Viral Video
This week a video has gone viral on social media featuring Scottish footballer Simon Ferry. In the video Simon described encouraging "boys" or footballers in general to make mistakes by expressing themselves, Simon was discouraging plays to play safe all the time and used a game in which Bruno Fernandez continuously gave the ball away playing forward regardless of surroundings as his evidence to justify what he was stating.
A Poor Message
Worryingly the video mentioned above has been shared by coaches currently at youth teams across the globe as a great message for youth development. One Twitter user by the name of Freddie shared the video stating "100% this. What every kid should be told from day one. Well said @siferry8". In the comments a person who appears to be a coach wrote “About time this was said. Passing sideways and backwards is not development, all kids should be progressing the ball and looking to score, that is what the game is about”. The video can be viewed below.
100% this. What every kid should be told from day one. Well said @siferry8 👏🏼
— Freddie 🗯 (@Freddie_23_23) June 8, 2021
pic.twitter.com/7dGU0hLEun
Decisions Belong to The Players
In this opinion it is vital a kid understands that trying the harder pass/progressive pass mentioned above is the CORRECT DECISION. Encouraging a kid to continuously force a forward pass or the difficult pass is not always the right decision. If the mistake is in the execution & not the decision, then fine, if not, poor message. Of course, making mistakes is fine within the development, but coaches need to be careful with the messaging. Football is a game of decision making. In order for players to develop they must develop an understanding of why they make decisions. It's not good enough to simply embed or encourage enforced decisions and applaud them regardless if they are the right decision or not!
