We’ve Been Doing ‘Growth Mindset’ in Football Well Before It Became Popular & Mainstream
Fail Fast & Learn Faster!
Be brave - fear of new things leads to stagnation. Embrace short term failure and learn from it.
Players are creatures of habit so to succeed it's necessary to 'break the mold', to take risks and fail in order to learn and adopt new skills and ideas. Allowing players to embrace failure and help provide them with solutions in a supportive development culture is essential if players are going to learn fast. Supportive coaching helps players change the negative thought patterns that can lead to fear and avoidance behaviors and makes a significant difference in a players adoption of new techniques and concept and help improve their performance. Challenging yourself to try new things helps prevent the development of fear.
Instead of dreading new techniques players must be shown ball mastery and excellence so they can play with excitement.
Fear halts progress and can make it difficult for people to accept new ideas and change. Outcomes are potentially game-changing, forcing players to adapt to new circumstances, positions and ways of moving. Players and coaches who are reluctant to change may feel that the potential benefits of success do not outweigh the potential success. Players often spend a career in the same position and coaches coach in the same formation or use the same material and exercises that have high degrees of success, which strangely contradicts the game itself which is a game of anticipation of transition, change and disruption.
The more a player is exposed to new material and concepts, the more they tend to prefer it, a phenomenon known as 'exposure effect.’
Over time, constantly choosing the same pass and same first touch plays a part in hesitancy when it comes to the unfamiliar. Risks that could lead to better performances in the long term. Some people make the conscious decision not to shine on the field, some refuse to try new positions and new movements, and others avoid opportunities to try new combinations and creative ways of attacking.
Children through the teenage years often demonstrate signs of hesitation as the game and strategy and opposition is new to them and as players get older they often seek familiar positions to stay in their comfort zones. Players don't have to accept and use every technique in all situations and the goals is to allow players the ability to make independent decision new ways of thinking about a situation are critical to success, innovation, and effective problem-solving. It's important to get coaching early on before fearful behaviors become worse. Players trying new things and unfamiliar experiences may help prevent the development of more fear of trying new material later in their career.
Change takes time and progress is gradual so its essential to start players as young as possible with small exposures to new things or experiences like 1 v 1 or 'numbers down' or other types of games where players are forced to come up with a creative solution and not hide on the field. Eventually, players try to experiment with more challenging material.
Progressive and forward-thinking people embrace the material
They may never have done it or aren’t able to demonstrate it, but realize they need to fill a void in their material by offering this to their players
They know and understand that tactics, systems and structure don't produce creative players
They know that players mostly get better on their own so they need material to help them develop more rapidly outside of team practice
They understand that young players are attracted to learning new physical and technical actions more than team structure and shape and understand players eagerness and desire to master the ball in every facet
They manage organizations that lack early player development programs and recognize that they need material and content to attract members and participants and improve player education
Be concerned if you hear the following:
Football is a team sport and players don't play in isolation
Too many players following just the Coerver-type work aren't good at making decisions
Players' vision suffers because players spend too much time with head down which hurts their decision making
I don't see any fancy moves happening on the field despite all of the technical work the players are doing
Unopposed training doesn't offer enough realism in the exercises
The exercises and moves don't relate to the game and aren't practical
Cognitive skills and positional play will determine the required technique and skill that should be used
I can’t demonstrate the material so I'm not going to show the players or have them do it for me
My coach didn't make us do it
I was busy - no time to do it
I was on holiday I didn't take a ball
I didn't know I had to do it
