Footballing Brain, What is it?

[Nani Nana]

Not sure I agree there. While I think it's one of the more difficult things to do, I think you can improve your footballing brain through experience.

I think Giggs is a good example of that.

Thing is, I played a bit of football and watched a lot of it and I have really found no evidence that you can improve your vision.

Imagine being at training and being asked to kick the ball and touch a tree 40 yards shy. At first you won't be able to, but after a while you'll succeed and do it regularly. Now your passing was improved by training.

But when it comes to repeating this during the course of a game, with every component of the pitch being in constant movement, you'll only find your partner located 40 yards away if he stands still and does not move which in football happens on seldom occasions.

I do think it is inbred to feel the movement of your team mates and capitalizing on it simply because there is no rational factor that makes them run towards the point they move to. Indeed a factor can be empty space so that when you see your mate running to a part of the pitch where he will be unmarked, you give him deep, but the difference with players who have vision is that they create space by their pass, it is not their team mate but them who hold the ball who create an empty space, and this requires a brain that foresees the movement of four, five maybe even more players and takes advantage of this forecast.


Do you think it is the ball passer or the receiver who should be dictating the destination of the pass ? I think this is where we differ.


As for positioning, you can indeed improve it overtime to cope with your loss of speed but there are some players who really have the knack of doing it with sheer class, such as Dragan Stojkovic, or perhaps more recently Zidane. So indeed I shouldn't have said you can't improve it, although I doubt you can improve it to get to the level of these who had that gift even in their early days at Red Star Belgrade and Bordeaux.

 

[peterstorey]

Clips?

Before motion pictures were invented sadly.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

If you reverse that then you`ll have defined what a great footballing brain for a defender is.

Yeah, good point. Should have included that in my original post. Feck.

 

[vijay]

Thing is, I played a bit of football and watched a lot of it and I have really found no evidence that you can improve your vision.

Both these players were often let down by poor final delivery earlier in their careers. It could be related to temperament or lack of confidence but once they improved their vision, they are better footballers. It all boils down to the team and the coach a player works along with.

 

[Dyslexic Untied]

Yeah, good point. Should have included that in my original post. Feck.

I tried to make a point about it earlier in the thread.

My point is that, a defender will always be one step behind the attacker, because the attacking team always makes the first move - a run, a pass, a shot etc.

The best defenders can tell where that shot, run, pass is going and regains the advantage by thinking one step ahead all the time.

Rio is a good example I think. Nesta in his prime another one.

 

[Jopub]

I tried to make a point about it earlier in the thread.

My point is that, a defender will always be one step behind the attacker, because the attacking team always makes the first move - a run, a pass, a shot etc.

The best defenders can tell where that shot, run, pass is going and regains the advantage by thinking one step ahead all the time.

Rio is a good example I think. Nesta in his prime another one.

Bobby Moore

 

[Dyslexic Untied]

Bobby Moore

Old feck

 

[cesc's_mullet]

More than that it's about knowing where everybody's GOING to be in about 0.5 seconds.

And more than that it's the ability to direct play up ahead through passing into space/areas and forcing players onto the ball.

 

[Ceks]

Good thread. Jack Wilshere looks to have an excellent 'footballing brain'. He just moved into a huge house down my road. Will make a change from his parents' council house.

 

[Addis]

Nani Nana, I don't mean to offend you but I think you're taking your own experiences and trying to extrapolate them to everyone.

I'm not a pro footballer by any means, and I don't have great vision but through match practice and training I did get better at picking out passes. Through practice there are many, many aspects which can be improved. It comes more naturally to some, I'll give you that though.

Nothing a player like Scholes does is without reason. If you take creativity out of the equation (which has inherit randomness if you get me here), then you can think of a forward pass to be a function of the information the player has about everyone else on the pitch, and their velocities. Every player on the pitch has access to the same information, so assuming their vision is equal (peripheral included) then they could all in theory pick out a run - or the beginning of a run - by a team mate. Through experience, a player can get better at quickly choosing the best pass to execute given a situation.

No football game is the same, but we often see the same situations appearing over and over again. For the intelligent players, they will learn the best move to make, based on their past experiences.

 

[vuc]

Great thread and post Boss.

I agree with the general consensus in here on what the footballing brain is. I would say its a combination of vision, awareness/movement creativity and anticipation. There are a whos who of great players down the years with this kind of ability, some more known than others. Modern day examples would be Zidane, Riquelme, Bergkamp, Scholes etc.

I saw Dragan Stojkovic mentioned in this thread and he IMO had one of the best footballing brains, had he stayed in Europe and injuries didn't get to him he would have been far better known.

Practically scores this goal with just the fake


Long passing compilation


Just backheels

 

[kouroux]

I forgot about his name but yes Stojkovic was a brilliant player.I would also add Effenberg and Prosinecki

 

[Nani Nana]

Nani Nana, I don't mean to offend you but I think you're taking your own experiences and trying to extrapolate them to everyone.

I'm not a pro footballer by any means, and I don't have great vision but through match practice and training I did get better at picking out passes. Through practice there are many, many aspects which can be improved. It comes more naturally to some, I'll give you that though.

Nothing a player like Scholes does is without reason. If you take creativity out of the equation (which has inherit randomness if you get me here), then you can think of a forward pass to be a function of the information the player has about everyone else on the pitch, and their velocities. Every player on the pitch has access to the same information, so assuming their vision is equal (peripheral included) then they could all in theory pick out a run - or the beginning of a run - by a team mate. Through experience, a player can get better at quickly choosing the best pass to execute given a situation.

No football game is the same, but we often see the same situations appearing over and over again. For the intelligent players, they will learn the best move to make, based on their past experiences.

I think you and Brwned are on the same wavelength to which I disagree, basically you say that with experience you improve the way you answer to a given situation that has necessarily been lived previously. This is perfectly true.

But I think, on the contrary of you, that what differentiates this player improved by experience with the great footballing brain is the ability of the latter to shift given situations, or even create new ones throughout his passing and technical skills.

Where the experienced player can anticipate what every player is about to do, the footballing brain changes their behaviour and decisions, and this I think cannot be learnt at training.



vuc - Stojkovic is greatly remembered in France although he was injury plagued at Marseille indeed.

 

[vuc]

I forgot about his name but yes Stojkovic was a brilliant player.I would also add Effenberg and Prosinecki

Do you recall his days at Marseille?

Prosinecki had one of the best techniques seen, aswell as the brain.

 

[kouroux]

I was too young back then to remember his Marseille days but it's when playing for Yugoslavia that he really impressed me

 

[vuc]

I was too young back then to remember his Marseille days but it's when playing for Yugoslavia that he really impressed me

Well take a look at those youtube videos and you'll see the kind of stuff he was capable of. I too was too young to appreciate fully what kind of player he was but have seen enough footage from the past to know what kind of talent he was. Even towards the end of his career at WC 98 he was still amazing.

 

[Addis]

I think you and Brwned are on the same wavelength to which I disagree, basically you say that with experience you improve the way you answer to a given situation that has necessarily been lived previously. This is perfectly true.

But I think, on the contrary of you, that what differentiates this player improved by experience with the great footballing brain is the ability of the latter to shift given situations, or even create new ones throughout his passing and technical skills.

Where the experienced player can anticipate what every player is about to do, the footballing brain changes their behaviour and decisions, and this I think cannot be learnt at training.



vuc - Stojkovic is greatly remembered in France although he was injury plagued at Marseille indeed.

Ok, what are you reasons for believing that this is a genetic trait?

 

[Nani Nana]

Ok, what are you reasons for believing that this is a genetic trait?

Because every professional footballer we behold has started football at about the same age, let's say 6, has turned professional at the same age, let's say 20, all of them train at about the same amount of hours weekly, and yet very few create new moves (those you can see on any Youtube football video with always the same Zidane, Ronaldinho, Riquelme) or have the ability of doing things we hadn't foreseen.


I recall many times watching Zidane on TV, where you arguably see the whole play and the movement of most of the players, so that you can always say "this is where the guy who has the ball should pass", and then Zidane did something completely different, that no one had expected, and yet it panned out better and proved decisive.

This happens on seldom occasions and with very few players who have that extra smartness when they play. To me it fits perfectly to the definition of a footballing brain with its two main attributes - vision and positioning.

 

[kouroux]

I agree with Nani Nana but I'll use a lot less words.Like he said pro footballers in general go through the same trainings and formations during their entire careers but what seperates some from others at times can't beat described.It's like a genetic attribute

 

[Ekeke]

People will use the term "footballing brain" to talk about nearly anything now. Basically, according to this forum everyone has one, except Nani.

 

[Addis]

Because every professional footballer we behold has started football at about the same age, let's say 6, has turned professional at the same age, let's say 20, all of them train at about the same amount of hours weekly, and yet very few create new moves (those you can see on any Youtube football video with always the same Zidane, Ronaldinho, Riquelme) or have the ability of doing things we hadn't foreseen.


I recall many times watching Zidane on TV, where you arguably see the whole play and the movement of most of the players, so that you can always say "this is where the guy who has the ball should pass", and then Zidane did something completely different, that no one had expected, and yet it panned out better and proved decisive.

This happens on seldom occasions and with very few players who have that extra smartness when they play. To me it fits perfectly to the definition of a footballing brain with its two main attributes - vision and positioning.

The way I look at it, it's a sort of "innocent until proven guilty" with genetics.

Assume everything is environmental until it's proven to be genetic. Sometimes I think it's a mixture of both, but I don't agree with your argument about training hours. It's impossible to use that as evidence because every player is different. Some people are naturally workaholics, some aren't. Rooney's vision and creativity in the final third is much, much better now than it was when he first joined United. There are thing's which he does now, which I know he wouldn't do if he was the same player he was at 18.

If it is in fact, impossible to improve vision and positioning with training, then how has he managed this? The only explanation is that genetic advantages manifest themselves as the player progresses through their career. If so, how can you differentiate between training and genetics?

You can't use Zidane to prove a point, simply because he was a genius. But a single example proves nothing, only that he may have had God given talent for it. It does not prove that it's solely genetic.

If you're wondering what my position is in all this, I believe that some players are naturally more intelligent than others. However this is just another talent, along with all the talents that footballers can possess. If it's solely genetic, then why bother training? Were the Everton and Man Utd tactical coaches wasting their time?

As an example to illustrate my point, let's focus on musical talent. Mozart was a child prodigy, a genius of his time with undoubted talent that he was born with. However, if genetics were solely responsible then it would not be possible for someone to improve their compositional creativity. Why do all the conservatories and musical colleges exist if learning and experience doesn't help?

There are some more points I have which follow on from this, but this post is getting long enough as it is.

 

[kouroux]

@ Addis: I think I made a mistake.When I said I agree with Nani Nana about the genetic part, I meant it was more a talent that even through the most intense training you couldn't reach and not actually "genetics" as in "genes".
Sorry if it seems confusing

 

[Addis]

@ Addis: I think I made a mistake.When I said I agree with Nani Nana about the genetic part, I meant it was more a talent that even through the most intense training you couldn't reach and not actually "genetics" as in "genes".
Sorry if it seems confusing

Sorry I didn't actually read your previous post.

I ramble on too much. Anyway, I can see your point about talent. I just personally think it's something that nearly all people have the ability for, some may have slightly more ability than others, but it's how that talent is trained that is the major factor.

 

[Nani Nana]

The way I look at it, it's a sort of "innocent until proven guilty" with genetics.

Assume everything is environmental until it's proven to be genetic. Sometimes I think it's a mixture of both, but I don't agree with your argument about training hours. It's impossible to use that as evidence because every player is different. Some people are naturally workaholics, some aren't. Rooney's vision and creativity in the final third is much, much better now than it was when he first joined United. There are thing's which he does now, which I know he wouldn't do if he was the same player he was at 18.

If it is in fact, impossible to improve vision and positioning with training, then how has he managed this? The only explanation is that genetic advantages manifest themselves as the player progresses through their career. If so, how can you differentiate between training and genetics?

You can't use Zidane to prove a point, simply because he was a genius. But a single example proves nothing, only that he may have had God given talent for it. It does not prove that it's solely genetic.

If you're wondering what my position is in all this, I believe that some players are naturally more intelligent than others. However this is just another talent, along with all the talents that footballers can possess. If it's solely genetic, then why bother training? Were the Everton and Man Utd tactical coaches wasting their time?

As an example to illustrate my point, let's focus on musical talent. Mozart was a child prodigy, a genius of his time with undoubted talent that he was born with. However, if genetics were solely responsible then it would not be possible for someone to improve their compositional creativity. Why do all the conservatories and musical colleges exist if learning and experience doesn't help?

There are some more points I have which follow on from this, but this post is getting long enough as it is.

I'm not saying training is useless ! In fact, if you call Zidane a genius it is both thanks to his inbred gifts as much as his improvement with training; to underline the importance of training I could name you several players who had a 'footballing brain', these inbred vision and positioning skills but who never made it at the highest level because of their lack of work, for instance Branko Boskovic (Rapid Vienna) or Carlos Alberto (Vasco de Gama). These had the gift of not viewing a given football situation as definite and thence seek the best way to answer it as most footballers do; they knew they could single handedly shift any situation and turn it into what they like with a pass or a dribble. However they failed to become geniuses because they weren't reved up enough at training.


Mozart indeed had inbred gifts, as most of the composers and contemporary pianists, such as Evgeny Kissin, who could play a flawless Chopin piece aged 6. But they all arguably improved their work with hours and hours of training. However all the people we know who practised piano thanks to their parents in their childhood, they never made great pianists/composers, simply because they didn't have that extra smartness.



I thank you for bringing this comparison with classical music up though, as it is reminiscent of football and the difference between a great footballing brain and a great experienced player.

All those pianists, like Kissin or Horowitz, who spent their life behind a piano, they never composed a piece; they merely repeated what the likes of Mozart or Beethoven composed. Pianists and composers have therefore only one difference as they spend the same amount of time working : it is their inbred gifts, just as the difference between a footballer who improved his vision to a certain extent to answer perfectly to a given situation, and a footballing brain genius who took this given situation, turned it upside down and made it better by creating something new, just like a new symphony.

 

[Addis]

I'm not saying training is useless ! In fact, if you call Zidane a genius it is both thanks to his inbred gifts as much as his improvement with training; to underline the importance of training I could name you several players who had a 'footballing brain', these inbred vision and positioning skills but who never made it at the highest level because of their lack of work, for instance Branko Boskovic (Rapid Vienna) or Carlos Alberto (Vasco de Gama). These had the gift of not viewing a given football situation as definite and thence seek the best way to answer it as most footballers do; they knew they could single handedly shift any situation and turn it into what they like with a pass or a dribble. However they failed to become geniuses because they weren't reved up enough at training.


Mozart indeed had inbred gifts, as most of the composers and contemporary pianists, such as Evgeny Kissin, who could play a flawless Chopin piece aged 6. But they all arguably improved their work with hours and hours of training. However all the people we know who practised piano thanks to their parents in their childhood, they never made great pianists/composers, simply because they didn't have that extra smartness.



I thank you for bringing this comparison with classical music up though, as it is reminiscent of football and the difference between a great footballing brain and a great experienced player.

All those pianists, like Kissin or Horowitz, who spent their life behind a piano, they never composed a piece; they merely repeated what the likes of Mozart or Beethoven composed. Pianists and composers have therefore only one difference as they spend the same amount of time working : it is their inbred gifts, just as the difference between a footballer who improved his vision to a certain extent to answer perfectly to a given situation, and a footballing brain genius who took this given situation, turned it upside down and made it better.

5000 words of debate to finally realise that we, in the most important points, fecking agree.

Thanks for making me waste my time.

Edit: I was talking about myself.

 

[datura]

I would probably say rather than being genetic (how many descendants of great footballers have proven to be anywhere near their fathers?), it is a specific intelligence that makes them 'special', just like there's people who are better at maths, languages etc. There is a theory of 'multiple intelligences' that attempts to quantify this and gave rise to those headlines of 'Beckham more intelligent than Einstein' or something similarly overblown a few years back.

I think you can develop a better awareness the more you play football and know what to do in certain circumstances through repetition and trial and error and playing and observing better more 'natural' players, effectively developing a better 'football brain', however you'll never attain the level of a natual footballer and it will be more predictable and measured than inspired and innovative.

 

[Nani Nana]

5000 words of debate to finally realise that we, in the most important points, fecking agree.

Thanks for making me waste my time.

I didn't understand that you agree to say the notion of inbred exists in football. At least it was an interesting polemic, compared to the likes of Berbatov>Tevez discussions !



datura - absolutely, genetics have probably nothing to do with this. Something inbred can come in your early days too, before you start playing, from 0 to 6.

 

[CasaStreets]

Gerrard doesnt have any footballing brains.

 

[Decotron]

I forgot about his name but yes Stojkovic was a brilliant player.I would also add Effenberg and Prosinecki

2 great shouts. Effenberg on his day was some players. Very Classy. Utter bell end aswell.

 

[vuc]

2 great shouts. Effenberg on his day was some players. Very Classy. Utter bell end aswell.

I can only remember glimpses of Effenberg unfortunately..

Thing is you can go through a host of Ex-Yu players and all of them had a footballing brain, it was just a special generation.

Savicevic & Boban are two more who had that ability.

 

[Decotron]

I can only remember glimpses of Effenberg unfortunately..

Thing is you can go through a host of Ex-Yu players and all of them had a footballing brain, it was just a special generation.

Savicevic & Boban are two more who had that ability.

Very true, probably underated aswell. Savicevic was a joy to watch

 

[vuc]

Very true, probably underated aswell. Savicevic was a joy to watch

I think very underrated. Those players were on par if not better than their counterparts in the same generation. Sanctions in the 90's prevented the world from seeing their true ability though..

Heres Savicevic ripping United apart.

 

[ronnie dazzler]

But surely the players with stand out 'football brains' like Gascoigne, Scholes, Sheringham etc often do things on the spur of the moment - things which aren't necessarily the 'correct' or 'best' option but things no other player would have thought of - that's what makes them great... If what you said were true then it would be possible to teach it but I think the really great players are working mainly on instinct...

I think there is a difference between football intelligience ("brain"), football genius and football instinct.

Football intelligence can be doing the smart thing, getting goalside of an attacker, organising defenders into right positions, one midfielder staying back when another attacks etc. The ability to play the way your manager requires. United have a lot of these.

Football genius / instinct can be that priceless ability to anticipate peoples movements, land a ball where they are going to end up, a volley from 30 yards into the net. Some players read body languauge well, anticipate before something happens. Realise when to run/ not too run as they sense something. thats priceless - think Cantona, Best, Gazza, Scholes, Pele and many others with varying degrees of this.

 

[vuc]

wow very impressive, never heard of him before he was mentionned in a topic on manchester united forums

Reveal yourself.