The Sunday News
Cosmas Zulu
With 18 teams in the league, say with four strikers in each team totalling 52 strikers, only one striker Obriel Chirinda got a hat-trick in the whole season.
I am not surprised by this because coaches in this country do not know which time of the year should their players go to the gyms and is it every player to utilise the gym. Why not spend the time with your attacking players doing shooting drills at the ground. It’s like your wife shopping for some groceries and 90 percent of the items are not food stuffs when you know that your main food is sadza and there is no mealie-meal in the groceries which is the main food in the house.
Dribbling
It is not just a coincidence that almost all the exciting players are good dribblers of the ball, it is also a fact that all the best teams contain several players who can beat opponents by dribbling. All dribbling, however, involves a risk.
A risk of being disposed the point should be made, however, that a high risk for one player may be a low risk for another. It should be appreciated that the dividends for dribbling in defending third of the field are low while the risk element is high. In the attacking third of the field the reverse is the case.
Players who can dribble and who do so in the attacking third of the field are invaluable to a team. The attitude of players to dribbling is an important factor particularly when crowds are involved. Crowds can undermine the confidence of a player by dismissing a failed dribble as selfish, yet they would be the first to greet him as a hero if it succeeds. Players should always remember that dribbling is a matter of percentages and that even the best dribblers are likely to fail more often than they succeed. Adopting the correct attitude to failure and criticism therefore is very much part of the match skill of dribbling.
There is a significant difference between running with the ball and dribbling, most players run with the ball.
To frequently but dribble less frequently than they could. Running with the ball involves covering ground without trying to dribble past opponents when running with the ball it is often disadvantage to maintain close control. The reason for this are that there is not usually an opponent in close proximity and fewer the touches required on the ball the easier it is for a player to get his head up and observe the general state of the game. All effective dribbling is based on combining four qualities.
– Close control
-Ability to feint and dummy
– Ability to change direction
– Ability to change pace
A true fan
The true fan paints his house with team colours names his bay after the entire first team squad, puts the team’s pictures up at work place and tears his workmates pictures down sends players cards on their birthdays. Puts the wife in pawn for games abroad and hijacks a plane to get there.
He bets his week’s wages plus wife’s housekeeping money plus house plus kids plus car on their cup chances says it was a fluke result when they lose and refused to pay up, that’s a true fan not to leave home to go to the stadiums with a mind to go and throw missiles and stoning opposite fans and cars outside the stadiums.
Amazing fact
The first goal scored in the World cup was credited to Luis Laurent for France against Mexico on the 14th of July 1930 in Montevide Uruguay
France Won 4-1
Let’s keep reading until next week
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