rafa - coaching vs natural ability

[badpiggy]

a few years ago i read an interesting article about the malign influences modern coaches and their techniques and systems have on a footballers natural ability. is there any argument to this in relation to rafa and his systems - do they crush natural footballing ability?

for example alonso - when he came it was obvious he was the best passer of a football probably since molby. has this ability been coached out of him in favour of defensive solidity and our rigid shape system? will the same happen to lucas leiva - leaves brazil with a best player award, captain of his underage national side. we see a brief glimpse of what appears to be natural footballing ability for a few short minutes in one game and then nothing - does rafa see a footballer or does he see ability that needs to be bent and moulded to suit his philosophy? some would argue that mourinho does the same - damien duff being an example?

i'm not just coming out of the woodwork abou this on the back of a couple of dodgy league performances. my concerns are genuine and long-voiced on here. what does anyone else think?

[bobbyfallon]

would have to say that wenger seems to get the best out of young talent and seems to know when they are ready for the first team ad is not scared to take a few chances..

buys players with obvious ability and moulds them into decent players

[215liverpool]

I think that when we see and here about all these players that appear to play wonderfully before they get here is that they (apart from Yossi in recent times) have played in a foreign league which is played at a different pace and maybe less aggression than the Premiership.

Take Morientes when he joined Liverpool he was in his late twenties so he had years of experience behind him. Like he said himself he wasn't expecting players to dive in on him as if he they wanted to kill him. I don't think he was at Liverpool long enough for Benitez to mould him into the player that wanted.
You could soon see that he didn't have the aggression for the Premiership.

I don't think that it's Benitez it's more the Premiership.

[Guest]

Good post and interesting point.

I think you have a case mate, as too much tactics and the systematic approach to football management can inhibit creativity in football. Players have it drummed into their minds that they should do this and that and are afraid to 'try' new things or express themselves.

I think that there should always be a balance and I think Rafa's teams show that. We had Luis Garcia, which is a player hardly imbued with tactical inhibition. Players such as Yossi and to a certain extent Torres need that freedom to fully express their abilities.

I think Xabi may have difficulty living up to his hype, IMO. He's found it difficult to kick on from where he was a couple of years ago and he's gone a bit stale.

[badpiggy]

Good post and interesting point.

I think you have a case mate, as too much tactics and the systematic approach to football management can inhibit creativity in football. Players have it drummed into their minds that they should do this and that and are afraid to 'try' new things or express themselves.

I think that there should always be a balance and I think Rafa's teams show that. We had Luis Garcia, which is a player hardly imbued with tactical inhibition. Players such as Yossi and to a certain extent Torres need that freedom to fully express their abilities.

I think Xabi may have difficulty living up to his hype, IMO. He's found it difficult to kick on from where he was a couple of years ago and he's gone a bit stale.

is this the real case or has he had it coached out of him? is he just doing what rafa is telling him to do? if it's the latter, then what rafa is doing is taking a great footballers talent and curbing it to fit a system. another manager might look at xabi's passing ability and build a team around that... again i'm hinting at rafa's caution and defensive attitude - instead of relying on players and trusting them and their abilities, rafa tries to sever any links with potential danger. his mantra seems to be imitation of that famous ac milan team - but was it the case that they were team coached to play to the best of their abilities and taking advantage of their natural talent or was it a system imposed on them by a coach? rafa definitely thinks it's possible to coach this system and way of playing. in other words, it's making players fit a mould rather than letting them play their natural game...

[fred_plasticine]

what about pennant, agger, finnan, carra then? they've all got better and better the longer they played under rafa's instructions, have they not?

[badpiggy]

what about pennant, agger, finnan, carra then? they've all got better and better the longer they played under rafa's instructions, have they not?

3 defenders though from those 4 - defending is definitely rafa's strongpoint. they way he gets players to do that zonal marking is amazing - totally counter-intuitive but seems to work ridiculously well.

[fred_plasticine]

3 defenders though from those 4 - defending is definitely rafa's strongpoint. they way he gets players to do that zonal marking is amazing - totally counter-intuitive but seems to work ridiculously well.

true, but look at the attacking options he's had over the years: who of them had real potential and couldn't fulfil it due to being shackled by rafa's tactics or defensive nature? baros or cisse can't be on that list.
gerrard had the best season of his carreer under rafa but played mainly out of his natural position.
xabi's problem is gerrard imho, the two of them can't play together without sacrificing either gerrard's attacking instincts or xabi's playmaker qualities.
judging on current form, none of them would make my starting XI.

[badpiggy]

true, but look at the attacking options he's had over the years: who of them had real potential and couldn't fulfil it due to being shackled by rafa's tactics or defensive nature? baros or cisse can't be on that list.
gerrard had the best season of his carreer under rafa but played mainly out of his natural position.
xabi's problem is gerrard imho, the two of them can't play together without sacrificing either gerrard's attacking instincts or xabi's playmaker qualities.
judging on current form, none of them would make my starting XI.

yeah - fair points but at this stage the only people who think xabi is in a slump are some of us fans. as far as rafa is concerned it seems he's doing exactly as he wants him to. i know the more obvious arguments against what i'm saying would be the buying of babel and torres - 2 instinctively attacking players but my worry is whether they will ultimately flourish.

[fred_plasticine]

yeah - fair points but at this stage the only people who think xabi is in a slump are some of us fans. as far as rafa is concerned it seems he's doing exactly as he wants him to. i know the more obvious arguments against what i'm saying would be the buying of babel and torres - 2 instinctively attacking players but my worry is whether they will ultimately flourish.

well only time will tell that.
as for xabi's slump - just because rafa doesn't talk about his poor form in public doesn't mean that he's not concerned with the amount of xabi's misplaced passes or dare i say sloppy play. well, i for one hope he is.

[Lecter]

Good post and interesting point.

I think you have a case mate, as too much tactics and the systematic approach to football management can inhibit creativity in football. Players have it drummed into their minds that they should do this and that and are afraid to 'try' new things or express themselves.

I think that there should always be a balance and I think Rafa's teams show that. We had Luis Garcia, which is a player hardly imbued with tactical inhibition. Players such as Yossi and to a certain extent Torres need that freedom to fully express their abilities.

I think Xabi may have difficulty living up to his hype, IMO. He's found it difficult to kick on from where he was a couple of years ago and he's gone a bit stale.

Personally I think teams have closed Alonso down more so he doesnt have the time he had the first season, that said hes still far and away the best passer of the ball in our team. You know the old saying you dont know what you have till its gone - well we've badly missed Alonso's influence in the last couple of games

[Lecter]

well only time will tell that.
as for xabi's slump - just because rafa doesn't talk about his poor form in public doesn't mean that he's not concerned with the amount of xabi's misplaced passes or dare i say sloppy play. well, i for one hope he is.

Mascherano made Xabi look like Beckenbauer on Saturday, he struggled to pass the ball 5 yards

[alunevans]

the one player that i think this coaching out defo happened to was igor biscan. i still hold that with an attack minded coach he'd have been a useful attacking midfielder

[bazza76]

a few years ago i read an interesting article about the malign influences modern coaches and their techniques and systems have on a footballers natural ability. is there any argument to this in relation to rafa and his systems - do they crush natural footballing ability?

for example alonso - when he came it was obvious he was the best passer of a football probably since molby. has this ability been coached out of him in favour of defensive solidity and our rigid shape system? will the same happen to lucas leiva - leaves brazil with a best player award, captain of his underage national side. we see a brief glimpse of what appears to be natural footballing ability for a few short minutes in one game and then nothing - does rafa see a footballer or does he see ability that needs to be bent and moulded to suit his philosophy? some would argue that mourinho does the same - damien duff being an example?

i'm not just coming out of the woodwork abou this on the back of a couple of dodgy league performances. my concerns are genuine and long-voiced on here. what does anyone else think?

I dont think Rafa is coaching it the technique out of the likes of Alonso.
He is and always has been encouraged to spray the ball around when he can, he is also encouraged to play good short passes obviously. If anything, Alonso has imporved as a player since joining us, and is more complete now, as he was not know in Spain, as a player, who could play in tight areas of the pitch, he is excellent at that now. In other words, if the opposition pressed Alonso hard in Spain, he was alot more vulnerable to mistakes.
The funny thing is, from what I have seen from Rafa's teams, we have not seen a player at the club that has had their technique coached out of them so to speak, if you take the likes of Pennant, he technique has improved

[Darth Marty]

Top post man...
I think I, to an extent, agree with you...it definitely seems that Rafa makes players fit his style of play rather than give them freedom of creativity. There is a definite defensive attitude to Rafa teams and to be fair a team cant lose if it doesnt concede...but its time we kicked on up front now and hopefully the purchase of torres is just the beginning of the world class attacking talent that will shortly be in display at Anfield!