Team Energy Leaks

The sum of the parts

The collective can be greater than the sum of parts. Players skills, attitudes, abilities, fitness levels and coaches ability make up the team. How players fit into their role and are willing to participate in the coach’s plan affects winning. The player can either add to the success or take away. Let me illustrate. If the team is made up of the sum of the parts what role do you play. Let’s take 11 players. We’ll assign each player 1 point for a total of 11 points per team. But in this example there are players with bad attitudes, prima donnas, poor fitness, bad technical skills etc. Those players in some aspect actually decrease the sum of the parts. They cause energy leaks on the team.

Energy leaks

The human body has energy leaks. If your body and technique is not optimal energy will leak out at the weak points of the body. This decreases performance and possibly leads to injury. The team concept works the same. Energy leaks exist on many teams. To illustrate the point look at the team concept again. During the game your team is exhibiting great passing ability and advancing the ball up the field. The ball eventually makes it to your striker who has great speed and passing ability but lacks proper shooting skills. What happens in this scenario is an energy leak. You don’t score because the player lacks an important skill for their position. This scenario happens all over the field. It can happen within these scenarios and many more:

• Midfielders who don’t defend
• Strikers who can’t strike
• Defenders who don’t hold their shape
• Players who head the ball improperly on crosses
• Coaches who don’t get into the details of player development
• Players who only have one role (It is my opinion that almost every player on the team will play offense and defense at some point during a game)

Plan of Action

Even though players lack of ability in an area it is the coaches job to help the athlete overcome, practice and develop skills. Push the players with patience and give the attitude that you care about their development. Create an environment where players will feel open to ask you about how they can improve, then guide with patience. Remember, who cares if the child is a great 10 year old soccer player. See the long term and help the child develop for future soccer success.

Secondly, be open for the appropriate roster moves. Just because the athlete can’t strike the ball well doesn’t mean he or she won’t be a great midfielder or defender.