Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
—George Bernard Shaw
I often wonder about human potential. We know that young people learn fast both cognitively and viscerally. It’s as if everything has been juiced for children’s easy consumption while we grownups have to eat things raw. Which begs the question: if I had started to play football earlier, what could I have achieved? I know I’m not the first habitué of football to wonder such a thing. This concept doesn’t apply simply to sport, either. My mom was a piano teacher and when I was growing up she saw me as nothing more than her little, American Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, destined to transform music forever. In retrospect it would have been nice, although I would have preferred to be her little, American Paolo Maldini. Maybe I could have realized her dream had I not rebelled against the idea of legacy at such a young age.
Having waited to play football until my late teenage years, I’ve developed a unique skill set. Some aspects of the game I’ve been able to figure out (defensive positioning, off the ball movement, and shielding the ball, for instance), but other aspects, like technique, are less teachable. In essence I know what I should be doing when I have the ball but I have difficulty doing it. I lack the tools. This is all in sharp contrast to my tennis game. I played tennis for many years as a youth before taking a decade-long break. Today I can still hit the ball with precision. It’s innate; it’s not a conscious understanding. I don’t know how not to.
These two types of learning—understanding and doing—don’t always coincide, and there’s a point at which we stop learning certain things in certain ways with such ease: the learning curve. So all we have to do is know the variables, like quality of coaching and facilities, time spent practicing, experience on the field, and age, and we can predict the future, maybe… But such structuralism is depressing. By this logic, assuming that our ability to learn technical, physical skills becomes labored as we age, we can count out Eddie Johnson, who seems to lack the technique, and now the youth, to achieve his potential. Some would argue that Theo Walcott runs the same risk, although time is on his side. Conversely, a player like Shaun Wright-Phillips, often criticized as a poor decision-maker, still has time to become a savvier player, assuming he is resourceful.
Not everyone would agree with this train of thought. I had an art teacher in college who didn’t start to draw until he was a college student himself. I found this to be a late start. I asked him if he wished he had begun to draw earlier—if he thought youth could have made him a better artist? “No,” he said, “I think I’m still improving.”
“Yeah, but technically, then, if not creatively?” I asked.
He told me the story of a famous Japanese artist. “He was interviewed at 60,” he said. “The interviewer asked him if he thought he could keep going, unable to believe that the artist could do anything better than the works he had just finished. The artist replied that he was only 60, and had just begun to express emotion. That at 70 he hoped to convey a piece of the complexity that he feels inside and that he hoped by 80 he would have the skill to express himself in full.”
Art is not a perfect metaphor for professional sport—artists, in a sense, are able to make up their own game while athletes are held to a standard; athletes peak early in skill and fitness while artists can crest much later. I doubt Eddie Johnson will find his touch and make an impact in an elite league. I find my professor’s story inspirational at the amateur level. I certainly hope that I’ll one day be able to express myself fully on the soccer pitch. Even if I have to wait until I’m 80.
I don’t mean to suggest that Walcott and Johnson are the same caliber of player, simply that they both have been criticized for poor technique: Walcott for his passing and Johnson for poor touch in general.
Brian Blickenstaff is a graduate student in Mississippi.
Read More: Youth
by Brian Blickenstaff · May 11, 2010
Lovely piece Brian B – I think you hit on “innate ability”, “time spent”, and “intelligent approaches” as all the key factors to success.
It’s always interesting how we can latch onto certain players and try to project certain traits we wish they had – we long for Eddie Johnson to participate more in “build up play”, for Conor Casey to complete “step overs” with grace, and Brian Ching to “shoot from distance.”
Yet for all these weaknesses, we often overlook strengths and positives. I’ll always remember a coach who told a very talented teammate that “his feet were too big to play offense”, and this wonderfully gifted athlete was resigned to right back. The rest of us bent our toes and got extra small cleats for the rest of the season – all in order to fool a foolish set of eyes.
The idea of a “critical period” in sporting development is something I’ve often flirted with–I feel it’s foolish when I crack a dipping volley into the far corner, yet I’m reminded of its validity when I attempt an overhead only to find myself unable to sit up straight.
Nice piece.
I don’t know football the way you do, Brian, but I do know good lyrical writing when I read it!
Very fine.
I’m thinking Juan Roman Riquelme – he seems to get better with age, and he can certainly be classified as an “artist” of the game.
Slightly differently, players like Jamie Carragher & Carles Puyol have become better players after learning a new trade at a fairly late stage of their careers – switching from full backs to central defenders. Had they merely started their careers as central defenders rather than full backs, it could be argued that they would not have reached such high levels.
I think that the cut off point in terms of maturity may be around 20 years of age. For any players younger than that, It’s simply impossible to predict whether or not they will cut the mustard later on in their careers. Hence, if one examines lines ups of old international Youth squads, many of the names are unfamiliar, and yet those who represented their countries at Under-21 level usually manage to carve out for themsleves a respectable top level career at least. I hope Walcott turns out to be a Wayne Rooney style exception and he does already have that Zagreb hat-trick under his belt.
Straight and to the point. Sports are about being entertained. Too many times its not about the entertainment and the beauty of sport. There is big money in them there hills and I think the money gets in the way all too often.
Some players age gracefully and some don’t. The stage of the World Cup is such a great place to see some of these great players in the final stages of their careers. The World Cup is a short compact setting that older players can still make it through. This is a great way to think about and look at the rosters that were just released this week.
Nice piece indeed.
Wonderful post.
I come at it from the other side. I grew up playing football. It’s the only thing I did. I developed a solid technical base which I still have. It can often make me appear a much better player than I actually am.
I began playing recently with people who started playing soccer later in life (mid-20s) and can often see them mentally doing the right thing but not having the physical or technical skill to pull it off.
I think this is because they “learn” the game by watching EPL etc. rather than learning it by doing drills, playing keepie-uppie etc.
The wonderful thing about playing with these people is that with a tiny bit of instruction (try stopping the ball before kicking it) they display rapid improvement. It’s really never too late to learn!
Ahah… I almost came to tears with this. I can thoroughly relate to what you’ve written here. The unique difference is: I lack absolutely no technique, which I can only assume is practically innate, having I started to kick a football at the age of 17. What I lack is maybe some things you mentioned, maybe even some other stuff, in-game regular stuff, one experiences and learns from playing with friends since kindergarten. As you do, I trully question human potential as well, in a sense that as a kid I would’ve learned twice as fast. I believe, as a common sense, we obviously keep on learning throughout our lives, but the obvious thing about sports is the “market” will not wait until we have fully acquainted the sport. As for the expression.. I understand you completely and I am, maybe like you, so sorry I didn’t know 10 years ago what I do nowadays, and will live with that until I die. Rather delicate subject… Sorry for my rusty english.
@Jeffrey
Right on the money.
I watch sport to be entertained. 60-70hrs weeks and I have only a few hours a week to enjoy myself so when I have time to watch a game (never live because its faster to tape and skip the intermission and injuries) I want to be entertained.
Too many people forget that.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Seneca
Studies seem to indicate that there is a “sweet spot” for acquiring motor skills (for instance foot skills in soccer) and that seems to be about between 8-12 years old. Of course, you can acquire these skills after but it becomes increasingly difficult and they aren’t “imbedded” as they are in a player who practiced and acquired them at a younger age.
Horst Wein commented, “Soccer starts in the head, moves through the heart and finishes with the feet.” In order for a young player to spend they considerable time and energy to acquire the skills to even be at a level where they could possibly compete, they have to fall in love with the game and want to play it every chance they get. This is the fallacy in theory that the U.S. should be a great soccer power based on the number of kids that “play” youth soccer in the U.S. In contrast to other countries, U.S. kids “playing” organized soccer actually don’t play much soccer on a weekly basis. Most go to 2 one hour or so practices a week and play a game or two a week, which means they really are only playing for 4-5 hours a week, much of that standing in lines at practice or waiting for a ball in a large sided competitive match. In contrast, south american kids and european kids (at least when I was living in both those continents) spent just about every spare moment playing soccer and getting lots of touches on a ball.
I also know that 2 other things enter into becoming a pro. As the writer pointed out, luck plays a big part. Being at the right place at the right time is essential, and also perserverence (not giving up when the road gets bumpy). In the end, much of what makes a player differentiate himself from his peers enough to make a squad is what is between his ears (his attitude). So I would amend Mr. Wein’s comment to read, “Soccer starts with the head, moves through the heart, to the feet, and then finishes back at the head.”
A thoughtful article Brian, nice. Timoteo’s post also raised a few hairs with the comments about kids outside the U.S. playing soccer far more often. I can’t vouch for how often U.S. kids play soccer but in England, as children, we played probably every day for fun, and if we weren’t playing ‘association football’ we were no doubt playing a game that involved an actual football in some way…’headers & volleys’, ‘walley’, ’60 seconds’, ‘curbie’. As a consequence, almost every lad I know who has only played footie as a game, and never gone on to play it as a sport, still has a reasonable amount of technical ability with the ball – they (myself included) merely lack any sense of tutored organisational or tactical ability – these are the things that are taught – whereas in the short career of a professional footballer technique is mostly ‘honed’.
For professional footballers to get better with age usually requires them to adapt to their diminishing physical abilties by relying more heavily on techinique and experience. Paolo Malidini (you mentioned) is a prime example, but I really enjoyed watching Valeri Karpin turn into a midfield maestro.
@Jeffrey
Right on the money.
I watch sport to be entertained. 60-70hrs weeks and I have only a few hours a week to enjoy myself so when I have time to watch a game (never live because its faster to tape and skip the intermission and injuries) I want to be entertained.
Too many people forget that.
It’s the same thing with me. I didn’t start playing until three years ago when I was 15, now I have all the skills and I know what I should be doing, but sometimes knowing and doing aren’t the same. That said this is my first time taking a real look at your site, and let me just say it is… indescribably good.
This is an interesting article, and I have some perspective in matter. I moved overseas to Asia when I was a young child, and played soccer on the street, and soon after that for a top youth team until college. When I was youngish, I could not understand my place on that team. I struggled as a 10 (given my slight stature, I got slotted into that spot in our rather insane coach’s 3-2-5), and though I could create I could not score for the life of me. I felt physically weak and completely useless- I was getting a great deal out of the team, and felt the team was not getting very much out of me. My family went on a sabbatical when I was twelve, and I didn’t play for almost a year. Coming back to Asia, my place on the team was in doubt, and I went in for preseason thinking I would devote myself to baseball (which I had played a great deal of, along with American football, when I was back in the states), but might as well give the old team a try.
The game was immediately different for me. I know it’s a tired cliche, but the game moved in slow motion, like everyone else was stuck in gravy. The touch which I had spent years and years acquiring was still there, but it was now coupled with a frame that was six inches taller, about fifty pounds heavier, and about a second faster in the 40 yard dash. The same was true of my club mates, most of whom had grown and sped up like I had, and the game went from confusion to clinical destruction. I wouldn’t have noticed had I not played for that year, but the touch never left- my body caught up though. In a single moment, my coach’s vision and clarity of purpose had coalesced into a team of machines.
You didn’t really stop to think at that point- matches were like a white out, where you wake up and your team is up by six goals at the half- and you realize one, that your coach knew what he was doing (and that his funny Dutch accent was honestly acquired), and two, those serious men with clipboards saw more than you at that moment- they were trying to see you in ten years. I had an exceptional year, and up until my junior year of high school (I suffered a serious injury) toyed with the idea of playing for good- but I learned something there- I learned what it felt like to actually be doing what I was meant to do, in a way. I think all those years can pay off, but that starting young is only part of it. I think you have to play with joy and abandon, in addition to talent, and that joy is in knowing your doing whatever it is well, at long last. So you earn it, but you also grow into it. There are some things you can evaluate immediately, but some things require mental flowering that take time to cultivate.