Coordination in Soccer

How important is coordination in soccer?

First of all we need to understand the meaning of coordination.

According to Lora Risco (1991) it is "The ability to harmoniously, efficiently and effectively use the muscles involved in an action, in perfect combination with space and time."

The definition of coordination by Jose Maria Canizares (2000) is:

'General Dynamics Coordination – requires a player to effectively regulate all their movements, including the adjustment and interaction of different body parts where necessary. It is linked to parts representing a transfer of the body from one place to another in space. For example, zigzag moves, jumps, etc.

Specific Dynamics Coordination – requires a player to efficiently and simultaneously handle a body segment and an object, in our case the football. Movements that require the specific use of the upper and lower limbs and even the head, require interaction and visual control. For example, static aerial ability. Therefore it is essential for technical learning. Today, variants of eye- foot, eye-head coordination are necessary'.

These two concepts can be worked on in conjunction with Proprioception. Proprioception comes from the Latin proprius, meaning "one's own", "individual" and “perception.” It is the awareness of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and the amount of effort being employed in movement. It is provided by proprioceptors in skeletal striated muscles and in joints.

How do these scientific concepts work? Simple. In a methodological way, coordination training is improving gross and fine motor skills in children, youth, and even in professional players. If we talk about gross motor skills we would see that there is a right order in which to learn them. For example, when children are learning to walk, they need to spend time rolling and then dragging themselves, crawling, standing up and then balancing from one foot to another. Finally, they will be able to walk; a process which takes around the first year of their lives to learn.

A similar process happens with technical skills in soccer. Let’s talk about basic skills such as striking the ball. The question is, how do we start to teach these skills to 6-year-old children, on their first occasion playing soccer? I guess a lot of us still plan a few different drills to give them experiences with the ball, such as shooting with a dead ball, ball in movement from different angles, bouncing ball etc. If we look at the example of how we learn to walk and the process to achieve it, we should do something similar in soccer.

Before starting to strike the ball we should test the basic motor skills in children such as running, jumping, kicking etc. If these are reasonable we should continue to work with them on timing (time and space) and eye-foot coordination.

Striking the ball should transition from a gross motor skill, ie kicking a ball, to a fine motor skill, ie striking the ball like David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo. It should become a technical skill and not just the simple task of kicking a ball that I would say 99% of the population could already do. The question is how good a player is at kicking the ball, their technique, power, direction, location etc. This methodology could be used with any soccer skill that you want to teach such as a header, passing, dribbling, controlling the ball etc.

If a player has good coordination, it would take less time to learn or improve a technical skill rather than starting straight away with a specific action such as kicking a ball. Solid coordination enables the fastest way of improving soccer skills in a short time.

We have talked briefly about the order associated with skill acquisition, and the importance of ensuring basic skills such as eye-foot coordination are present before more complex skills such as striking the ball are taught. The importance of coordination and the order in which skills are taught can help to improve a player’s technique substantially.

I would like to explore another concept, which I consider worthwhile when you are working with individuals and teams. It is very important and is referred to as Exteroception. This concept incorporates “all external senses including the traditional five: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. It can also include an additional sense - weak magnetocepcion (direction) - which relates to the perception of the outside world”.

Coordination is very important not only for technique but also for tactics (individual and collective) and fitness (physical). For example, it is critical for a player to be able to read the game and the different events that take place on the field.

I would like to talk about Andres Iniesta. I consider him to have perfect coordination on the field, demonstrated in harmonic motion, in situations such as losing the defender, shielding the ball, diagonals, timing etc. With Iniesta we can observe that he can maintain his technique for 90 minutes or more during games. This is important as he is using the right movements to reduce effort and obtain desired outcomes.

Something similar happens with team tasks. For example, if we want a team to be very compact, coordination is really important, as we want to be able to defend in a block. So we need to have the right space between lines and players supporting each other with correct group movements, aligned pressing and cover plays, to reduce the effort as a team and be able to maintain the same level of performance for 90 minutes or more.

Finally, I think in elite professional soccer and elite academies, coaches are working on these concepts using different techniques and methods, because they have the opportunity to engage with a multidisciplinary team of professionals from sport sciences, doctors, physical trainers, physical therapists, physiologists and soccer coaches.

In real life, a lot of us don’t have the fortune of discussing a training program with professionals from different areas and we have to try to be the coach, the fitness coach, the psychologist etc.

But we have the desire to learn new things and increase our possibilities to improve our coaching careers.