adminTalking Football with Cosmas Zulu
FROM the 1960s when I got into football as a player and in 80s when I got in as a coach for the past 30 years I haven’t come across an administrator at club level or at national level who includes the players and coaches in their campaigning life after football careers yet these two people are the main actors in this industry.
Please administrators we want to be told something new about the old. You cannot for example interest a farmer with a description of the cathedral in Scotland. These are too new to him, but you can interest him by relating how Dutch farmers keep their cows during winter under the same roof that houses the family.
Leadership is an opportunity to serve not to blow a trumpet for self importance.
Back to the pitch
Turning on the ball
Once regarded as an exceptional skill-almost a trick-turning on the balls has taken a special significance in modern football. It is now part of the basic equipment of the target man with defenders marking and covering tightly. It is often impossible to push the ball through for the strikers to run on to the ball. It has to be arrowed directly to the front man with his back to the opposition. There are a number of things the target man can do with the ball coming straight to him whatever the height of the ball.
He can lay it back to a teammate, he can control it and hold it until help arrives or he can turn with it and attempt to open up defence. In this situation always turn if you can because it spells danger for the opposition.
Turning on the ball and taking it past a defender in one movement can be one of the most spectacular moves in the game and one of the most dangerous.
If you disguise your intentions by dummying it, is very difficult for a defender to recover especially if he is coming forward to make a challenge and even other defenders covering at distance can be wrong footed.
Ways of turning
You can turn on the ball with either inside or the inside or the outside of your foot or if the ball is coming high enough with your chest it is important to move towards the ball if possible, otherwise if you wait for a pass to arrive, an alert defender can nip in from behind and gain possession but always be ready to move either way forward or back when you are expecting a ball to be rifled through to you because you might have to go back slighty for a header.
A good forward will make space for himself by threatening to get behind a defender before a pass is made, as the defender checks to cover the threat or even momentarily drops back, the forward will have an extra split second meet.
The ball played in to him and to get on the defenders line when you meet the ball, you must be prepared to take it either way – left or right.
You might prefer to go one way rather than the other, but if you always turn on the same side, defenders will soon cotton on and be able to dispossess you more easily.
The secret of turning is to disguise your intentions perhaps dummying one way and doing the other or using your body to send your marker in the wrong direction.
I can bet you some strikers in the country can not identify the opposite goalkeeper if he can stand in the crowd without his uniform on.
Until next week.
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