If you take golf, you have a teacher for the drive, a teacher for the approach play, and a teacher for the putt. That's three specialist coaches for one player. In football, one coach looks after 25 players.
Interpretation
Specialization in coaching can enhance performance in individual sports compared to team sports.
Johan Cruyff's quote highlights the contrast between coaching practices in individual sports, like golf, where specialized coaches can focus on different aspects of a player's performance, versus team sports, such as football, where a single coach is responsible for a larger group of players. This reflects the differences in training methodologies and the potential for tailored instruction to improve skill levels in individual sports.
In practice
A sports conference discussing the benefits of specialized coaching in athletics.
Ajax is a multicultural club, and we have found that many talented immigrant players quit when they reach puberty. So we wanted to tackle this problem with someone from the same background who had come through it. And that was Edgar Davids. During one of our fights, I pointed that out to him. But it had nothing to do with his skin colour.
It's disappointing to see how football, the world's No. 1 sport, is not No. 1 when it comes to development. It seems to me that a wealth of practical football knowledge is being squandered.
Football is not about suffering. It's about enjoyment. Control the ball, be friendly with it, try to attack, try to score goals. Of course defending is part of it, but you can defend in a lot of ways.
If you look at other countries, you see they have different values: defend more, pass the ball out more, winning is holy. In England, you could say that sport itself is holy. They say, 'Look, guys, it's about more than just winning.'
The most important part are the fans, that people going home are happy. It's their time off, and you should give them something to enjoy.
Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.
Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
However much you study, you cannot know without action. A donkey laden with books is neither an intellectual nor a wise man. Empty of essence, what learning has he whether upon him is firewood or book?
Every film teaches you something; every experience on every film set with every co-star teaches you something. You learn something new. I think the challenge is to keep working harder and doing better.
One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.
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