Analysing the young learner

Learning is an ongoing process of adaption

In the dynamic sport of soccer if we remove things from their context they are no longer the same thing.  If we for instance want to evaluate the performance of a particular player we have to evaluate it in relation to those players around that player. Recently I was analysing the performance of a much coveted elite youth player. This is a very hard thing to do at youth level as many validate the process through results and form their analysis upon this. In youth soccer even if something is done well it does not guarantee that it will finish up well and vice versa.  Take for example the young kid who is told by his coach to “get rid of it” launches blindly a hopeful long ball/clearance that results in a fast attacker running on to it and scoring a goal. Another young kid tries to play the ball out of defence, he succeeds a few times but on one occasion slips and this allows the oppositions forward to take the ball and score a goal.

The young player in question felt that he had made the correct decision on one or two occasions when the opponents almost scored a goal. These incidents could easily have been interpreted as his fault.

Here is an example of one of those situations.

Blue centre forward runs on to long ball behind the Yellow backline

Goalkeeper reacts quickly and clears the ball before the forward can reach it

The player I am analysing (left centre back) immediately calls for the backline to push up and get a compact shape in relation to the ball. The reason for this is that he knows that while the ball is travelling in the air neither team has control over the ball. The player shows good game intelligence in understanding this and wanting his team to be in a good position to defend or attack depending on who wins the long clearance. The player sees that the clearance is going to be met by an opposition player first. He wants his defensive line to drop a step just before the clearance reaches the opponents foot. This way they are already in a good position to deal with a long ball.

The Yellow left back pushes up in a straight line while the rest of the defence pushes up at an angle in relation to the ball. A long ball is played between the left back and left center-back creating a possible 1v1 situation with the goalkeeper.

Remember that 3 of the back 4 reacted correctly (pushing up at the correct angle in relation to the ball and dropping a step before the clearance reached the opponent in anticipation of a long ball behind them. They were already in a good defensive position to recover.

The left center back in a risk/reward decision making process managed to recover and minimise the goalscoring possibility for the attacker by closing off a big part of the goal (see red area), while at the same time closing off or delaying a central pass to another attacker (see red area). This forced the player to shoot into a very narrow area of the goal where the goalkeeper stood. The end result was an easy save.

What I am interested in is how the player reads and responds to the ever changing dynamics of the game, the organisation of information and action through perception and decision making. There should be an understanding that skill is the technical and tactical dimensions of the game working together as complimentary pairs. Skill development is an ongoing learning process of adaption. Even if a correct decision is made for one situation but something in the system (the team) creates an imbalance (in this case the left backs poor decision making) there needs to be an immediate process of adaption (organisation of information and action through perception and decision making) if the system is vulnerable to threat.

The player I analysed showed great ability to organise information and action and the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances through high quality adaptive behaviour.

“Adaptive behaviour is key to the survival of the human race and specific to football, a trait of high quality players”. (Mark Upton)