Mentality: Defend,Attack and Counter.

Defending,attacking and counter attack. This is the basic of football. A good player is a player which are good in all 3 areas. A player might be specialize in certain area for example defending or attacking but it is often those who win are those who are good in all areas.



Now from my own experience, there are more attacking players rather than defensive players. Well it is more exciting to play attacking football with all those amazing passes and dribbles but attacking players often make a mistake in defense. When ever they are defending, they always want to grab back the ball as fast as they can. They just rush out to get the ball from the opponent legs. In other words, their mind is still thinking to attack although its their time to defend.



This is what i want to share today. The mistake that most player did; wrong mentality. When its time to defend, went the ball is not with us, we must defend. Do not rush out to get the ball as fast as you want. First you make sure your defense line is in order. Only when the defense line is in place then you can think of getting the ball. What most people did is they just go out and get the ball because they are still in the attacking mentality. Because of this there are a lot of holes and make it easier for the opponent to score. So when its your turn to defend, you defend like The Great Wall Of China.



The same goes to attacking and counter attack. Most people when they get the ball they just straight away pump the ball to the striker regardless of the number of defender at the back. This is also a wrong mentality whereby counter attack means attack as swift and as fast as you can. The perfect timing to counter is when there are only 2-3 defender at the back. But most people just pass the ball to the striker although there are more than 4 at the back. Which in the end result in a failure to counter and thus giving away free possession to the opponent. If there is more than 4, build up your play slowly. If there is less, counter as swift as you can.



So it is important to understand and to have the right mentality. Although it seems simple, believe me there are many player who forgot to think of the right mentality. In the end it comes down to who has the strongest basic.



So play beautiful football ^^

Mentality: Its Your Brain That Matters

In mentality section, we will discuss the brain part of the game. This is the hardest part to train since it requires a lot of understanding through practice and experience. But dont worry. That is why The FIFA Blog is here for you ^^




Normally we have the perception that those who can perform amazing movement such as Ronaldo dribbling skills or Lampard amazing long shot will win the game. Like for example if you can do "360" movement or unblockable crosses its consider as an amazing thing. But unfortunately football doesnt just revolve on 1 thing. It involves everything.




I learn this during WCG Grand Final 05 in Singapore. In the quarter final im going against Troll from Austria. He is very strong and he beat Gel (Malaysia No.1) in the group stage eventually top the group. Everyone regard him as the favourite of the tournament because his ability to do his crosses almost 100%.




During the quarter finals, i already had a plan in my mind to play mind games with him. Since i know he depends a lot in his crosses, i just let him come in the danger zone and just wait to block his crosses. Everytime i saw his ready to do his cross, i start my defensive movement to stop him. The 1st game prove that my strategies work when i beat him. But he was also unfortunate because i manage to injured his Henry accidentally. France without Henry is useless.



But in the 2nd game, his crosses still needs to be feared when he manage to trash me 5-1. Luckily it was best of 3 games. So the 3rd game was the decider. He was leading with 2 goals in the 1st half then an unfortunate event happen to me when my Joe Cole got send off for dangerous sliding. Yup im playing with 10 men now. But i've already practice playing with 10 men before in Malaysia because during that time i am well known to be so aggressive that i always get red card in a match.



So i still maintain the same way to defend his crosses thus making him not able to slot any more goals pass my goal. And i revert into an counter attacking tactic everytime he fail to do his crosses. This in the end put him under pressure and he started to do lots of mistakes in the end when i slot my 1st goal in the 2nd half. Then in the last min i manage to get an equalizer goal!



We continue into the extra time with silver goal ruling. From his play he is starting to get frustrated on the draw and start to commit lots of people to attack. And he keeps on doing the same crosses trick which i gladly anticipate to block. He keep on repeating the same cross on and on and on eventhough he know he cant score. It looks like he just had a mind block and i took full advantage of this when i slot the winning goal in extra time. Again i was playing with 10 men.




So as you can see it is not what you can do that matters. Its what your brain can do that matters. So when you play always remember that life dont always go to the strongest or fastest man, but often the man who win is the man who THINKS he can!



So play beautiful football ^^