Why are Brazil so good

j0434001brazil_ball_small.jpg According to ex-Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, no one is quite sure why so many wonderful players and great teams come from his beautiful country: "Sociologists and psychologists have tried to explain, but nobody can find one reason," he says. "The national football team is the symbol of national identity, the only time the nation gets together."Journalist Lito Cavalcanti suggests that the answer lies in the grinding poverty that afflicts so many young people in Brazil:"Many of Brazil’s greatest footballers grew up in favelas – the shanty towns in its sprawling cities. Here, life is hard and… there is no effective schooling. Drug dealers control their lives. Sport is the only way out and in Brazil, football is the only sport people care about.  
j0434001brazil_ball_small.jpg  "What makes them so good? Necessity. It’s the only life they have ahead of them. That is their drive."It may also be significant that there are no leagues or competitive matches for young children in Brazil."The children play a lot but it’s always very free," says Brazil 1994 World Cup winner Leonardo. "We don’t tell eight year olds you have to play right back."Parreira agrees: "We don’t put [young players] in a cage, say ‘you have to be like this’. We give them some freedom until they are ready to be coached."1It’s impossible to recreate the cultural importance given to football in the favelas and it’s difficult (although not impossible) for our children to play football without having their development slowed by playing in leagues run for the benefit of adults. But we can give our players more freedom. We don’t, for example, have to put players into positions at such an early age and risk taking can be positively encouraged. Players with good ball skills should be applauded for taking on the opposition, not instructed to pass the ball on pain of being labelled "selfish".  If we are to produce a home-grown Ronaldo, more emphasis also needs to be given to learning how to control the ball with all the surfaces of both feet, not just the inside of one foot. A lot of coaches forget that there are six surfaces children can use to control a ball – instep, heel, inside, outside, sole and toes – and that we have two feet. So let’s encourage our players to use them!There is another difference between our young players and most young Brazilian players. Young Brazilians don’t play six, seven or eight-a-side on park pitches because there aren’t many open spaces in the cities. So they commonly play a version of soccer – futebol – in a small hall – a salao – with a small, low-bounce ball: futebol de salao. "I played Futebol de Salão for many years and it helped me to become the player I am today. There you don’t have time to think, you are always tightly marked and you develop a sense for performing in small spaces." RobinhoTraining with a small, low bounce ball will discourage your players from kicking the ball aimlessly. It will also improve their ball control skills as it "sticks" to their feet instead of bouncing away.

Ball control exercises such as First Touch and Dribble Races can be enhanced by asking players to use all the surfaces of their feet when they’re moving a small, low bounce ball.

 Dribble RacesSet up: divide your players into teams of four or five. Mark the starting place for each team with a flat cone and place another flat cone – the turning cone – about 20 yards away. One futebol de salao ball per team. If you find it hard to get hold of a futebol de salao ball, you can use a size two football or a futsal but both have drawbacks. Futsals are too big and small footballs are too bouncy. How to play: the first player in each team dribbles the ball to the turning cone, turns, and passes back to the next player in line who repeats the run and pass. The winning team is the first team to complete the exercise. Progression: the first run will probably see players standing next to the turning cone as they pass and waiting by the starting cone for the ball to arrive. Some passes will be inaccurate and some will be struck too hard or too softly. Ask your players if they can think of a quicker way to complete the game. They should say (maybe with a bit of prompting) that passes must be of good quality and the player waiting to receive a pass should move towards the ball, not wait for it to arrive. Repeat the game and you should see a big improvement. Now make it a condition that player 1 should use their sole of their right foot to dribble, player 2 the inside of their left foot, player 3 the outside of their right foot etc. until they’ve used all six surfaces of both feet. Coaching note: you don’t have to cover all the possible combinations of foot/surface in one session! Work on two or three different combinations every week and your players will soon begin to play with a little Brazilian flair!References Andrew Benson and John Sinnott, Why are Brazil so good?, BBC SPORT,  [16 Jan 2011]FIFA/Coca Cola World Rankings