Great ideas, needs clarification; get the tapes, 1 Jun 1998

I think it is important to put the Coerver Method into its proper context.

It cannot be emphasized enough that Coerver's ideas have transformed the thinking of soccer coaching worldwide over the last twenty years. His methods are endorsed around the world, and by some of the best coaches in the U.S. (e.g., Anson Dorrance of UNC, originator of the "Win Forever" slogan of U.S. women's soccer - you must read his book if you coach girls/women's soccer). Licensed Coerver Coaching youth soccer camps abound, and many of the better soccer camps have incorporated elements of the Coerver Method into their training.

What gave Coerver his start was the trend for European soccer in the late 1960's on through the early 1980's to develop into a sterile, defensively oriented passing game. Teams that had gifted ball control artists were routinely strangled by the tactic of heavy fouling. The concept of "direct soccer" was developed to use as few passes as necessary to put players into scoring position.. Although highly useful as a tactic and style of play, used to the complete exclusion of developing ball control skill, it quickly degenerated into simple "kick and run" soccer. The English version of this became known as "English long ball".

Fortunately for world soccer, over the last fifteen years, by making a series of rules changes, FIFA has worked at both encouraging a more offensively oriented style of play and discouraging excessive fouling. FIFA came to realize that people the world over (not just Americans) hated having to watch boring soccer. Individual style and flair have reappeared in world soccer as South Americans, Africans, and Eastern Europeans have spread out to teams around the globe..

There continue to be proponents of the "kick and run" style of soccer coaching, especially in the United States. There is a simple reason for this. Due to the lack of an established soccer culture in this country, it takes an enormous amount of team practice time to train even one player how to properly execute soccer moves. There is just so much that a team coach has to do already to get his team ready that there is simply not much time left to devote to practicing soccer moves. It is much easier for a team coach saddled with highly athletic but relatively less skillful players to win games by playing "direct soccer" or some other version of "kick and run" soccer. Getting players to perfect one or two moves at the youth level is about all that can be reasonably expected, given the fact that most youth club teams practice only two to three times a week.

If a player wants to progress at a greater rate, the players and their parents must have the dedication to go out and practice more frequently. A team coach can only show his/her players how the moves work, but the players must find the extra time to go out and practice on their own, or with their parents, siblings, or friends. In countries with established soccer cultures, that is exactly what happens, and that is how the really great world class players develop.

"Kick and run soccer" works until a team that only knows how to play this way runs up against another team that can both pass AND do moves. The team with the moves will win most of the time.

I always like to compare the situation with U.S. soccer to the situation with U.S. basketball. Basketball is one sport where the rest of the world has pretty much caught up to the U.S. in tactics and coaching, and yet American basketball players remain superior in one area still, and that is in doing one-on-one moves to beat an opponent. These moves give an extra dimension to American basketball players that other countries simply can't match. Why don't other countries just teach their players how to do these basketball moves? Well, I'm sure they do, but, if you've ever watched the movie "Hoop Dreams" you will realize that the terrific basketball moves of American players are developed at an incredibly early age, out on the playgrounds, with weekly and daily episodes of one-on-one scrimmages. The intense culture of basketball that exists in the U.S. is what allows for such development. Eventually, by the high school ages, the speed of execution of these moves is just phenomenal, something that players in other countries that start basketball later (and don't practice as often) can't match. Not surprisingly, the basketball teams of other countries play mostly a game of "pass and shoot", just like American soccer tends to play "kick and run". Rarely do you see the artistry of a Michael Jordan or an Allen Iverson going one on one and beating his opponent with either a drive to the basket or a late dump off pass to an open teammate.

Okay, enough philosophizing, back to the book.

I view the Coerver books and videos now as only an inspirational starting point for ideas, not as a cookbook recipe for success. There are simply too many moves, lumped together in too much of a jumbled fashion, to give a soccer coach a clear outline of how to proceed. Some important concepts are simply not detailed in the core Coerver books and videos. Without meaning to sound like I know better than the Coerver Coaching staff, here are some of the things that I've discovered on my own:

1. A number of the moves described in the Coerver books and videos just won't work very well in reality, especially the ones that don't move the ball and take a long time to unfold (e.g., the double scissors move). At advanced levels, defenders are trained to keep their eyes on the ball, to ignore the body feints, and to go for the ball if need be with a slide tackle that will take out the offensive player if he happens to touch the ball past the defender. Rarely do you see the more complex moves used at the very highest levels of professional soccer

2. Each soccer move works best only for certain situations, which can be categorized by the direction that the defender is coming at the offensive player, relative to the position of the offensive player and the location of the ball. This is an organizational concept that is missing from Coerver's teachings. As it turns out, the bulk of the moves in the Coerver books and videos are designed for getting an opening past a defender in direct head-on confrontations. Turn moves (for a defender coming from behind) and stop and go moves (for a defender running side by side) are also very useful, but are not covered in any detail by the Coerver books and videos.

3. Players blessed with exceptional speed and quickness don't need to learn fancy moves. They can make one or two very simple moves (e.g., the left footed inside and outside cut moves of Maradona) work for them ALL THE TIME because of the speed, balance, and timing of their execution. Such players only get slowed down if you try to teach them too many of the complex moves. This would be like teaching Nolan Ryan in his prime how to throw the knuckleball and screwball, instead of just letting him use his fastball.

4. Learning the moves should be coupled with shooting/passing drills for timing and accuracy. At advanced levels, doing a move will often not spring the offensive player completely free but will only give him/her a half step opening in which to let loose either a pass or a shot on goal. The defensive marking at advanced levels is so tight that doing a move is often necessary just to get off a pass (hence the need for learning moves!). Moves are also an important part of developing shooting touch. Frequently, the setup to a shot on goal requires that the player do a move to get an opening against a defender.

5. The Coerver teachings deal with only one aspect of ball control - that of using dribbling skills to beat an opponent one on one. There are a lot of other important ball control skills that need to be practiced extensively as well, such as trapping balls from every height and direction, heading the ball, and developing shooting/passin