So I've been reading an essay penned by Arild Stavrum, who grew up and played with with Ole Gunnar Solskjær and had a reasonably successful career himself, playing for clubs in Norway, Sweden, Scotland and Turkey. He's retired and has been coaching for a few years. The essay is called ”How to score a goal”, and has a few points I thought would be of interest.
At the age of 25, having had a number of high-scoring seasons, Stavrum suffered a dry spell after signing for a new club, but his old coach brought him to Swedish side Helsingborg, where he rediscovered his goalscoring touch.
"The season after, I won the Swedish golden boot. The standard of football in the Swedish and Norwegian league is roughly similar. I hadn't become a significantly better player, and there weren't major differences in the way we trained. Still, at [former club] Stabæk I scored 7 league goals, at Helsingborg I scored 18, and the biggest difference was that I had changed my way of thinking. Or in other words, I had started thinking.
Of my 18 league goals in 1998, the vast majority were scored from close range. I intercepted back-passes, I was first to rebounds and developed a knack for losing my marker at the back post. I had an awakening and realised that "simple goals" count as much as "nice goals". A shot in the top corner from 30 yards is not worth more than sliding in a rebound. And if you pay attention, you'll be first to the ball that drops a yard off the line, ready to be rolled in. I started asking myself questions: Why do some forwards score simple goals? Why do the same players pop up all the time to poke the ball across the line? These questions made me a more concious player. I calculated where loose balls were most likely to end up. Where I could pick up those "easy" goals."
He then tells of his first season in Sweden where his team only has to beat an already relegated side in the final game of the season to win the league, but everything goes wrong and they lose 2-0. The next season, incredibly, the scenario is the same, except that they face a much better side in the deciding game. Long story short: he scores the title-deciding winner, a "simple" goal.
"Jansson chests the ball down, 20 yards from goal, and shapes up to shoot. I see that he's standing slightly to the left. I see that he’s going to shoot, and I start my run. It’s a good shot, it’s hard and the keeper can’t hold on to it. He pushes the ball to the right, where I’m standing, four yards out, with no opponent in sight. I know all I have to do is hit the target. The keeper is outplayed, the ball bounces, and I focus. I concentrate intensely on my one kick of the ball. I’m going to shoot it down on the ground, into the empty net. It’s so simple, so incredibly simple, but there’s nobody else around to do the simple thing. I shoot, I score and we win one nil.
This was the most important goal I scored in my career. I later experienced a cup final at Hampden Park in front of 60 000 people, and intense Istanbul derbies. But the moment I best remember, is that goal.”
Anyway,
when he retires and starts coaching, he goes at it systematically. He starts analysing goals and finds that concentration is a surprisingly important factor. ”42 percent of chances and 48 percent of goals came as a consequence of someone not paying attention”. Looking back at his playing days he admits that one of his weaknesses was when the other team had a corner kick (as a striker he’d be waiting at the half way line to pick up the clearance, ”The strangest things started to go through my mind. It could be movies, music or books. I started looking for familiar faces in the crowd. I started thinking about crosswords. And when the corner eventually was taken and the ball was cleared towards me, I was always too late. Every single time. The centre-back came sliding in from behind and cleared the ball away. I was a goalscorer and was used to being alert in finishing situations, but I was useless at picking up clearances from our own defenders.”
He then goes on to say
”For me, it was for several years nigh on impossible to score in a match if I had started by hitting the post. My old coach was partly to blame. He discovered this and started joking that he might as well substitute me if I hit the post first, as he then knew I wouldn’t score, and to me that was a self-fulfilling statement. On the other hand, I could revel in my own success if I scored too early. The connection between negative internal and external experiences (stress) and concentration is well documented. But positive experiences having a negative effect is contrary to many people’s understanding. A lot is said about ”being in the zone” and that’s well and good, but sometimes there’s a fine line between that and, at worst, something resembling narcissism. If I scored in the first half, I was more or less satisfied. I knew I’d be starting the next match, and that I’d be in the papers, and that I’d done my bit for the team. I’m sure my coaches would have taken me off immediately after an early goal if they knew what went through my mind.”
Now this I find interesting. I’ve noticed that Gabriel Agbonlahor, for one, *never* scores more than once in a game (correct me if I’m wrong). Could it be something similar at play?
Stavrum goes on to say that John Carew never scores ”concentration” goals. ”Even though he has played for clubs like Valencia, Roma and Lyon, Carew hardly ever gets the simple goals. He has speed, jumping ability and raw strength. But what separates him from taking the step from Norway’s best to one of the world’s best, is the number of goals. And he’d score loads more if he’d learn to exploit rebounds.”
So who then is the master of scoring ”concentration” goals? Stavrum says it’s Inzaghi and it’s hard to argue, although I’d say Ruud van Nistelrooy runs him pretty close.
”The best teams in the world are based on well-organised defensive work. They work hard as a team to break up their opponents’ play, and leave much of the creative, the goals, to one or two forwards. At Milan, who won this year’s Champions’ League, the goals are scored by Kaka and Inzaghi, while the rest of the side is extremely well-organised and structured around defenders with up to 20 seasons behind them. Kaka is the creative forward, while Inzaghi probably is the world’s best at scoring concentration goals. When I watch Milan play and the commentator says ”We haven’t seen him until now, but there Inzaghi pops up yet again and scores!” I get pissed off. Because the commentator hasn’t seen all the runs Inzaghi has made. All the times he was first to a rebound that never materialised. All the times he was free inside the area but the cross never came. Inzaghi is the most alert striker in the world. It’s no coincidence that he scores ”simple” goals again and again.
(And if *that* doesn’t lure ganja out of his cave, I don’t know what will.)
At the age of 25, having had a number of high-scoring seasons, Stavrum suffered a dry spell after signing for a new club, but his old coach brought him to Swedish side Helsingborg, where he rediscovered his goalscoring touch.
"The season after, I won the Swedish golden boot. The standard of football in the Swedish and Norwegian league is roughly similar. I hadn't become a significantly better player, and there weren't major differences in the way we trained. Still, at [former club] Stabæk I scored 7 league goals, at Helsingborg I scored 18, and the biggest difference was that I had changed my way of thinking. Or in other words, I had started thinking.
Of my 18 league goals in 1998, the vast majority were scored from close range. I intercepted back-passes, I was first to rebounds and developed a knack for losing my marker at the back post. I had an awakening and realised that "simple goals" count as much as "nice goals". A shot in the top corner from 30 yards is not worth more than sliding in a rebound. And if you pay attention, you'll be first to the ball that drops a yard off the line, ready to be rolled in. I started asking myself questions: Why do some forwards score simple goals? Why do the same players pop up all the time to poke the ball across the line? These questions made me a more concious player. I calculated where loose balls were most likely to end up. Where I could pick up those "easy" goals."
He then tells of his first season in Sweden where his team only has to beat an already relegated side in the final game of the season to win the league, but everything goes wrong and they lose 2-0. The next season, incredibly, the scenario is the same, except that they face a much better side in the deciding game. Long story short: he scores the title-deciding winner, a "simple" goal.
"Jansson chests the ball down, 20 yards from goal, and shapes up to shoot. I see that he's standing slightly to the left. I see that he’s going to shoot, and I start my run. It’s a good shot, it’s hard and the keeper can’t hold on to it. He pushes the ball to the right, where I’m standing, four yards out, with no opponent in sight. I know all I have to do is hit the target. The keeper is outplayed, the ball bounces, and I focus. I concentrate intensely on my one kick of the ball. I’m going to shoot it down on the ground, into the empty net. It’s so simple, so incredibly simple, but there’s nobody else around to do the simple thing. I shoot, I score and we win one nil.
This was the most important goal I scored in my career. I later experienced a cup final at Hampden Park in front of 60 000 people, and intense Istanbul derbies. But the moment I best remember, is that goal.”
Anyway,
when he retires and starts coaching, he goes at it systematically. He starts analysing goals and finds that concentration is a surprisingly important factor. ”42 percent of chances and 48 percent of goals came as a consequence of someone not paying attention”. Looking back at his playing days he admits that one of his weaknesses was when the other team had a corner kick (as a striker he’d be waiting at the half way line to pick up the clearance, ”The strangest things started to go through my mind. It could be movies, music or books. I started looking for familiar faces in the crowd. I started thinking about crosswords. And when the corner eventually was taken and the ball was cleared towards me, I was always too late. Every single time. The centre-back came sliding in from behind and cleared the ball away. I was a goalscorer and was used to being alert in finishing situations, but I was useless at picking up clearances from our own defenders.”
He then goes on to say
”For me, it was for several years nigh on impossible to score in a match if I had started by hitting the post. My old coach was partly to blame. He discovered this and started joking that he might as well substitute me if I hit the post first, as he then knew I wouldn’t score, and to me that was a self-fulfilling statement. On the other hand, I could revel in my own success if I scored too early. The connection between negative internal and external experiences (stress) and concentration is well documented. But positive experiences having a negative effect is contrary to many people’s understanding. A lot is said about ”being in the zone” and that’s well and good, but sometimes there’s a fine line between that and, at worst, something resembling narcissism. If I scored in the first half, I was more or less satisfied. I knew I’d be starting the next match, and that I’d be in the papers, and that I’d done my bit for the team. I’m sure my coaches would have taken me off immediately after an early goal if they knew what went through my mind.”
Now this I find interesting. I’ve noticed that Gabriel Agbonlahor, for one, *never* scores more than once in a game (correct me if I’m wrong). Could it be something similar at play?
Stavrum goes on to say that John Carew never scores ”concentration” goals. ”Even though he has played for clubs like Valencia, Roma and Lyon, Carew hardly ever gets the simple goals. He has speed, jumping ability and raw strength. But what separates him from taking the step from Norway’s best to one of the world’s best, is the number of goals. And he’d score loads more if he’d learn to exploit rebounds.”
So who then is the master of scoring ”concentration” goals? Stavrum says it’s Inzaghi and it’s hard to argue, although I’d say Ruud van Nistelrooy runs him pretty close.
”The best teams in the world are based on well-organised defensive work. They work hard as a team to break up their opponents’ play, and leave much of the creative, the goals, to one or two forwards. At Milan, who won this year’s Champions’ League, the goals are scored by Kaka and Inzaghi, while the rest of the side is extremely well-organised and structured around defenders with up to 20 seasons behind them. Kaka is the creative forward, while Inzaghi probably is the world’s best at scoring concentration goals. When I watch Milan play and the commentator says ”We haven’t seen him until now, but there Inzaghi pops up yet again and scores!” I get pissed off. Because the commentator hasn’t seen all the runs Inzaghi has made. All the times he was first to a rebound that never materialised. All the times he was free inside the area but the cross never came. Inzaghi is the most alert striker in the world. It’s no coincidence that he scores ”simple” goals again and again.
(And if *that* doesn’t lure ganja out of his cave, I don’t know what will.)
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