Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Skills, Soccer Team Management | Tags: David Villa, gus hiddink, Ji-sung park, Kaka, Manchester United, player rewards, psv eindhoven, Real Madrid, Ronaldo
Rewards for soccer players are enormous if you’re playing at the top. Ronaldo, Kaka and David Villa all having millions spent on them and are reaping the benefits of their skills. Of course very few players make it to the top but usually the ones that do have a tale to tell of when they didn’t think they would make it – and usually the person that helps them is the coach.
In Manchester United player Ji-Sung Park’s autobiography he tells of how praise from Guus Hiddink helped him believe in himself. Here’s an extract from his autobiography:
‘Sitting alone in an empty locker room, I look at my injured left leg. I was crestfallen because I missed out my opportunity to prove my worth in these crucial moments.
Then, Coach Hiddink appeared out of nowhere with an interpretor and spoke to me. Wondering what he had just said, I looked at the interpretor.
“He said you have great mentality. With that kind of mental strength, you will become a great player.”
I was astonished. Before I could say anything, he was already out of the locker room. My heart was pounding, I felt a new strength rousing inside me. Coach always seemed like an distant person but coming up to me and saying that I have great mentality have boosted up my confidence… I have nothing else to boast but mentality. I may not have great skills or technique, but one thing I can do is never give up.
Coach took notice of that. Those words gave me great strength and courage, it felt ten time better than someone saying I am a football genius.
Within a minute, Coach Hiddink had changed my life forever. Without Coach Hiddink I would have not been able to become who I am right now. I owe him everything and I won’t be able to repay it in my lifetime.’
As a coach it is important you reward your players with personal interaction and praise, earned for many things during the course of a season.
To be like Guus Hiddink you need to do little other than give them verbal praise for the good things they do. So how should you do it?
Here are a few tips on praise:
I usually shake a player’s hand.
Make good eye contact with the player.
Go to the player, do not wait for him to come to you.
Lean slightly forward to your players when shaking hands and talking to them.
Use my 10 ways to say well done to a player blog to get some tips on what to say.
This clip is an animation of the meeting between Hiddink and Park, I think you’ll agree it is a really heartwarming story in these days of 80m Euros transfers.
Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Skills, Soccer Team Management, Soccer Training, Uncategorized | Tags: coaching clever players, coaching technique, eric cantona, Leeds United, Manchester United, skills
Young players are always making decisions on the pitch, some simple like putting one foot in front of the other to move. Some are instinctive yet they have been practiced many times. As a coach I am constantly coaching my players to run, pass, receive and move, simple things yet I am always seeking to get them to run faster, pass better, receive better and make better movement.
The same can be said if you are lucky enough to be coaching those innovative and creative players who stand out on the pitch.
I was reminded of this by the release of the film Looking for Eric, about one of the greatest mavericks of them all. Yet the thing about Eric Cantona was that he brought a new era of training to the English game. He used to practice all those touches and moments of brilliance. Every night he would go out onto the training pitch just like he did when he was a young player and went into his back garden, and throw the ball up a 100 times and trap it with left foot then right foot until he could control the ball first time, every time.
One of the skills of a coach is to get the best of their players by coaching the right techniques. Then advance their knowledge by helping them to make the right decisions in the time they have in situations on the pitch. You will have some players who have the ability to see all of their options and chose the right one in a very short space of time.
A good way to coach this is to set up drills where there is more than one right option. You can walk playes through exercises and techniques and increase the pressure slowly so they can get used to the techniques and skills you are coaching and use them in matches.
While I was looking at clips of Eric Cantona to show his technique I came across this old Nike video where Cantona, Ian Wright, Maldini, Del Piero, the old Ronaldo, take on the devil’s team and Cantona dispatches the ball into the net with an “Au revoir”. It is one of my favourite Nike ads so I thought I would share it with you.
I have also put up a couple of clips of Cantona in action showing superb technique in scoring a goal.
