“Tekkers”
In 2010 the merest use of the phrase, especially when coupled with the word “unbelievable” was enough to set me on edge. I could not stand it. The term was childish, baby like and down played the importance of beautiful technique.
Fortunately I have gotten younger as I have grown older.
Aged 30 I was a dinosaur. I didn’t know it at the time but I can feel it now. Do not joke around with my precious game of football. Do not be so dismissive of every single vital moment. Certainly don’t enjoy yourself.
Of course the term “Tekkers” was just that, fun. It wasn’t meant for a stick in the mud like me. It was for the young, those with a twinkle in their eye and magic in their boots. People like the F2 Freestylers.
This is no advert for F2. As with the word “tekkers” I am no great fan of the F2 guys. However, it is not 2010 and I am deeply grateful to them. Their brand of confidence, cockiness and skills speak to young players in a way that can be difficult or even foolish for adults to attempt to replicate. F2 connect with the young players. I am certain that my players have learned more moves from their videos than they have from me. I just give them an environment where the players can put those moves to the test.
I often tell young players that as their coach I am in no way their only source of information or learning when it comes to football. This would be a huge a mistake. I actively encourage all of them to seek as many different footballing experiences as they can. The more experiences they have the more myeline they former, speeding up those signals from the brain to the body.
What I meant when I first said those words and what I mean now are very different things. At that time I was talking to players about after school football, summer camps, school football teams and lunch time football. Lunch time football possibly has the most in common with what I am now suggesting they look into.
I mentioned all these things to them as an acknowledgement of the lack of traditional street football. Clothing for goalposts and shouts of “car” when we had to run to safety. What I failed to acknowledge is that street football still exists, it is just a very different animal. Although my players may not be regular participants they are most certainly aware of it. Young footballers are aware of far more than I was. All I had was books, TV, worn down VHS and the occasional coach. Now a young player has the world at the end of their touch screen. They are ravenous for information and content, they swallow it without chewing, eat it without digesting. We complain about short attention spans but what is happening as they rattle through videos on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and so forth is they are developing fast filters, quickly removing the irrelevant information while honing in on what is needed. It isn’t all about cool, but it helps.
Thirty two million views. It is a high tech fast motion all action age. The new world baller is not bread on idillic retreats but on high octane action. They can’t get enough. Football is a high tempo sport even the traditional form of the game may not be enough to keep them engaged. Good defending isn’t cool. Gary Neville isn’t cool. Neymar is cool. Messi is cool. Ricardinho is cool.
Being able to see all of the freestyle moves and skills in action catches that imagination. A goal of immense technical ability, creativity and imagination did more for the profile of futsal in England than five years of the National League. A goal dripping in “unbelievable tekkers”. It is this creativity that the new world baller prizes, after all it is what they want to do on FIFA, they also want the opportunity to do it in real life. Is the game played on grass going to give them this opportunity?
There are other options out there. Other places they can go to enhance their learning. Futsal is one. The fast paced, indoor, 5v5 cousin of football. The game has gained a reputation for being flick and trick heavy. Though this is a part of the game many newcomers are left disappointed when they discover that the game is deeply tactical. Creativity and imagination remain prized, but the freedom many expect is not easily found.
Then we can make the game even smaller. We can play in the cage.
You don’t find cages like this everywhere, especially not being populated by the world’s best players. There are plenty of cages around the country being used by young footballers. These cages have different rules. There are no throw ins. The game doesn’t stop. You have to earn the right to play. It isn’t about your age. It isn’t just pure ability. It is heart. Have you got the spirit to hang with the bigger kids? The scary kids? Are you brave enough? If you are, the lessons learnt in the cage will stay with you forever. If a player humiliates another with great skill there are consequences. Those consequences might be a kick, but there might also be respect. The new world baller craves creativity but also craves respect.
The 3v3 cage is now it’s own entity tournament, but the street form has not been left behind.
We can go smaller still and head into the world of Panna. The 1v1 competition where you score goals but the ultimate victory is scored via the Panna or nutmeg. The players must master the ball. Keeping super tight control and moving the ball rapidly. This is where the magicians reside, the masters of illusion and deception. Misdirection and confusion. In 1v1 the trick is not enough, the players need to be creative enough to send their opponent for a hotdog. All of this has seeped onto social media platforms, with highlights and tutorials for our young players to devour. The new world baller has been educated and wants to put on a show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvFG09kg3Ws
For many the show was just that. Entertaining but impractical. Too many touches. Those moves will never be a match for a swift 1-2. However, in the right hands such creativity can rip teams apart. Some of us might be coaches who actively educate players in this way, some of us might have players who have picked up this style through self education. We must allow our ballers to express themselves.
We have the opportunity. For over a decade we have been educated in the importance of ball mastery. Mostly this ball mastery is formulated by toe taps, sole rolls, step overs, chops, hooks and so on. How big a leap is it that ball mastery might begin to include more elaborate tricks? If the coach is concerned that he or she might not be able to demonstrate this is not such a problem, let the players lead.
The logical next step from ball mastery is 1v1. There are many possible ways to deliver 1v1 practices. Panna is certainly one of them. There are detractors of 1v1 as it removes certain moves. Who will believe a fake to pass if there is no one to pass to? Players have to be able to recognise when to pass and when to dribble, in 1v1 the player is forced to dribble, there is no choice. Which is why we need further stages.
Horst Wein has been a major influence on many developers of young players. He advocated 3v3. Or Funinho as some have called it. By playing 3v3 with goals we create all of the possibilities of the game of football. Shooting. Passing. Dribbling. Defending. The 1-2. Triangles. Third man runs. This is the format of the cage.
Finally we come to futsal and the well recognised 5v5 format. Any coach who has done their Level 2 will be familiar with playing 4v4 plus a goalkeeper or plus neutral players or any other permutation you care to think of. Remember that the dominant Liverpool teams all said that their training was just 5 a side, they didn’t do anything more complex than that. Futsal’s great appeal is that is so close to football. Anything you can imagine on the football pitch can be imagined on the court.
The new world baller is not that different to any generation of player. Their forms of the game are not so far removed to those that we recognise. They might express themselves differently in their language but they want what we all wanted.
They want to play. They want to be free.