WHEN JOHAN CRUYFF DESCRIBED the basis of Total Football, he really described team football in two sentences: “Simple football is the most beautiful. But playing simple football is the hardest thing.” With a…
Tag: original coach
THE NARROW PATH WIDENS approaching a now-abandoned football pitch where I spent my formative years. At my foot is a scuffed football and in tow are my two nephews aged seven and ten…
Call is Piggy in the Middle, 3v1, 5v2, 5v5+2 or any variation where a numerically superior group of players has the ball and a smaller group of players tries to win the ball…
FOOTBALL HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE a game of contrasting styles, evolving philosophies of play and trendy paradigms that captivate the world only to be emulated, bastardized, found out, and written off as…
I HAVE THIS MEMORY of my father showing me a clip of Pelé juggling a grapefruit when I was a boy that reminds me how simple the game really is. Like any young…
Twenty-two years ago my brother and I bought our first console, the Super Nintendo, and our first game was Super Soccer. There were only eight directions you could run or pass in –…
PART OF WHAT MOTIVATED ME IN FOOTBALL was the drive to improve. Growing up, I was afforded an unconventional footballing education, one that took from the gritty and talent-rich leagues of south San…
THE MODERN FOOTBALL COACH IS LIKE A HOME BUILDER. While not an architect, they are tasked with the construction, organisation, and management of several pieces that must align to complete the overall project…
As featured on Guardian Sport In the summer of 2001, I was fortunate enough to train in Holland for close to 16 weeks, playing with a local team from Enschede in friendlies and…
WHEN THE LAYERS OF COMPLEXITY ARE REMOVED, football is, primarily, a science of preparation and execution. Players train on a daily basis for the challenges that await on the pitch so that when…