Quick Restarts Can Gain An Advantage!

The referee whistled for a free kick 25 yards from goal. The defending team assembled its wall. It’s goalkeeper stood hugging her post, shouting directions to properly align the wall.

One member of the attacking team was smart enough to realize that the goalkeeper was out of position and paying no attention to the ball. So she quickly stepped up and shot the ball into the empty goal.

If you think that the goalkeeper’ mishap was a silly mistake, you’re right. If you think that great players don’t make silly mistakes, well that’s where you’re wrong.

That goal was scored in the third overtime of an NCAA National Championship final. In the most important game of the year, a national championship was won because one player realized that she could take advantage of a napping opponent.

[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’] Even at high levels of success, when the referee’s whistle blows, a lot of players completely lose their concentration. Every game presents invitations for players to take mental breaks.

The smart players are always on the lookout for those moments when they can take advantage of a player who momentarily switches off. Games can be won on quick restarts. And players who are cunning enough to spot those moments can be heroes.

Here’s an example from a college team I was coaching. The opposing goalkeeper was whistled for picking up a back-pass and we were awarded an indirect free-kick. The goalkeeper stood at the penalty spot, arms out and palms up, expressing her disbelief to the referee.

In one of those palms was the ball. One of my players snatched it from her hands, quickly put it on the ground and passed it to a teammate who shot it into the unguarded goal.

Sounds silly, right? Yep. But that doesn’t make it any less factual. Mental breakdowns like that are silly mistakes. But here’s the thing….silly happens. And not just to goalkeepers. Silly can happen to everyone.

In an average soccer game, when you include throw-ins, there are upwards of 60 restarts. And if you’re paying attention and prepared to play quickly, you can take advantage of many of them.

You won’t often hit the lottery like the attacking teams in the examples above, but if you’re paying attention, once in a while you will.

More often than not a successful quick restart will be the beginning of an attack, not the glorious end of one.

It can be throw-in over the defender who has her back to the play. It can be short free-kick in the middle third that eliminates an opponent who is arguing the call. Whatever the case, when the whistle blows, players switch off. It is not your job to wait for them to switch back on. It is your job to punish them for the mental mistake.

Smart players are always looking for an edge — any edge — that might give their team a better chance of winning the game. They have the pathology of a pickpocket, always on the lookout for crimes of opportunity. And restarts are an invitation for those crimes.

Obviously, there is a very important other side of this coin, and that is when it is the opponent who is awarded the ball for a re-start. Smart players are smart enough to assume that the opponent has some pickpockets of its own, so when the whistle blows, not only will the smart player stay switched on, she will also demand that her teammates do the same.

I mean, can you imagine being the goalkeeper who handed my team the ball? Can you imagine how embarrassed she was? She switched off for a single second and it cost her team the game.

Your job is not done when the whistle blows. Neither is your