3 key components to make it as a pro.
Making it as a professional footballer is the dream, to achieve that dream requires a concoction of key components, some of which will alter naturally as the body and brain matures and as players gain experience within different environments, some of which are different for various playing roles within a team. But, there’s some absolute essential physical and technical ingredients required to give any player the best chance of making it to the top of the game. Here’s our top 3 key physical and technical requirements to be a professional footballer:
Speed - Before considering anticipation and reaction time, if you don’t have physical speed across short and longer distances you need to work on them quickly. Speed is enhanced at all ages through flexibility (also reducing injury risk), core work and at youth/senior level through weight training and working on fine tuning those fast twitch fibres.
Intricate passing and receiving skills (awareness) - this includes the preparation prior to receiving, scanning/checking , correct body shape. If you aren’t up to scratch with these techniques your chances of the success with the ball whether it be keeping it for your team, quick play or goalscoring, will leave you with very little chance of hitting the big time. It is a fact that in a 90 minute game players have the ball at their feet for an average of 3 minutes, what they do with limited touches is what defines their success.
Power - with and without the ball, physically and technically which means to gain power you’ll need plenty of technique work, striking the ball repeatedly getting your body in the correct position in relation to the ball to make contact consistently in the right place. Then add the physical work away from the ball to develop those key muscle groups - core, quads, groins, hamstrings, calves to dominate opponents. .
We’re not saying these are all you need, there’s plenty to add into the mix: desire, aggression, intelligence/game awareness, leadership, stamina, but what we’re saying is if one of the above are missing it’s time to get to work.