Like most children and young people in Spain, I spent my childhood chasing after a soccer ball. That made me so happy, I’m not going to deny it and this is the most important thing. I wish you also be too when practicing this sport. But now, I think whether - at that time - any coach had gave me some advice that are explained in this book, I would have been even more happy. I would have been better soccer player and, who wouldn’t like to be better in sport which practices? Quite simply, it would have been enough with make me think a little bit more about pitch and not only act instinctively, running after a ball. The great majority of young players (included me when I was a child or a teen) don’t have a fine-natural talent for soccer. It can be said that they show a medium level. As the expression goes, they are an average Joe or Jane. Therefore, having improved my soccer skills I would have been a little happier, just merely by mastering more the sport which I loved.

 

Nowadays - I’m a coach and I’ve coached several teams in different grassroots categories - I realize that with a few tips our young players can suffer a tremendously improvement. I do not intend to discover anything, but to delve deeper into all that we already know to group and organize it, making this book a guide to stir up the soccer player’s thought, of whatever age.

 

Modern soccer demands smartest players every day - and it is also trained -not only with trainings on pitch, but from world of ideas and concepts.

 

Go back to my youth, I would have liked any coach to stoke my soccer thought, convincing me reasonably that certain behaviors would improve my game. If that had been the case and as anyone who believes in something, I would tried to apply these “new behaviors.” Obviously, it wouldn’t have been easy. To change it never is. But repeating and repeating, I’m convinced that I would turned these “new behaviors” into habits, instinctive responses - like the one who drives a car, typewrites, pray the Our Father or types on phone. Everything flows. As the English say: “Practice makes perfect.” Mind you, everything is born in emphasizing about behaviors. Probably I wouldn’t have become an elite soccer player, but I have no doubt, from my current experience, that I would have enjoyed even more soccer and been a better player. Today I understand better soccer than I was young. Today, if I play a friendly game I’m better than before, even not being fit, because I know more about sport which I have bound all my life.

 

This book intends to be a shortcut to accelerate the knowledge of anyone soccer player who dares to read it. It will help to reflect on game and to think about how they can help themselves to become a better player. I hope you enjoy it.