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Part 1 of 4
By Dr. Donald Kirkendall
Special Note: Small-sided practice games can be adapted to require players to recognize, anticipate, decide, react and act more quickly
Regular readers of this column will attest to my bias that the fitness component most important to success is soccer-specific endurance: a good aerobic capacity to speed recovery from fast running.
What I haven’t addressed is the "fast running" part of that statement — speed. It's a topic that University of North Carolina coach Elmar Bolowich suggested that I address.
In his travels, he sees many teams that make little attempt to develop speed, and he thinks players and coaches want ideas of how to improve speed.
In the mid-1950s the nature of the game changed forever when the great Hungarian national team destroyed, dismantled and wholly embarrassed England 6-3, in Wembley; a game that was not as close as the score indicated. Observers of that game commented on the remarkable speed and work rate of the Hungarians.
The Hungarians had four or five players who could run 100 meters in 11.5 seconds or less! I first started paying really serious attention to the World Cup in 1974 and read that all the field players from the former East Germany could run under 11 seconds for the 100 meters — from for or five players under 11.5 seconds to the entire team under 11. Nowadays, 11.5-second speed might not be fast enough for a good high school team.
The game I see today is played so much faster than the game I played. Is that a result of a better athlete, better coaching, or something else? I would like to think it is the first two, but I also see coaches using the free-substitution rule to encourage players to run as fast as they can — get tired and then be pulled for a rest.
So players have the mindset to sprint whenever they are on the field. If you have watched recent NCAA men’s finals, you have seen teams that try to play at a high pace all game vs. teams that play a more controlled pace and use speed selectively, like past winners Wisconsin, St. John’s and UNC.
Speed is an elusive creature. Is it innate or can it be developed? What goes into the concept of speed? The first player to the ball may not be faster than the opponent; some people just consistently get there first.
The great Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics was never to be confused with a sprinter, but he always seemed to be in the right place. Was it speed afoot or speed of thought, or both?
Ajax uses their TIPS plan to evaluate 16-year-olds: technique, intelligence, personality and speed; and they consider speed as the trait with the least potential for improvement.
The University of Pittsburgh’s coach, Joe Luxbacher, describes speed as having seven components:
1. Perceptual speed: using the senses to decipher various elements of game
2. Anticipation speed: predict what will happen before it happens.
3. Decision-making speed: making decisions in the shortest amount of time.
4. Reaction speed: ability to react to some action by teammate or opponent.
5. Speed without the ball: maximum movement speed.
6. Speed with the ball: movement with the ball at highest possible speed.
7. Game action speed: make effective tactical decisions to changing conditions.
If you look closely at this list, you will see that much of the different aspects of speed are related to speed of thought and decision-making. These are things that can only be developed by playing the game.
Yes, “the game is the best teacher," but you can help it a bit. It is fairly easy to modify small-sided games to require players to recognize, anticipate, decide, react and act more quickly. Just reduce the size of the field putting more players in a smaller space, so defenders are on the attacker quicker.
This will force both offense and defense to speed up the thought process. 6v6 in half a field can be speeded up dramatically by playing now in the penalty area. Obviously, skills need to be very good to be successful (the T of the Ajax TIPS program). In games like this, the opponent grabs a missed trap very easily.
If you don’t have good skills, you can’t play in a game like this. And much of defensive tactics today is geared toward reducing the size of the field and putting more players in a small space.
Physically, development of speed is largely based on improvement in running form. And from experience, I can say that the running form of soccer players will never be confused with that of a sprinter in track. Speed specialists like Vern Gambetta think running speed can be thought of as combinations of starting speed, acceleration, top-end speed, deceleration and matching speed with teammates (think of the running back that out runs his blockers in football).
In addition, remember that agility and speed are two different animals. The fastest players are not necessarily the most agile, and the most agile may not be the fastest. Elements of agility and lateral speed involve recognition, reaction, decisions, balance, footwork, change of direction, and avoiding obstacles.
Over the next three parts of this series, I will address the concept of speed and how it can be improved. Realize that what you will see are suggestions to improve specific aspects of speed by improving the mechanics of running.
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