Allow me to start this week’s topic by first congratulating the South African Football Association, Mopani Region for having done a commendable work of equipping local coaches with coaching lessons and licenses.
Today, most of them in the SAB and ABC Motsepe leagues are proud coaching license holders.
However, the standard of the game itself, both in the two mentioned leagues, remains far below par in all the four components of the game of football.
Firstly, the quality of ball control (technique) is very low. Most players lack the very basic elementary skills of football. Yes I do understand the impact the poor condition of soccer fields has on our players in our district especially in the SAB league, how bit seeing it manifest with consistency even in the semi-professional ABC Motsepe league in much better soccer fields is totally unacceptable.
It can’t be that the majority of our players continue to struggle with the very basic techniques such as passing and trapping at this level of the game. They should have learned these things at the youth soccer development stages.
The obvious question that comes to mind after witnessing such a poor display of basic skills is “What kind of training sessions do these teams hold?
Modern football encourages the use of the ball more often than not in all manner of training sessions. Properly trained coaches know that they have to use the ball even when doing some of the physical exercises. This is simply because the ability to do ball work (technique) is the most important of all the other four components of the game and must be emphasized in all training sessions.
You cannot expect players to suddenly produce top-level ball skills in a game when your training sessions aren’t proper. Whatever you do in a training session is exactly what you will get in a game.
I have seen with amazement some coaches shouting at players for missing a great scoring opportunity in a game when they know very well why their players are failing.
It’s a golden rule “YOU PLAY THE WAY YOU TRAIN AND YOU TRAIN THE WAY YOU PLAY.”
You cannot expect in a game the level of excellence you have never invested in at the training sessions. Yes, it might happen once in a blue moon but only as a moment of luck, and you cannot rely on luck if you want to have consistent success.
Nevertheless, sometimes, it is the team management who are failing our coaches. Some team owners who know little or nothing about modern soccer do not provide the necessary equipment the coaches need for proper training sessions.
I am not talking about far-fetched things that might be too expensive for the local clubs without sponsorship, but simple things such as balls. A proper modern training session demands that each player must have his own ball, or at least two players must share one ball. You cannot produce top quality performances when your 24 players share only six balls in a training session. Please work on your basic techniques. Next week, we will talk about tactics and formations.