is the other skill where players have to step up and take the responsibility to take a shot that may decide whether or not the whole team is rewarded for its efforts with a win.

For the 5 to 15 year old, taking the full responsibility for the deceptive dribble or for the difficult shot is an extremely daunting and intimidating task. They know that if they fail they will be publicly analyzed and found inadequate, at least for that particular play. It is because of this fear of public humiliation and failure that the willingness to attempt the most difficult dribbling and finishing skills is the ultimate acceptance of responsibility. As great coaches it is our primary responsibility to teach every child that life is about being a leader, taking intelligent risk; that every mistake is a friend. Legends camp coaches teach the players that mistakes should be welcomed as bringing them one step nearer to the goal of creative independence, elite interdependence & leadership.

Character Development

Legends coaches are so effective because they teach the world-class fakes/moves and all shooting techniques exclusively in practice and encourage their use in games. The Legends camp staff will demand their use until players are comfortable with taking the responsibility to try the moves, with no thought of the losing the ball. By doing this the Legends camp and training program will build incredible self-belief and confidence in each player, thereby, making their mature acceptance of responsibility a foregone conclusion and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Legends camp program also has a strong “win with modesty, lose with grace” ethic. All players are encouraged to play hard, skillful, intelligent soccer. No cheating or rule breaking is allowed. We emphasize Family, faith, and academics before sport. The holistic development of the children in the club is our primary concern.

Knowledge of Results/Progress

Record keeping

The Legends camp program for players beyond the age of 10 involves statistical tracking of performance. Statistical record keeping is one of the greatest motivators for the players. The power of the pen to record performance creates a history and, therefore, a visible consequence and knowledge of results for the players. Because their performance is assessed the players are more motivated and work harder than players in other camps. Additionally, the motivation provided by statistical tracking allows the Legends camp coach to use coaching time to provide vital teaching points for technical and tactical development instead of wasting a portion of the practice exhorting players to do their best.

Teamwork

The most common argument used against the dribbling and finishing approach by passing and receiving oriented coaches is the “teamwork” justification.

The claim here is that the passing and receiving approach develops and enhances one of the greatest societal values i.e. teamwork.

If this claim is examined from the perspective of intent it may have some validity. However, if examined from the perspective of results, reality and hands on experience it is seriously flawed in its theory.

When we assess the strongest teams in everyday life we soon begin to appreciate that it is the better educated individual with a more complete educational background who is most likely to be a part of a successful team. One example is in the arena of marriage and divorce where the incidence of marital success rises with the longevity of the formal education background of the individuals involved. Another such example is found in careers where there is an unshakeable link between self-centered formal education and the creation of successful management teams.

Whether we examine leaders from the legal, medical, scientific, academic or any number of other well respected professions where people work together on highly successful teams we will discover dedicated individuals who during their days in higher education first pursued the specific knowledge necessary for their chosen vocation in a totally self centered manner.

This selfish pursuit of knowledge is fully promoted, encouraged and endorsed by good parents, teachers and the educational system alike. This is mostly due to the realization that an exceptionally well-prepared and educated individual will have a better character and a greater probability of working effectively in their chosen field with other dedicated individuals to create a successful team.

We can therefore see that in everyday life self-centered focus on firstly general, and later specific study is beneficial to the pursuit of a specific career goal. We can also see that the knowledge gained during these years of self-centered study helps these individuals develop a stronger character and allows them to become more capable of later fulfilling essential team roles at an extremely difficult and complex level of individual interaction and team performance. In this way the greatest teams of pioneers have achieved the most creative and astonishing breakthroughs of the modern era. Such astonishing achievements as putting a man on the moon, splitting the atom and developing the microchip were achieved as a result of assembling the most brilliant minds of the day on successful teams.

If all this makes sense then why is it that a “team” camp approach is deemed to be the best way to develop soccer players from an early age? How many amazing historical achievements would be a reality if each of the individuals on those teams had been asked to pass the Math book to the kid at the next desk every 2 seconds in elementary or middle school? This is what we ask our soccer players to do in a passing and receiving approach. How many great rocket scientists would NASA have had in the “Man on the Moon” project if those same future scientists had not been encouraged to first develop their self-centered creative mathematical and scientific skills? This is why we have so few great dribblers and finishers. All other camp and soccer club training programs focus on teamwork before the players have learned to dominate the ball. This can be compared to asking NASA scientists to assemble a team to put a man on the moon prior to understanding basic math.

Many “team” oriented soccer coaches just don’t understand that great teams are made up of great individuals. Great individuals have to be taught to be totally comfortable with the ball at their feet, under pressure, in the clutch, inside the penalty area where the game is won or lost in a blink of an eye. To be truly successful in creative team building at the very highest level, coaches must delay their major forays into the realm of team building until the individual has attained great ability in the most difficult individual skill areas of the game. This involves the development of tremendous creative dribbling and finishing ability and the self-concept and confidence that comes with the development of superior abilities in those skills. Only then will the coach be able to form a truly great team where players are interchangeable and each individual desires the responsibility for making the big plays and has the technical skill and tactical speed necessary to succeed consistently at the very highest levels.

This is the only way to build a truly great team! Any coach or parent attempting to justify a primarily passing and receiving approach by claiming that their major focus is the development of team skills and character for life is severely limiting the potential of their players and guaranteeing less success in both areas. Coaches and parents who encourage their players to pass the ball and the responsibility to a team mate prior to mastering the difficult creative dribbling skills needed to hold the ball until the time is right to make the pass or take the shot will never teach the self belief and consequent acceptance of responsibility needed to become a team player of the highest order. To ever become a team player like Pele, Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretsky a child will first have to be selfish and focus almost entirely on dribbling and finishing at the younger ages just as they did. Were they great team players during their late teens and beyond? You bet! They were the greatest ever to play their respective sports. Were they great team players before their middle to late teens? Certainly not! They were individualists. They were more focused on beating opponents and putting the ball or puck in the basket or net. Eventually we all saw the positive consequences of this early self centered creative dribbling and finishing focus. Now it is up to us to accept the responsibility to teach and encourage our players to be the most talented and confident dribblers and finishers with the certain knowledge that they will eventually have a more complete character and the ability to be a productive team member at a much higher level than would otherwise be the case.

Andy Barney
Telephone: 1-913-837-3118
Email:
andy@kclegendssoccer.com


July 2008

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