“It’s not me, it’s practice” – Peter Beardsley. Peter Beardsley was one of the marque English players of the pre-Premiership era.  Part of a thrilling attack at Newcastle that included Kevin Keegan and Chris Waddle, he won the championship with Liverpool and almost won it again (twice) with Newcastle in the Premier League.

Improvement is based on constantly achieving small goals. Rather than focus on achieving a big goal, Top Flight Football Academy advocates young players committing to continual development by hitting short term targets. There are two reasons for this approach.

The Four Rules of Pep Pep Guardiola is the seminal club manager of the decade. He has dominated both La Liga and Bundesliga with Barcelona and Bayern Munich respectively, winning trophies while evolving a style of play that is simply breathtaking.

When watching football it is easy to assess performance in terms of goals, assists (the final pass before a goal) and tackles.  But the real value of a player is often the pieces of play that are not so easily noticed.

Back to the 30s Any nation capable of beating Germany 6-0 and 5-0, Italy 2-1, Belgium 6-1, France 4-0 and Hungary 8-2 is clearly one of the very best teams in the world. Between 1931-33 these results did occur.  The team that did the destroying was called the wunderteam.  Any guesses on who the nation was?

ACF Fiorentina In Winter As New Zealanders enjoy their summer holiday, the Top Flight Football Academy strategic partners Soccer Italian Style are in the middle of their winter break.