Intelligence, Awareness and Reflexes: Indian Football, Pass the ball please !

A set-of inherent attributes in a football player defines a players maximum playing potential. No matter how much training a player undergoes or how great his motivation is, his maximum potential is limited by his innate biological abilities/attributes.

In general I can classify the attributes as below:

1. Physical robustness i.e. size, strength & speed
2. Inherent Ball/Body control ability
3. Intelligence (Specific type of intelligence required for that specific sport e.g. football)
4. Awareness (Player & field awareness or vision skills)
5. Reflexes (Reaction time)

One , two and three above are self-explanatory. The others should be explained a little more. Game Intelligence (G) means many things in the context of football, it means tactical intelligence, it means the ability of some players to be consistently at the right place at the right time, to make the most optimal pass or to out think and outwit the opposing players. Game intelligence is also the ability to read the opponent’s offensive and defensive strategies and make effective adjustments in ones own play during the run of play. One often sees that some players don’t do well in competitions playing against new teams while others seem to be more effective as they are able to make quick effective adjustments to there playing style after on-field analysis of the opposing players attributes. All these characteristics that some players demonstrate can be defined as the game intelligence attribute.

Awareness (A) is the ability to be acutely aware of the player positions and dynamics of the game at any instant. Some players display heightened awareness to the extent that they seem to have the ability to know the opponents next move almost at the very instant that opponents has mentally committed to that move. Others are able to make precise passes even when engulfed in a flurry of action around them. Awareness means the ability to make a instantaneous and statically better choice between passing, dribbling and striking instantly when a player receives the ball.

Having listed the fundamental attributes that defines a players ultimate potential, one must contemplate on what attributes in general can be considered to be in India’s favor in the long term.

India’s population is the 2^nd largest in the world and may one day be the largest in the world. The larger population size means that in general we can potentially put 11 players on the field that have faster reflexes (R), greater awareness (A) and greater game intelligence (G) than most other nations on the word. In my view statistically we should even be able to find players with better ball control ability than most nations, but let us say conservatively speaking we will be as good as the best in this regard. We are a south Asian nation and realistically in terms of raw physical size, strength and speed we will always somewhat lack nations from regions such as Europe and Africa in spite of our large population.

In other words, longer term our biggest strength arising out of our large population base is going to be the “RAG (Reflexes, Awareness and Game Intelligence ) attributes. Our biggest drawback is going to be physical size strength and speed. Conservatively, we should be about the same as top football playing nations with regard to the Ball/Body control attribute.

When we play a style of football which makes raw physical size, strength and speed the dominant determining factor in winning or loosing a game, we actually end up stacking the deck against us when facing nations with players physically larger and stronger players from other nations. So what if any is India’s strength ? India’s strength in football is its large population, or atleast when large number of Indians start playing the game, its large population will truly become a strength in that we can produce more players that have faster reflexes, greater intelligence and greater awareness than what a smaller nation can produce. Our national team and whole footballing infrastructure must evolve towards a style of game that makes Reflexes, Intelligence, Awareness the determining factor in who dominates a game. We need to promote and develop players with these type of attributes. Just to be clear, I am not saying that physical strength and speed training needs to be deemphasized. Football will always be a physical sport and every serious football players physical strength does needs to be optimized to the max . However the key point is that we need to think in terms of developing styles and strategies of game that play to our inherent strengths and not weakness.

Our style of game should result in a larger fraction of the playing time being spent with the ball being passed quickly and accurately, with players intelligently positioning themselves to receive and pass the ball and finishing strikes to the goal made with deadly accuracy. The style of play should require a smaller fraction of time in which our players are trying to out-muscle and out run the opponent. A physically weaker player will on the average loose in such situations but a team with players with high RAG attributes can make the ball do most of the work nullifying the advantage of raw physical size and speed. If eleven players in the field are reacting faster, playing with more intelligence, and showing more field awareness there is a multiplying effect on the effectiveness of the whole team as the performance starts resembling a synchronized orchestra where the whole becomes greater than the parts.

Is there any anecdotal evidence that India can produce world-class sportsmen and women leveraging there RAG attributes ? I think, yes there is overwhelming evidence of this. Look at Indian goalkeeping for instance. Goalkeeping is a task which is heavily dependent upon extraordinary reflexes and also awareness and intelligence. We have produced great goalkeepers like Paul and Arrindham that are probably as talented as goalkeepers of many European footballing nations. A sport like, amateur boxing demands heightened levels of reflexes, awareness and game intelligence. Indians in recent years have started winning at the world level in this sport. The hockey wizard Dhyan Chand was not among the tallest, strongest or fastest, but he was known to have extraordinary levels of game intelligence, reflexes, awareness and ball control. Success in doubles Tennis also requires very fast reflexes and positional awareness rather than physical strength and endurance as in Singles Tennis, not surprisingly we have produced the best doubles tennis playing team in the world even though very few Indians actually play Tennis. We have produced multiple world champions in Badminton, again a game that requires extraordinary RAG attributes and body control. In Cricket have produced world class batsman (Tendulkar, Sehwag) whom many even consider to be all time greatest. What does great batting require ? It requires extraordinary reflexes, positional awareness and body control. How many world class sportsmen have we produced in areas that require both a combination of large physical sizes and strength? I cant seem to think of any. I cant think of any Indian bowler who is better than European or African origin ballers in terms of sheer pace.

In Asia more and more teams (Such as Japan and South Korea) have discovered the power of playing a style based on RAG attributes. A Thailand B team made our physically stronger A team look like amateurs two times this year. They did not have to outrun or out muscle our players. They just played a more intelligent, quick passing games and there players demonstrated a higher level of positional awareness then ours.

How many Dhyand Chands of Indian Football are waiting in the wings ? How many 9 year old youngsters are waiting in the wings with the innate reflexes to react quicker than the best in the world, to outthink, out anticipate and out-pass the best in the world ? We wont know, until the ship of Indian Football turns around and plays the game that requires such attributes.

As my sons Mexican coach emphasis when facing a physically stronger team: “ Guys, Pass and let the ball do the work !”