Kieran Tierney

Barca sign the best * from everywhere though, you do wonder how good coaching actually works in football or if its just down to the individual people becoming good just with their natural instincts in how they play and view the game from the first time they ever play the game.

Like if you don't have natural vision and technique at the age of 10 then for me you probably never will. You can perfect individual skills like hitting freekicks or long range passing by doing it over and over again all your days but some stuff like your touch, how you control the ball, how clever and quick you are to spot play developing around you seems to me to be things some people are good at and some not.

A lot of teams who get praised for developing young talent, really just sign the best players around at young ages when they are already head and shoulders above other normal players hence why they sign them.

 

If you want to see what coaching does look at Forrest for the last 2/3 seasons and look at him under Rodgers.

 

Aye, fully agree with that mate.

 

Was more meaning youth players though. I honestly think if Messi joined Motherwell at 12 he'd still have become the best player in the world. As you don't teach how he plays the game, he'd always have become great as his brain and natural instincts to play football have always been that good since he was a wee boy, just naturally understood what he was doing probably from the first times he ever kicked a ball. Same way you get they wee * who can pick up guitars and the way they hear the music they can copy it and it just comes naturally to them where others need to practice all the time and be taught how to play.

 

I really doubt it mate, you're undervaluing what good guidance give's a young boy.

 

Im not sure though, how many even just good players so not even Maradonas even just an Aaron Ramsey have appeared ever who were not the best players all the way from primary school? like they were always only ok and someone no-one really thought would make it but then at 13/14/15/16 they kicked on and became quality?

It would be good to see an experiment, like the much lauded Barcelona youth system. If they over a period of 10 years took squads of * players or average players, guys who basically just make up the numbers in school or youth teams so not terrible just guys who have no real talent and signed only those types of players and then coached them over a decade, several teams of them if they could produce even 1 decent player capable of cutting it even just at SPL level.

 

Any natural talent definitely needs to be surrounded by better talent or coaching to progress. If Messi went to Motherwell his progress could have been halted because he wouldn't have had anything challenging his technique to make him think about the game constantly. Musicians like Mozart who was a child prodigy was taught first by his father who was a musician but then he realised he took him as far as he could so he sent him to better teachers and that is how he became a genius.

There is plenty of talent that goes unfulfilled I'm sure due to bad scouting or bad coaching. Think of the historical reasoning behind a lot of players not making it, which is them being rejected due to their height. That was quite common in British football so there must've been a lot of players who were excellent but the coaches didn't have the vision to see height doesn't matter when you have skill and strength that comes later when players physically mature in their teens.

Andy Murray and his brother had to go to Barcelona to receive the best coaching they could because the coaches here couldn't take them any further and their mother realised that. If the Murray brothers had stayed in Britain their true potential wouldn't have been realised.

 

That's just confidence

 

No, it's really not. It's Rodgers making sure he's giving it all, coaching him into being able to defend and making sure he has absolute desire and work-rate for the team.

He's so far away from his normal self under Rodgers it's unreal.

 

Which could be translated as bringing out the best in someone.

Edit: \o/ said it better.

 

In regards to the debate on natural ability though. Forrest has always had the ability just at times didn't have the confidence.

I agree you can be taught how to defend and press the game which in return came make players a lot better but a lot of the times its just giving the player confidence to express themselves.

 

Maybe in a game of fives, not at professional level though. He's clearly worked on Forrest, his positioning, workrate, defensive ability and decision making is streets ahead of what it has ever been.

That will breed confidence in him but it's as a result of how Rodgers has got him playing. Not that he magically got confident and is doing that on his own.

 

Exactly. Confidence is only one ingredient, although a very big one..

Look at Broony. Tactical awareness was probably his biggest weakness, and then his passing. Now look at him..

You could go through a host of them and it's the same right now..

 

Messi is a bad example of been a possible self made footballer . If he hadn't been fed a diet of drugs for years as a child he would never have grown to be the tiny little footballer he eventually became .
I don't understand why we can't produce at least a couple of SPL level players every year from Lennoxtown & we should regularly be producing better .
We always have a good stream of footballer's up to about 18 years of age but then they seem to lose their way amongst low life style girls & booze .

 

Not a chance man!

 

Think of the Celtic team under Jock Stein, they were all excellent players but they might have went unknown if he didn't have the ability to show them how to play the game to the best of their abilities. Jimmy Johnstone for instance, when Stein seen him in the reserves the first thing he said to him was 'I can't believe you're not in the first team'. Jinky might have been a naturally brilliant talent but why did it take Stein to notice it? That is the difference coaching can make.

 

I was say for a weakness that was probably his biggest one..

Always felt the need to chase EVERYTHING down and Brendan and Broony have near enough said as much. The drive and leadership of Broony has meant that he's sometimes too often gone trying to do it all his self, culminating in us getting played around far easier..

 

I can't believe we're having this conversation so soon after the change from Ronny to Rodgers.