Our finished product - what it takes to be a great player

I think that in a job such as youth coach or teacher we must always have in mind how we want the final product to look like.

This is why a football (soccer) youth coach must ask himself: what makes a player good?

We have the 4 traditional aspects of player training: technical, physical, tactical and mental.
In my country (Romania), many times when a player is better than other players we would say something like: "he knows more football".
If we were to think about the best players in the world what sets them apart from the rest?
Technical skills - are they the most skilled? Tactical knowledge - are they the best at applying what the coach says? Physical ability - are they the most powerful, do they run the most, are they the fastest? Mental power - do they deal best with setbacks, do they motivate themselves better than others?

Of course it is a bit of these all.
Technical skill is probably the most important. A good player must be able to give great passes or take great shots. But giving a great pass is part the ability to send the ball where you want to send it and part the ability to send the ball to the right player at the right time. Taking a good shot and scoring a goal is part the ability to send the ball where you want to send it and part choosing the right moment to take the shot.
Physical abilities are important. Out of these, probably speed is the most important. But I know a few very fast players that are not very good because they do not know how to use their speed or what to do with the ball when they have it. On the other side, there are very good players that are not faster than the average professional players.
Tactics are important, but there are players that are good at respecting the tactics and yet they are not remarkable.
Mental power is important too, but again, there are many players with mental power that are not remarkable.

Off course a player needs to have a good amount of all of these to be good, but what makes a player very good is usually something else. Most of the times we call it talent, in my country we say "he knows more football", actually it means to make the right decisions.

The best players in the world are the ones that make the most right decisions on the football (soccer) field.

Horst Wein calls this Game Intelligence.

A great pass is great both because of the technical skill and of the right decision it took to make it.
A great dribble is great both because of the technical skill and of the right decision it took to make it (should I pass or dribble? in what direction to dribble? what move to choose?).
Most of the times the player doesn't have time to consciously think about all these. Yet he has to make these decisions and he does. The decisions are based on his previous experiences.

We, as coaches must ask ourselves: can this be trained or not? The answer is obvious in my opinion and we can see this with kids playing football (soccer) without a coach around. Usually the ones that play more often football are not only more skilled but also make more right decisions.

If 'game intelligence' is so important and we know that it can be trained, how do we train it? We must look at our training plans and ask ourselves: are we developing the 'game intelligence' of our players? Will our players "know more football" then other players?

Horst Wein has a book called Developing Game Intelligence in Soccer. I recommend it.