The death of the captain

[robbiez666]

I was watching England's abject performance against Germany in the U21s championship and the co-commentator made a really interesting point about the role of captains.

He said something along the lines of "you can see the players looking to the touchline for instruction because there's no one talking on the pitch. Even in a quiet stadium you can't hear any of the players talking to each other. It would never happen in my day but seems to be common in the modern game."

It got my thinking and I'm struggling to think of any team with an old-school vocal captain who rallies the troops.

You used to always know who captained a team. They used to be a big presence.

It's all about managers/coaches today. All the instruction comes from off the pitch. You rarely hear players talking during games. Encouraging each other. I grew up as a defender and one of the CBs or keeper would always organise the defence. When I played in goal in 5-asides I was constantly talking to the defence. You use to have someone in midfield who would do the same there.

A lot of football today is boring and soulless. I think losing these characters plays a part in making it more boring. Teams Captain their best player. Or a British player.

I'd really like to hear much more on-field communication next season.

 

[St Annington]

There is a school of thought that too much talking and shouting of instructions is counterproductive. Assuming that you’ve be training a set way of playing for x amount of time the ultimate aim is for a players movements to be instinctive and automatic and therefore repeating instruction to a player during gameplay interferes with the automatic process as now the player has to consciously process the verbal instruction and even if that slows them down only by milliseconds you’ve effectively made them a worse player. In contrast amateur pub/work teams simply don’t train/ play enough together for the automatic process to gain traction.

 

[Bell4]

I was watching England's abject performance against Germany in the U21s championship and the co-commentator made a really interesting point about the role of captains.

He said something along the lines of "you can see the players looking to the touchline for instruction because there's no one talking on the pitch. Even in a quiet stadium you can't hear any of the players talking to each other. It would never happen in my day but seems to be common in the modern game."

It got my thinking and I'm struggling to think of any team with an old-school vocal captain who rallies the troops.

You used to always know who captained a team. They used to be a big presence.

It's all about managers/coaches today. All the instruction comes from off the pitch. You rarely hear players talking during games. Encouraging each other. I grew up as a defender and one of the CBs or keeper would always organise the defence. When I played in goal in 5-asides I was constantly talking to the defence. You use to have someone in midfield who would do the same there.

A lot of football today is boring and soulless. I think losing these characters plays a part in making it more boring. Teams Captain their best player. Or a British player.

I'd really like to hear much more on-field communication next season.

What a let down

I was going to put forward B56s name to replace him

 

[robbiez666]

There is a school of thought that too much talking and shouting of instructions is counterproductive. Assuming that you’ve be training a set way of playing for x amount of time the ultimate aim is for a players movements to be instinctive and automatic and therefore repeating instruction to a player during gameplay interferes with the automatic process as now the player has to consciously process the verbal instruction and even if that slows them down only by milliseconds you’ve effectively made them a worse player. In contrast amateur pub/work teams simply don’t train/ play enough together for the automatic process to gain traction.

I get that but when things are going wrong, in any scenario not just football, you want leaders on the pitch who can galvanise the team. Encourage other players. I think this lack of talking and over-instruction off the pitch is why players often lose concentration. If you do things automatically you're not thinking about it. People should be organising on the pitch as well. Like in an army scenarios. When you're under fire there are people tasked with leadership. We need leaders on the pitch.

Not talking about a captain instructing other players on their job but literally geeing the other players us. Having a quick reassuring chat is someone makes a mistake. Encouraging.

 

[DifferentClass]

RIP JLT

 

[LBA_Blade]

With the invention of coaches such as set piece coach etc, it would be too much for the captain to remember what he should be looking at doing in each scenario. Different players have different personalities but being a professional athlete you would at least think you had some drive about you to be able to put an effort it. We aren't in the national service era where RSM's or other CPL/SGT's etc are needed to "rally the troops" and organise. If errors "falls on the captain" you start to wonder what is the point of a head coach.

 

[Houston_Blade]

I'd really like to hear much more on-field communication next season.

The everyone will be moaning about the atmosphere being shite.