Most soccer coaches strive for obedience. They want their players to listen, obey and follow instructions. Why wouldn’t they?
From the day we are born we are constantly bombarded with rules and regulations. Misbehave and you’re destined for punishment. Obey and for some strange reason you’re doing okay.
A child enters the education system and is told to sit up straight, listen and to stop talking. The child leaves school and enters the work force only to present a resume that details his or her levels of obedience. Life has become a long list of instructions everyone needs to obey.
My question to you is this, does obedience create success or transform into success?
Does listening to others guarantee the one thing that you so desperately seek?
The beauty of being a child is the freedom you have to let your imagination run free, dream the impossible and take on the biggest of obstacles. Authority and society quickly react to put you in place and squash any dream before it eventuates.
The rationale?
Obedience transforms into success.
Obedience means you develop and learn new skills at training.
Obedience means you’re liked amongst your team mates and peers.
I’m guessing that your children obey the coach, the teachers and to some extent the law. Does this guarantee any form of success?
Are they successful?
Here’s a thought.
Before we implement rules, regulations, restrictions and strive for obedience, let’s talk about something else.
Let’s talk about sacrifice, discipline and self control.
Let’s talk about training to the point where your eyes bleed and your body shuts down.
Let’s talk about awareness and the reasons (the real reasons) why so many expect you to act a certain way.
Let’s talk about the reasons why so many children quit the game before they become teenagers.
Let’s talk about intimidation, fear and abuse that is sometimes utilised to control young children.
If you’re children are going to succeed in soccer they need to ask questions, splash the elbow grease on and work on their self control and discipline. Most reading this will claim that self control and discipline are forms of obedience.
However
Nothing wrong with listening to yourself.
Nothing wrong with believing in yourself.
Nothing wrong with going against the norm to accomplish what you want.
Forget about obedience and listen to that little voice inside your head.
P-L-E-A-S-E
Help me understand how obedience guarantees soccer success.
If you think or sense something’s wrong, chances are it is. Before you seek obedience, seek the truth and believe in yourself.
Your friendly Anarchist
“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars”
The most successful team I helped to coach was full of a bunch of rambunctious knuckleheads, some of whom would jump up and down and jabber until I made them take a lap. Control them? Never. Teach them to trust each other and act as a team? An undefeated season.
Blind obedience in certain areas of life is a good thing and potentially life-saving, e.g. learning to drive a car or learning to ride a motorbike. But, in football (as soccer is known in England, where I’m from), that’s not always the case. Following the coach’s instructions at training sessions is the way it should be, otherwise you’d have disorganized chaos. Also, following the coach’s game plan during a match is the right way (provided it makes sense and the coach has the players’ respect). But, individual players must be allowed to let their creativity flourish during a match, which may not necessarily be in line with the coach’s wishes, especially if somebody attempts to dribble out of defence and that leads to the opposition scoring. But, this is how we as players learn – by taking risks and sometimes succeeding spectacularly and other times failing miserably. Nobody ever got to the top in any endeavour by getting it right all the time.