Blog Archives - Competitor Spot

Play Like Barcelona – Top 5 Ideas From The Spanish Giants

When it comes to world football, perhaps no team has a more iconic style of play than FC Barcelona. The culture within the Spanish club is truly fascinating from the massive success of the first team all the way down to it’s youth academies. It’s no coincidence that players like Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, and Andres Iniesta are products of the Barcelona youth system. Whether or not you’re a Barcelona fan, I believe anyone can admire the clubs unique ability to develop talent and produce consistently strong results.

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7 Qualities of Great Team Captains

When team captains perform their duties well, it can make a big difference for their team. People rally around those who inspire them to dream more, do more, and become more which is why natural leaders are such an asset. With that being said, although leadership ability comes more naturally to some than others, there are common traits that great leaders share which can be embodied by anyone who desires to be a team captain and make a positive difference for their team.

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4 Ways To Help Your Team Keep Possession of The Ball

In a soccer match you can’t do anything without the ball. With this in mind, here are four tips to help your team keep possession so that you can dominate the stat sheet, create more chances, and score more goals.

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7 Traits of Successful Soccer Coaches

As a player, having the right attitude and mindset is important, but as a coach it is essential. In order to inspire others, create a positive environment, and develop confident players, a coach has to set the right tone for their team.

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Developing Soccer IQ With Lessons From Thomas Müller & Xavi

The attribute of soccer IQ at it’s most basic level describes a players ability to make good decisions in a soccer match. The best players in the world have an extremely high soccer IQ. In other words they are not just great dribblers, passers, and shooters; their ability to make excellent decisions in a moments notice is what sets them apart. This article describes three important components of soccer IQ and ways to improve each one. The three components include decision making, being in the right place at the right time, and reading the game.

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Competitor Spotlight: Philipp Lahm

Philipp Lahm: The Ideal Holding Midfielder

Philipp Lahm is one of my all time favorite soccer players. What is not to love; he makes great passes, he rarely turns the ball over, and he is an excellent tackler. Whenever one of my midfielders asks me how I want them to play on the field, I show them clips of Phillip Lahm.

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7 Reasons Why A Growth Mindset Is The Key To Success

I was first introduced to the concept of a growth mindset as a sports psychology student in college. Surely most of the students who learned about Carol Dweck’s idea felt very empowered. Essentially, people with growth mindsets believe that talent and intelligence are not fixed traits. In other words, they hold the idea that success is a result of persistence and effort rather than luck.

While I learned about this idea, I thought about successful people and all of the hours of frustration, setbacks, and obstacles they had to overcome before finally breaking through. For instance, Thomas Edison encountered failure thousands of times before his quest for the light bulb was a success. Edison realized that with each failure he learned something new and became one step closer to reaching his goal. His persistence and belief embodied what a growth mindset is all about.

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