Technique, attitude, and everything in between, or, "Good feet for a big man"

wrt technique, I was watching the French Open highlights before, and it struck me that all the commentators talk about is technique - how they hold the racket, what part of the racket they hit the ball with, what part of the ball they hit, the positioning of their feet. Then there's their body language and their facial expressions. A lot's also made of the evolution of technique - players get coaches in to improve very specific aspects of their game, to improve certain shots, to make very fine adjustments, and to help improve their focus and attitude.

Compare it to football, and yeah you get the odd comment about Ronaldo and Drogba's freekicks, but there seems to be very little emphasis on technique when it comes to analysis. I mentioned Xabi Alonso's tackling technique a few days ago - I love that kind of thing, yet you never hear anyone comment about it. I mean do players actually work on this stuff in training? Or is football somehow different? Obviously you can't rehearse every single possible event - (Gerrard's half-volleyed through ball to Torres v Bolton - can you really practice that? It's like the kind of thing you really are born with) - but... the number of goalkeepers who can't kick the ball out of their hands really pisses me off! You get some keepers who kind of jump in the air after they've made contact, who don't appear to have any control over what they're doing, and don't even seem to care where the ball ends up - they type of kicks that either float in the air for ages, or come down really fucking fast - what's the big man up front meant to do with that?

Brede Hangeland. Good defender, but have you seen how he actually kicks a football? Sort of, I don't know... his arms are somewhere down by his sides one minute, then up in the air the next, like he's never kicked a football before.

Jamie Carragher when he's at his hoofing best. Uusually gets his foot right underneath the ball and floats it in the general direction of the opposition penalty area, and follows through with his right arm in the air and then does a daft skip kinda thing. Didn't anyone ever teach him how to kick a football? Even when he does make a decent pass, his arms end up somewhere, god, I dunno, and he follows through with his foot like 6 feet off the ground.

So yes, technique.

― Chris, Tuesday, 31 May 2011 03:04 (12 hours ago)

technique is important. yes.

seriously good thread idea

Haven't time right now but i'll take exception at the notion that hops, skips, jumps or arm-waving before or after are necessarily indicative of poor technique- there's a lot of different shapes and sizes out there playing the game.

EPL technique = being able to run up and down a pitch quite fast for 90 mins and still have enough strength left to kick the opposition

it is true that relative to other sports...nobody really mentions technique in football. thinking of the other things i watch, mainly golf and rugby, and there's constant technique discussions. the only time it ever happens in football is when someone scores a volley and the commentator invariably says "any young child at home looking to know how to volley a ball, look at that video!" etc (vintage andy gray yak)

or maybe when someone sprays a long ball or does an overhead. i guess technique may be a discussion which happens when you have a slow motion replay of something, which for a shot or whatever there's not a lot to analyse, and there's not really time to pick out one player and say what a flailing mess they are.

Haven't time right now but i'll take exception at the notion that hops, skips, jumps or arm-waving before or after are necessarily indicative of poor technique- there's a lot of different shapes and sizes out there playing the game.

Carragher's hop, skip and a jump thing isn't really the issue I suppose (it just looks daft), although the way he floats the ball is. I've been reliably informed that it's a very similar technique to Mascherano and Charlie Adam, who's long passes tend to be floated, and are therefore not always easy for the receiver to control. Compare their technique to Xabi Alonso, who drives across the ball and keeps the ball as flat as possible.

granted, granted. It all depends on the receiver, of course. A kevin davies will want as much time to set himself and commit some rape while the ball's coming as possible, in theory crouch should too but doesn't. Torres, yeah, you'll want the ball moving to expose the centre halves' generally inferior speed/reactions.

Good point wrt different players having different requirements.

it is true that relative to other sports...nobody really mentions technique in football.

They talk about little else in cricket, I can hear Boycott's voice droning away in my head, "You, see that's just bad tegneeg that is, you can't play grigid at this level with bad tegneeg, do you think I had bad tegneeg when I was scoring my hundred hundreds? Give over!"

no wonder everyone stopped talking to the cunt huh

i'm gonna totally nerd out itt later on when i get a chance, which may not be this week. the instant of a technically gifteds player striking a ball is a moment of the purest wonder and possibility and i'm gonna full lj this shit

yeah i'm sure in the future i can make you all ryde at me itt but post-rap poll

Cricket's the only other sport I really watch - or would, if the good stuff hadn't migrated entirely to Sky - and the difference is extraordinary. Cricket's all technique, and the bits that aren't are equally complex and riveting once you get to grips with what's going on - attitude, ground conditions, weather, captaincy, stats and field work, roughly in that order.

And yes, the analysis is from another planet. Partly it's the nature of the two games - cricket being all-day, with continual gaps, and essentially an individual gladiatorial contest leaves loads of time for chat and glorious close-ups to talk about. But they have plenty of time and cameras at the footy too and I can't ever recall the slightest attempt at that sort of depth. Not once. A bit about positioning and that's it. Close-ups are nothing but the lead up to the adverts.

I conclude that footy coverage is only ever aimed at idiots. And idiots who've never seen a game before at that. Cricket might be incredibly complex and subtle* but ffs it's not that hard to learn enough to enjoy it on the level it's pitched at, and it's a really rewarding and engaging (and learning) experience once you do.

* (though twenty-two players in constant motion is pretty damn complex itself, before you ever get to technique)

i know you said it, but really guys

Two old guys throwing a ball to each other for three days

90 mins of constant cut and thrust between 22 running men

Yes, football commentary is mainly pitched at idiots, but tbh i'm not sure there's huge time to do more.

If you were to say that the analysis after the fact is repetitive, obvious, lazy, frequently blatantly wrong? Yeah sure. Get rte i suppose?

i agree it's sort of impossible with football. i guess what is disappointing, plus ca change, is that actually there are more times when technique is mentioned than people acknowledge here, but it's just another playground for clichés like "he's opened his body up" or whatever...

who's good for it? What commentators bring insight wrt tactics, movement, balance, touch, thinking?

but Ismael is onto something in terms of the way cricket technique has become micro-managed, all the international sides having their video guys relentlessly analysing every nuance of a delivery or a batting stance, refining that in training in ways that we don't hear about footballers doing. a lot of sports have embraced Sports Science wholly but (English) football seems still quite wary of anything that smacks of book-learning.

because they have to fill three days! Golf's the same.

it's 5 days ya heathen

"i think we can just use the side by side views to see the difference in lampard's striking technique between last year and today. Now back to the game, where you can see that two goals have been scored since we last got an update."

eh another thing. Most footballers dont really think about what they do. That's maybe why a third party can't give you the insight a golf or boxing or cricket expert could when watching

It's interesting that some of the greatest cricketers are those whose technique almost defies analysis - the ones that don't think about the intricate details but simply play in the manner they learned growing up - in a way that a lot of footballers do. Gayle and Sehwag come to mind. Perhaps not as highly prized by purists as someone like Tendulkar but generally more enjoyable to watch. As much as cricket is a sport of mind-games and chess strategies, everyone loves to see Gayle standing straight to whack the ball out the park or Malinga cleaning up someone's stumps with the same dodgy action he's been using since he was twelve.

there's a reason adam sandler's a millionaire alright

I'm thinking of Phillip Hughes as some kind of high-water mark of sports analysis. For the heathens, this was a hot young Australian opening batsman in whom England had identified a weakness. I can't remember exactly what it was, something in his stance inhibiting his ability to react to certain types of ball. We had this flagged up in great detail in advance, exactly how and why this was going to be an issue, and then repeatedly exploited by good England bowling for three matches until the guy was hooked and replaced by a relative journeyman. I was desperately willing him to succeed by then of course, but the way it panned out, it really felt like getting the inside track.

Why was Paul Scholes such a clumsy tackler? No idea.

oh yeah, i'd love to see the analysis to that depth.

My gut feeling is if it exists, it is in mourinho pre-match player info packs and pretty much nowhere else

It was really cruel viewing, football pundits are too chummy to offer anything similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQXrMbArqSs

watching this made me think of this thread, the way his standing leg doesn't move and it's like he's just taken a half-hearted swing at it. As much as I'd like to see a bigger focus on technique, maybe football is unlike other sports in that it's unfortunately (or not) too dependent on things that are more or less arbitrary, or inexplicable. Even when e.g. Federer plays an unbelievable inhuman backhand that no one else in the world could do there are still a lot of standard features of his movement to analyse, but when e.g. Messi skips past four defenders with the ball glued to his foot (football really does bring out the cliches in ya...) I don't know that there's really as much to say. You can look at the intricacies of his ankle or knee or torso movement but it feels that it would be a bit of an empty exercise, information that doesn't really tell us anything because we can't really work with the same defaults and criteria that other sports have.

(or ya know maybe that's me either buying into accepted footballing mythology or assuming that my ignorant state is the right one or both.)

I could watch stuff like this all day. You guys have probably seen it, Zidane explaining a particular move he does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTxbRVhc7Zk

Like seriously, if somebody has a DVD that's like 8 hours long of stuff like this I would happily watch it.

australian commentators talk about weaknesses in technique all the time, partly as the free-to-air network with the most football coverage are ideologues who are trying to educate their audience away from ...i forget the euphemism they use, but basically they don't like the inability of the national team to hold the ball in pressure situations, they blame english coaches at youth level for it, and take any opportunity to bang on about it. unsurprisingly, the network doesn't carry the EPL. i doubht anyone in the english media is game to talk down the product, frankly - people would end up tuning out.

That Zidane video is amazing.

I remember seeing Ruud Gullitt discussing differences in technique on the BBC (probably in the 90s) and it really was something of an eye-opener in terms of how (I'm paraphrasing him here) Holland takes talent and ability and teaches technique while Britain looks for all three and teaches fitness, attitude and effort.

He was talking about first touches in two-touch football, saying that he'd seen a lot of British kids who seem to have been taught to stop the ball then look for a pass (this was my experience late 70s/early 80s when I harboured slight ambitions that I could be good at football). He showed how the Dutch were always taught to decide where they wanted the ball to go next before receiving the pass, to open their bodies so they weren't square on to the ball unless they were returning it, to control but not stop the ball - so that it rolled a yard in the direction you wanted to pass it next and preferably on your good foot.

This all looks very obvious now but it explained to me how Dutch players always looked so much more in control of what they were doing on the rare occasions I saw them as a kid. I'm sure that sort of technical teaching goes on in Britain now but there was definitely a long period where technique wasn't taught as such - or passing drills lasted all of five mminutes before the coach got bored and started another game of fives. In some cases it seemed technique wasn't even rewarded - you heard of (and still do, occasionally) technically gifted players being difficult to fit into a system (e.g. Le Tiss for England).

x-post yeah man...chatting with zizou in the evening sun, then off for a few beers after. that's how i imagine that journalists life to be.

I live near the training ground for *a lower-division club* and when I walk by the facility I do see passing drills and small goals & pitches being used - but only when it's really tiny kids playing, half of whom struggle to kick the ball at all so I don't think these are crack training sessions, more like kids' school holiday activities. Any kids bigger than about twelve, it's eleven-a-sides on the full pitch, no matter how inappropriate sizewise.

Technique is uniformly poor. It's rare to see anyone in proper control of the ball, they're always running out of space so moves never get past the third or sometimes fourth man. It's like watching me trying to build a break at snooker, and running out of position almost immediately.

It's an all-weather pitch and I'd mentally put it down to that a bit, the ball running too freely and so on, but in reality their game has just evolved into one where control isn't necessary, everyone just accepts that moves will be short and end hopefully with a punt into one of the channels, which will occasionally lead to a goal.

re- onimo's post

For spurs, i note two things- pav's supposed poor first touch and crouch's gtfabm.

Pav's first touch moves a yard away from him, usually in the direction he wants it to. His second touch is almost always a shot, tbh, but that's kinda another debate.

Crouch's gtfabm keeps the ball close, or kills it. It looks good when it's messi, but for darling crouchie it means we're treated to the sight of a 7ft knuckle trying to unfold itself in slow motion just to keep his balance, because the ball's under his feet. This gtfabm is pretty much always in whichever random direction crouch is moving at the time, like most english/irish players ime.

I should note that the gtfabm has departed said bm in recent times, so that's a best-case scenario.

England's real gtfabm is, of course, the technically-excellent k davies.

English players tend to be pretty good at passing and ropey when it comes to first touch and general movement and awareness. You see it most in recent World Cups where an English midfielder would receive the ball and basically stand there for a bit before working out who to pass to.

There's a reason why Berbatov is technically the best player in the Prem at the moment, his movement and positioning is terrific but is ability to collect a long pass and kill the ball's movement with one touch is just amazing, especially in tight goalscoring situations, especially when compared to eg the aforementioned Pavlyuchenko.

but for pav, it's an intentional trait to get space to work a shot

For berbatov, he tends to take the ball very close because he actually holds off markers very well, and uses the time bought by doing so to look up and see what his options are

For crouch, or whoever, stopping the ball dead is "good touch" regardless of that suits your characteristics as a player or not.

should develop my defence of pav a little more tbh

He wants to shoot, if he gets it in the box he'll approach it with a first-time shot in mind if possible. Outside the box it's nearly always a touch to either side to make space, then shoot.

Berbatov is (rightly) confident that he can control and shield it while picking his spot.

I think they'd be a good fit as partners tbh, but that's by the by

this is why rooney will never be a great btw. when he controls the ball to work for him is the exception to the rule for the youtube clip or the motd wanking, and not how he controls the ball for 85 other attempts where he either tries to stop it dead or hashes it up and has it end up away from him.

yeah. Rooney's first touch is that of a wigan reserve striker most of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggHdi5vGEQI

so i was looking for his stepover-heel-through-own-arched-leg move he pulled against scotland cos it's one i use a bit myself (about the only one i've ever practiced since i was a kid tbh) but it's not on youtube so fuckit

Two-touch footy at its best, that

anyway, i just wanted to find the guppy highlight and got this, but mata's pwnage of raul albiol and the reaction amongst the other players is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0a5L9dt9_g

Here's some fairly crappy footage of the McShane move
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V31PdBY6lyE&feature=player_embedded

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/02/gareth-southgate-england-player-development

a terrifyingly sensible-sounding attempt to focus on technique in young English footballers? Ban this sick filth.

That thing Xabi Alonso does where he controls the ball, adjusts his body, and passes it all in one motion, without taking an extra step or touch. Like the 2nd pass in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795K4XrZENs

That's just beautiful.

ribery had a couple of takes in the champs league qualifier (i think?) that were out of this world, one in particular was circus stuff

Wish I could post this 15-second amateur-filmed clip of Pastore warming up for PSG the other week, in which he does an amazing control of a ball coming vertically down at him from ~30 feet in the air, but it's been taken down due to copyright.

Can't you recreate it yourself and stick it on Youtube ;)

xp. Paint me a picture of those Ribery moments dmac.

Found the official version. I oversold the height of the pass, the little backpedal & leap he does just before fooled me a bit. Forgot to mention it was a rabona, as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NOKzSo45vk

Sweet! I'm gonna try that on Friday.

ooh nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyNOmVADKd8

i've been practising mido's crossbar challenge technique all my life

just a couple of things like this or better chris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?y=cQg4gxItuQI

3:30

^link doesn't work for me

Ah lovely.

Like this cheeky one, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTJ_JUhaHa4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQg4gxItuQI

(^ is darragh's link, onimo)

I made a .gif of myself trying to welly the ball off the bar from a good deal closer; I don't hit the bar or I'd be posting it obviously. It reveals something akin to the Carragher hop in the original post.

thanks Chris

No problem.

I think you should post that .gif anyway, Ismael.

http://makeagif.com/media/7-11-2011/JK_Nhj.gif

usually gets his foot right underneath the ball and floats it in the general direction of the opposition penalty area, and follows through with his right arm in the air and then does a daft skip kinda thing. Didn't anyone ever teach him how to kick a football? Even when he does make a decent pass, his arms end up somewhere, god, I dunno, and he follows through with his foot like 6 feet off the ground

3/5 there, I make it

mesmerising

Love it!

you look like you're about to moonwalk whilst shooting. Class.

or: 'you're just a shit Michael Jackson'

Is that your back garden, Ismael?

That'd be nice. It's actually the common by my in-laws'. There are two fine grass pitches there (a bit bumpy, but still) - I've never seen anyone else kicking a ball there who's older than about nine.

society is in the gutter

nice thread, btw. whoever said that they would watch 8hours of close analysis was otm

I've never heard any American commentary on pro sports really get into the finer points of technique, except for baseball (obv parallel here). I've had the pleasure of watching soccer with friends who were good enough to have walked on to our collegiate team, and clever enough to understand why.

best technique-sport viewing: world cup skiing imo

you look like you're about to moonwalk whilst shooting. Class.

― pandemic, Tuesday, 30 August 2011 11:57 (2 hours ago) Permalink

lolll. do this every time you shoot and when you eventually score and are already in the middle of celebrating, glorious glorious day.

isnt bad form to land on the non-striking foot? nb I do this, never had great follow through

'form' overrated, garrincha had sideways knees and messi's too short

http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_image_node_slideshow/vanhanegem_gr.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Willem van Hanegem had bow legs that were responsible for his insane banana-curved shots. They famously earned him his nickname, De Kromme, The Crooked, too.

Ronaldo - Tested To The Limit, Sky Sports 2 *now*. Repeated at 10pm on SS1.

is this worth me sky+ing chris?

Hell yeah. This is laughably good. Incredible stuff.

ta

fat or christiano

Watching legends game on itv4 - Joe Calzaghe has good feet for an old boxer. England walking it in, 3-0 so far.

CR7. Will watch later, tennis for now.

Not on now because of the tennis, but you can catch it at 5am & 9am on SS1, and 2pm on SS2.

Featured something I mentioned a while ago in relation to that Blizzard article on Xavi - tiny cameras that record exactly what the player sees. Fascinating stuff.

Also explained the technique he uses for those free-kicks.

Godammit, i wish i had Sky Sports

www.rapidshare.com

this seems p strange and self-effacing from c-ron's part

everyone knows he is amazingly gifted wrt to certain controlled variables -- if the object is to run really fast, or jump really high, or to take a free-kick 30 yards from goal, he is one of the best players ever

his deficits are in exactly those areas where speed and precision of execution alone are inadequate

www.skysports.com

company boy

oh fuck i just wrote wrt to

Well naturally it'll turn up on the internet at some point but that doesn't help me now does it?

already on the internet

Thanks, you've been very helpful

if u want a link i'll webmail u

That would be great, thanks. I did search for it but i'm drawing a blank

Got it. Cheers!

lol wenger 'some players can do it in training but not on the pitch'

not a bad programme but the sportssciencebros aren't going to inherit the earth any time soon, thankfully

That was ludicrous yet still pretty awesome. Thanks nakhchivan.

Well naturally it'll turn up on the internet at some point but that doesn't help me now does it?

― Number None, Thursday, 8 September 2011 22:28 (Yesterday)

you never watched an illegal stream of sky sports before? welcome to ilf!

Streams are basically my only method of watching football these days. Sky Sports ones are relatively uncommon though, no? Usually get Fox Soccer Channel or similar

Joy Of Six: best first-touches ever is an absolute joy this week. Check out Ronaldinho's for laugh-out-loudness, and there's a lovely extended clip of Zidane in case anyone needs reminding just how good he was.

I'd poll these but it seems like slightly bad form, and you know which one'd win anyway.

Love the contrast between Zidane's balance and Anelka's stumbling and falling on his face when the cross comes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRSGV_LmPCo&hd=1

can't even watch this shit on the desktop these days ffs

basically it's just some people kicking footballs i mean u could see that in any town in the land

not any more, used to be though

time was

c'mon that Messi touch doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same conversation as Ronaldinho's.

Not quite technique as such, but here's Rooney talking about what he's thinking while he's playing.

The 'mental map' he's describing, seeing everything four or five passes in advance, reminds me of a Simon Kuper piece about visiting Dynamo Kiev and trying out their player assessment software, part of which was having to navigate a piece round a rotating map while avoiding other pieces flying at you. That can't be learned surely.

His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous. His close control is miraculous.

not a bad article but the stuff idiots like shearer say about him is worse than anything he actually does

hence 'twp', i guess

Anyone know of any good coaching videos where you can actually hear as well as see what's going on - coaches explaining drills and what they want the players to do, not your usual training footage you see on Sky with Jim White talking over the top, I mean proper insightful stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DThjb_XyyoU

watch this

lots of technical wizards in the epl atm, moreso than in previous years?

yeah its not long until stoke jump on the bandwagon and buy pjanic or el shawaary or ganso or someone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUuvfMTrI3w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIVO7mKoj_s

so many amazing touches

(best with the sound down if you don't want the Verve shitting all over it)

Ooh, that little header to Kluivert at 0:46. In that game too.

as if coached across wngland were prepping them 'alright lads force bergkamp on to 'is right'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFYFj9s4bLQ

man i'd missed this one... mesmerising

commentator "bravo" otm

unreal

myself and erstwhile ilxor S- have formed a musical duo called 'the big men with a good touch'

incredible

and there's this!

https://soundcloud.com/constantlightduo/the-big-men-with-a-good-touch-official-2014-world-cup-theme