“ There is no greater power on the football field than the players intelligence!”
Hi my name is Andre Gumprecht and I would like to welcome everyone back to a new and exciting year here at CCSC. I am very excited to to be in charge of our U12’s and U13’s this year. I would like to give parents a quick insight into my passion. My aim is to develop players with game intelligence as this can give teams a greater competitive edge and take their level of play even higher.
The following are excerpts from the writings of Horst Wein.
This quality, (game intelligence), allows a player to use all his senses to recognise and adapt quickly to the various game situations that arise on the pitch, using a comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of the game which helps he or she to understand and interpret the game situation at hand and also to make correct decisions and take actions even under the extreme psychological pressure of high level competition and the immediate pressure of one or more opponents.
The implementation of game intelligence in youth and adult football is still in its infancy, largely due to the prevailing authoritarian coaching style where coaches try to clone players into preconceived molds. The constant barrage of instruction during training and from the sideline before and during matches is not conducive to producing more intelligent players and taking the game to a higher level.
In the full game of football the average time on the ball for any one outfield player is less than 90 seconds or 2 percent of his time on the pitch. Most of the game is about what a player does off-the-ball rather than with it, and decisions are based on such issues as where and when to run. A player must realise that, at any given moment in a game, he must assign himself a definite task or role either in attack or in defence.
The process of decision-making is an important part of the game which demands that the player has learned step-by-step, how to read the game. Football is made up of many different tactical game situations which first of all must be recognised and then understood. The solutions to the problems faced in these game situations have, first, to be discovered, then practiced and finally, implemented in the game itself. Once the player becomes proficient in recognising and solving the problem, only then is good technique required for proper motor execution.
Research in professional football shows that more than 60 percent of all ball losses are due to the poor perception and decision making rather than technical deficiencies. Yet, the majority of coaching all over the world still concentrates on the technical aspects of the game. Training, in many countries, is still too technique orientated.
“Learning becomes significant in football, only when motor learning is combined with cognitive learning!”
What does game intelligence mean?
For instance, before the ball is received the player must assess all relevant information about the situation at hand (using his perception skills), weigh up the possible solutions and the risk/benefit factor (understanding and interpretation) and then he decides (decision making) before he executes what his brain has chosen. All these aspects must be coached from an early age over a period of years in order to be able to raise the performance level of a player.
Game intelligence is more than just awareness or even alertness, though these are important. It involves an ever-growing knowledge of game situations, options, risk assessment and decision making. It does begin with awareness, but the more you know about the game through continued practice and in-depth understanding, the more you actually see. A good player is aware of more than what he sees. He is aware of where he is on the pitch, of the time of the game and the significance of any actions he might take, he might also be aware of the effects of fatigue on his own teammates and the opposition or even of one player.
“It is wrong for coaches to spoon feed their players so much, doing all their thinking for them and giving them through instruction the solutions that they should and can find for themselves. Or put another way: We exhaust natural resources by excessive use, but unfortunately, in education and coaching we have hardly begun to tap into the vast resources of the human brains of our students and players, so that we might realise their enormous potential, to the benefit of all.”
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