Specialty is my Specialty

You're all special to me (except Luke.)

Good morning! I want to talk about specialists in football! Are they dying or making a comeback? 

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Neat Reads

Neat Reads is a segment where I share an article or podcast that interests me and relates to our weekly theme.

Enjoy this podcast that, while doesn’t have much to do with our theme, is interesting nonetheless.

What happened to special players?

Would a team of eleven specialists beat a team of eleven all rounded players? Maybe? 

I do see less and less profile specific coaching points these days (I’m guilty of this myself) where coaches mostly correct the wrong technique and ignore the strengths of the player. 

If a player is a fantastic dribbler, what if we leaned into this strength rather than ask them to pass? If a player is great at reading the game and breaking up plays, why are we teaching finishing, or long passing?

Sure, we can improve the shortcomings of a player, especially technical ones. But I rarely see what happens when we just encourage a player to play to their strengths and put their skillset around their natural ability. 

It’s arguable that most curriculums don’t account for this in order to push their own teachings on the players as the creator views that idea to be best. This is a probable reason for the distinct lack of specialists in the modern era.

Coach’s Corner

Coach’s Corner is a segment where I ramble about training this week and answer some questions I get from Substack or Twitter.

Ramblings

I just want to see wingers do tricks, midfielders playing great forward passes and defenders crunching people.

Growing up, football used to be more of a show for me or a performance. Now it’s so systematic. 

Look, I’m a big system guy and see the value in a system. But why do so many systems reward the modern style of play over the old-school style of play of: win the ball, get it to the tricksters?

The more I watch football the more I realize I just miss what I watched as a kid, Existential dread spares no one.

Q&A 

No questions this week! Thanks for giving me the day off everyone!

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Exercise of the Week

This is actually a session I’ve reused the most in the last three weeks with some modifications when necessary to suit the topic we were working on that week.

No shame in reusing session plans by the way. Players often like the familiarity and how much time we save by not having to explain the rules of a new game each session.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this week! 

I’m always interested to hear your thoughts and ideas so please feel free to send me a message on Twitter or leave a comment above in the Q&A section.

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See you next week! 

Where to find me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CamH___

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-herbert-football-coach/