“I feel an endless need to learn, to improve and to evolve”, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Season End Reflection
The end of the football season is, in many respects, as important as the start of the season.
Collaboration – Iceland style
“I would like to give credit to the youth coaches of Iceland. They are probably among the best in the world.” Heimar Halgrimsson, Iceland National Team Assistant Coach.
Collaboration is the value that Iceland embodied to complete its decade long footballing journey from also-ran to Euro 2016 qualifiers.
For such a small country, it seems that everyone involved in the sport has played a role in making a difference, starting with the fans.
Practice and Recovery
Achieving excellence in the violin is vastly different from mastering a football. Or is it?
The Gold Mine Effect describes how high performance athletes are being developed around the world.
Author Danish sporting anthropologist, Rasmus Ankersen, travels around the globe trying to understand the plethora of talent in various locations. The focus of his study includes Brazilian footballers, Kenyan distance runners, Jamaican sprinters and South Korean golfers.
The Fallacy of Physical Size
Liverpoool’s latest 29 million pound signing, Roberto Firmino, was turned away from a trial with Sao Paulo FC without even kicking a ball.
“He’s not big enough” has to be one of the most dangerous statements a coach can make when evaluating a young player.
Brilliance Under Pressure
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed”
Michael Jordan
“The paradox of excellence, is that it is built upon the foundation of necessary failure.”
This theme, from Matthew Syed’s Bounce, is core to talent development but is it a central theme across our junior footballing environment here in New Zealand?
