The Mount Rushmore of coaching legends finally has its fourth member – Sir Alex Ferguson. Alongside, say, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden and Scotty Bowman, Ferguson will be remembered as one of the most successful managers of all-time and certainly at the top of the football/soccer ranks. With his slightly surprising retirement earlier this year, he left behind a Manchester United club that is now valued at $2.3 billion thanks in large part to the 13 English league titles and 25 additional titles won in his 26 years at Old Trafford.
An athlete’s level of greatness is often measured by the opinions of his
or her peers while they’re playing and especially when they retire.
Being recognized as one of the best by those who understand what it
takes is rare. This week, one of the world’s greatest soccer players of
the last 30 years retired, yet he could walk down most streets in
America without being recognized.
After 17 seasons, Paul Scholes of
Manchester United played in his final tribute game last week and will
become a coach at the club he’s been part of since his teens.
While
not a household name in the U.S. like Messi or Ronaldo or Beckham, he
has earned the respect of the greatest players of his time.
“My
toughest opponent? Scholes of Manchester,” said Zinedine Zidane, French
World Cup Winner and 3-time world player of the year. “He is the
complete midfielder. He’s almost untouchable in what he does.You rarely
come across the complete player, but Scholes is as close to it as you
can get.”
“In the last 15 to 20 years the best central midfielder
that I have seen — the most complete — is Scholes,” said Xavi
Hernandez, Barcelona midfield maestro, arguably the best midfielder in
the world at the moment. “Scholes is a spectacular player who has
everything. He can play the final pass, he can score, he is strong, he
never gets knocked off the ball and he doesn’t give possession away.”
“He’s
always one of those people others talk about,” said David Beckham,
world soccer icon and a former teammate. “Even when playing at Real
Madrid, the players always said to me ‘what’s he like’? They respect him
as a footballer and see him as the ultimate.”
So, what makes him
different? What is the secret ingredient that makes a few soccer
players better than the thousands that come and go? Obviously, many
clubs would pay huge sums of money to find out. Recently, two teams of
researchers from the University of Queensland tried to narrow down the
options.
In 2009, the university’s semi-professional soccer team
was tested for their general athletic abilities across sixteen different
tasks to get a measure of their inherent talents (speed, agility,
strength, etc.) Then they were paired off in games of “soccer tennis”
which is what it sounds like - two players on a tennis court with a
soccer ball kicking and heading it back and forth across the net.
Dr.
Robbie Wilson and his team wanted to see if differences in basic
athletic abilities were correlated with being a more skilled soccer
player. "There was no evidence of any correlations between maximal
athletic performance and skill", concludes Dr. Wilson. "Our studies
suggest that skill is just as important, if not more important, than
athletic ability in determining performance of complex traits, such as
performance on the football field".
Alright, so skill is at least
as important as raw physical gifts. Is skill enough? There are plenty
of skilled players who don’t become Paul Scholes. This year, Dr.
Gwendolyn David, also at the University of Queensland, picked up the
trail from her mentor, Dr. Wilson. Her team first tested 27 semi-pro
players in individual soccer skills like dribbling speed, volley
accuracy, and passing accuracy.
Next they observed these
players in actual game situations watching for the “complex tasks” that
combine the individual skills into a complete performance. These
included ball-interception, challenging another player for the ball,
passing, shooting and blocking the ball.
Judging from the
results, it was clear to Dr. David that superior skills do not translate
to better game play. "Athletic skill abilities measured in the lab
were not associated with any measure of performance on the pitch. In
other words, it's not your ability, it's what you do with it that
counts,” writes Dr. David. She recommends that youth coaches spend more
time in actual game conditions rather than just focusing on individual
skill development.
Despite these results, we’re still left
searching for the secret of Scholes. It seems to be more than physical
abilities and soccer skills. Others have commented on his uncanny sense
of his surroundings. His one and only manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, may
sum it up best, "He has an awareness of what’s happening around him on
the edge of the box which is better than most players. As a kid he
always had a knack of arriving in the right area just at the right time,
but he’s proving just as effective from outside the box because he’s
using his experience in the right way. One of the greatest football
brains Manchester United has ever had."
