The Science of Skill
What makes a player technically skillful?
Is it their ability to perform stepovers, drags, and body feints to beat a defender? A player's range of passing? The ability to control a ball out of the air without a single bounce? Or the finesse on a perfectly placed set piece?
We often try to reverse engineer and compartmentalize skill in soccer into four key areas:
Technical Ability - skill with the ball.
Tactical Ability - understanding of the game; “soccer IQ.”
Physical Ability - physical qualities, such as speed, strength, and agility.
Mental Ability - “mental toughness,” motivation, confidence, concentration, etc.
These areas are separate, yet fit nicely together additively like puzzle pieces to create a sum: player performance.
On the surface, this makes sense. We take away the other three components in order to focus solely on one area, leading to improved ability in that area during a game.
For example, thousands and thousands of dollars each year are spent on "private trainers" to help kids develop "technical skills," such as dribbling, receiving, passing, and shooting. Hours and hours of training later, the player is able to effortlessly dribble through and around cones, manipulating the ball with ease and precision.
This, then, gets labeled as 'skill.'
However, a deep dive into the science of skill in sports calls for a radically different approach to player development. We must break down those barriers between the different domains of ability (technical, tactical, physical, mental) and take a more holistic view of skill development.
The field of motor behavior and development studies why we, as humans, move the way we do, as well as how we learn to do so. When applied in a sports setting, this becomes the field of motor skill acquisition.
Research performed extensively in these fields highlights at least three key influences on why we move the way we do, including the skills we perform during a soccer game:
The Environment - what is occurring external to the player (e.g., the field, teammates, defenders, the ball, position on the field, etc.)?
The Task - what is the desired outcome (e.g., scoring a goal, passing to a teammate, beating a defender, etc.)?
The Individual - what capacities and abilities does the player possess that will help achieve the desired outcome (e.g., speed, strength, quick thinking, tight ball control, range of passing, etc.)?
Achieving the desired outcome, given these three constraints, is called a movement solution.
Whereas there may be certain types of techniques that may be more effective in producing outcomes during a game, such as striking a ball with the laces to produce power behind a shot, there is no such thing as an "ideal technique," as long as the outcome is being achieved.
Consistently coming up with movement solutions during a soccer game is the true essence of skill and creativity.
Arsène Wenger, legendary Arsenal coach and current Chief of Global Football Development for FIFA, once said:
"The problem in football is that you learn to play the wrong way round - first execution, then decision-making, and perception last."
Players must learn to perceive the game unfolding in front of them (environment), make decisions based on cues they've learned through experience (task), and then physically be able to execute those decisions (individual).
Players learn to hone this process by learning from the consequences of their decisions and actions, and adapting as necessary.
This process of perceiving, making decisions, and executing, is occurring every second of every game, whether or not the player is consciously aware of it.
It also inherently involves ball mastery, tactical, physical, and mental capacities and abilities all working in synergy, not as isolated systems being put back together like puzzle pieces.
As opposed to separate pillars being changed one at a time and then added together to create a sum of performance, they interact like different points on a web, where, as researcher Willis Overton (2013) writes, "entities and ideas are represented, not as pure forms, but as forms that flow across fuzzy boundaries."
Each area is a network working with, and within, other networks, to create a product: performance.
Therefore, the training of these networks is just as important, if not more so, than the training of these domains in isolation. Training this synergy is best achieved in autonomy-supportive, mastery-oriented, and game-like environments.
Research in psychology posits that, for an individual to be intrinsically (self) motivated to perform a task, he/she must have at least three psychological needs met:
Autonomy - the person must feel their choices are their own, and not that of somebody else (e.g., coaches, parents).
Competence - the person must feel they possess a certain level of ability regarding the task.
Connectedness - the person must feel a sense of belonging in the setting in which the task is taking place (e.g., the team, family, club, etc.).
Intrinsic motivation is crucial to physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy long-term athletic development. Extrinsically motivated goals, such as pleasing a coach or parent, especially out of fear of making mistakes, likely stunts skill development in soccer players.
Creating a training/game-day environment that fosters intrinsic motivation in the players is called an autonomy-supportive environment.
Players must have the correct experiences within autonomy-supportive environments in order to develop skills that lead to in-game performance development. In other words, the activities they are actually participating in must transfer to performance during real games.
The best way to ensure skills performed in training are transferrable to a soccer game, is to train in game-like environments. One of the best tools we have to create game-like environments in training, whilst still ensuring players are getting enough touches on the ball for optimal skill development, is the use of small-sided games (e.g., 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, etc.).
In fact, some of the top player-producing countries in the world, such as Spain, Portugal, and Germany, ensure that no less than about two-thirds of each training session at the youth level is made up of "active decision-making activities" such as small-sided games.
It's also no secret that many of the best players in the world, such as Johan Cruyff, Pele, Zidane, and Messi, attribute much of their success to their time playing on the streets of their home towns.
Not only is the use of small-sided games in training more effective for skill development, but it is more enjoyable for kids to participate in, increasing their intrinsic desire to be a part of the game.
Does this mean there is little value in structured, reductionist training for youth soccer players?
Not necessarily.
Rob Gray, researcher and author in the field of motor skill acquisition, calls individual points on the performance web action capacities.
These action capacities, such as speed, dribbling ability, and pass accuracy, provide players with their individual constraints (think back earlier to the three influences on our movement). A player with a higher number of more refined action capacities will see more opportunities for action in their environment.
Whereas action capacity can be developed and refined in isolated environments, it is important to recognize the difference between skill and action capacity:
If action capacities are individual points, or characteristics, on the performance web, skill is a network of interconnected points working in synergy to achieve an outcome, given the environment the task is being performed in.
Since this is the case, a rule of thumb could be that the expression of action capacities during games can only be as strong as their connections to the whole.
True skill can only be developed in game-like environments in which freedom of expression and exploration is allowed.
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