Okay guys, so, quick little video, on what it's gonna take for you to use something really, really simple, and it's really gonna elevate your game, and teach you how to really become an elite player. And it's kind of like, you don't even have to leave your couch.
So we do this with every single player that we work with. Whether that's Alex or Rachel or, any of the other pros, college players, everything. We have our players watch two games of soccer every week, of the highest level that they can watch, so it's usually on t.v.. Whether the Champions League, or NWSL for the women's, or the national teams, whatever it is. And, we don't have them just watch the game. Our players are studying the game. And the difference is that, when you're watching it, you know, oftentimes you've got this out, as well, and you're not really paying attention. You notice when the goals go in, you notice when someone does something cool, because there's a replay and the commentator's going crazy. You may even watch the half-time to see the in-studio guys dissecting the game in their way.
But, we want our players to do something different, and that's analyze the game. So, we usually have them grab a piece of paper, and on that piece of paper we're going to have:
- What formations did both teams use?
- How those formations played into what happened in the game: How they effected the game?
- Focus on a player who is in their position.
- What did they do well?
- What could they do better?
- You know, was there one thing that they did really well that they think that they can take out of that and put into their game?
And, just that alone is very powerful. However, we don't have them just focus on players playing their position, we want our players to focus on the players all around the field. What are their movements? Why are they making those movements? How did those tactics effect what that player is doing on the field? And, what we've noticed, is that the players who do this regularly, they call it studying. You can see, if you go on Twitter, when Allie Long puts studying, that's what she means. She's analyzing a game, with our, it's usually Barcelona. You know, her favorite player on Barcelona is Busquets, who is criminally underrated. Maybe the best six who ever played the game. I'm not gonna ask the fans, I'm always gonna say Gilberto, over Busquets, but there you go. And they're studying. And, what players would start to notice is that they start to read the game better, their own games. They start to read what's gonna happen better, and they just start to organize better. And literally all you need is a t.v. to watch soccer, a pen, and a piece of paper. And, you know, you wanna start, maybe get a notebook, and start keeping a record of all the games. It gets you more tactically astute. It makes you understand movements more, it makes you understand tactics more. And it can literally transform your game. And it'll add the mental component to the game. It'll turn you into a soccer player that thinks, one, two, three steps ahead. And that's just getting yourself that knowledge of game-like situations. As I said, piece of paper and a pen. If you write everything down, you can really learn a lot from it. So, that's my tip of the week, is to stop watching games and start analyzing them. One thing that we do have our players do is this goes in another room when you're doing it. The reason for that being, obviously, you're so easily distracted. So you really wanna focus on that element of getting better by sitting on your couch.
