Ok - so is there a difference between being `technical` versus having football brain and being skillful ? Or is `technical` just euro-babble ?
Presumably you can be technically sound, but still useless if you don't have the vision to see possibilities (i.e. have a football brain). There was a recent scientific study that revealed that footballers are extremely clever at learning new things and making quick decisions as things change about them. I would suggest that would be a form of natural selection as only people good at that would become professional footballers.
Thats interesting because if you read Jack Charlton's autobiography, he suggests almost the opposite. He basically said you had to go over and over things before it sinks in. This is one of the reasons he played simple long ball football with Ireland.
That and the fact he didn't have the players to try anything else. You can't keep possession if you can't pick a pass, have a poor first touch, and don't read the game well enough to know where the space is about to open up. And those skills, I would suggest, are learned (and taught) in childhood.
There was a test they did at Leeds where they were given a number to remember just before going out onto the pitch. At half time no-one could remember what number they had been given. This was repeated for the second half with the same result. Now I know it wasn't relevant to the game so that might have a lot to do with it but he reckoned it shows how useless last minute instructions were as they would be instantly forgotten and old habits returned to. He was fairly successful with Ireland despite, as Archers points out, a limited squad.
A good analysis of the game, refreshingly lacking in overwrought Adkins-mania: http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/tacticsandanalysis/id/1148?cc=5739#
Reading are just four points behind us on the famous 'points dropped from winning positions' chart, maybe we should give them a head start tomorrow
Ha, I knew someone would quote that before I managed to edit it! I actually misread it, we're still top
Nobody, we're still top. EDIT: I see in the time it took me to look it up, it was already edited, quoted and then replied to again. Finger on the pulse, me.
This is like when someone has an amazing shot saved and commentators say 'good football all-round', except the opposite of that.
