NOT ENOUGH MENTAL TOUGHNESS TO DESIRE TO WIN A MATCH

NOT ENOUGH MENTAL TOUGHNESS TO DESIRE TO WIN A MATCH
by Dr Jose C. Meeroff FIFA (ATFA) A Soccer Coach, NSCAA Premier Diploma

How many times have you witnessed the following scenario: a soccer team (instructed by the coach or just lead by the fear of the players) decides to play a defensive game aiming for a draw or to find victory by an act of chance and they lose miserably? How many times have you witnessed a team that after dominating the game, finally score a goal and immediately goes back to defend “fiercely” allowing the opponent that had very little possession of the ball until  that goal, to go on to the attack and turns the score around  winning the game in the final moments of the match? Occasionally, the defensive, negative tactic work such as to coach Pekerman in the Paraguay 0 vs Colombia 1 game played in Asuncion October 6, 2016 and then a legion of coaches will refer to such accident to justify the use of negative tactics. It is an epidemic similar to the negative campaigns that every politician run at any election after questioning the validity of such strategy. 

Those negative scenarios make me sick and very upset. In my experience, the only times that extremely defensive tactics such the “Swiss bolt” or the “Cattenaccio” work are the ones where the opponents are really very weak and ineffective.
Furthermore, memory is short lived. In fact, in soccer, memory is very short lived. In the recent past the most valued axioms of soccer was “The best defense is a good attack” and the second best axiom was “If you need to defend, defend very far up from your own goal area”. Now, very few people remember those axioms.
Unfortunately, very few people remember those axioms despite the fact that coaches such as Marcelo Bielsa, Louis Van Gaal, Joachim Low, “Pep” Guardiola, Marcelo Gallardo, Jorge Sampaoli or Diego Simeone among others prove day after day that attacking soccer is better that “hanging by the crossbar” in your own goal.
 Unfortunately, many contemporary soccer “gurus” adhere to the suicidal idea of “putting the game in the freezer” to control the result. Recently I watched a game between two premier teams of a very top level league where the visitors (despite the effort of the manager) went to play “conservatively” to get a draw or win by chance. The visitors were ahead 1-0, then 2-1 and later on 3-1 with 20 minutes to go. At that point in time, the visitors decided to “put the game in the freezer”, went back to play a (1), 5-4-1 formation (after having easy control of the match with a classic (1)-4-4-2 against a desperate home team with a very weak last line of 3). The visitors set the line of confrontation 25 yards from their own goal line and couldn’t have possession of the ball not even for 5 seconds. In fact, they never crossed the half way line in the last 15 minutes of the match. To make the long story short let me confirm what you probably guessed correctly, that the home team won the game by a score of 4 to 3. A shame for the visitors, that used, during the post match press conference, every kind of phrenasthenic excuse trying to cover up the player’s mental weakness and their inability to dominate the match. Interestingly enough the same day coach Pekerman won in Paraguay using the same negative strategy that cost Colombia many defeats, Argentina lost points in Peru for playing the silly game of trying to put the game in the freezer and conceded a draw vs Peru for making incredible unacceptable mistakes.
Soccer is a game with a clear objective: to dominate the opponent and win the match. Hiding in the bunker does nothing to help defeating the opponent. On the contrary, most of the time it help the opponent win the confrontation. Please remember that the four pillars of soccer are physical (without proper fitness a player can’t develop good techniques), technical (without proper skills, players can’t execute good tactics), tactics (without proper plannification players can’t not control the opponents) and psychological (without mental strength and toughness, players can’t beat the opponents). Please don't be a chicken, be dominant and want to win !!!
To sum up: in my opinion, when you play conservatively you not only play ugly soccer, but you will lose most of the matches..
Here I include a few quotations from famous people to support my preference for playing offensive soccer all the time.
“For heaven's sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see. You don't stand around arguing about who's responsible, or who's going to pay.”       Sylvia Earle (American Marine Biologist)
“Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”       George S. Patton (American General, commander of the 3rd United States Army in WWII)
“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”          Vince Lombardi (Famous American football player and coach)
“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”      Zig Ziglar (American author, salesman, and motivational speaker.)
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
Mahatma Gandhi (preeminent world leader)
“When I’m down or maybe when it’s close in the match, I feel like I’m still in it. I don’t feel like I’m letting down. Mentally, I’m still really, really tough.”                Maria Sharapova (World Class Tennis player)
“Most successful teams dominate the match; they play offensively, show few defensive errors and win most of the one v one duels”            Tobias Wawroscher (FIFA Instructor)

            Helenio Herrera y Nereo Rocco the grandfathers of negative soccer ("futbol ratonero")