One of the great things about the sport of soccer is that all types of players can excel.  There are so many things you can do that can make up for not being the biggest, fastest or strongest player on the pitch; soccer IQ, technical skill, anticipation, awareness, vision and more.

In fact, I talk about them on this episode of the Podcast How to Become an Elite Soccer Player <<==

That being said, when all else is equal...

Speed kills.

Anyone involved in almost any sport has heard that expression.  For good reason.  It's true!  All else being equal, speed wins out.  It's an important part of most major team sports and that includes soccer.

You can't teach speed.

That's another popular one and the two go hand in hand. The first one is true.  This one is not.

You absolutely can teach speed.  If someone tells you that you can't, run fast and run far (I'll help you get faster! Ha!).

Sprinting is a skill.  Skills can be improved.

We would never refuse to teach a young player how to dribble because we don't think they can become Messi or Marta.  We would never refuse to teach a young basketball player how to shoot a jump shot because they'll never become Steph Curry.

Yet we refuse to teach a player how to get faster because they won't become Usain Bolt.  Or maybe they are the slowest player on the team and we don't think there's any way they'll become the fastest.

That might very well be true but that doesn't mean we can't help a player get faster than they currently are right now.

We seem to take athleticism for granted and believe that it's immutable.  In other words, there are great athletes and not so great athletes and everything in between and that's all there is to it.  It's the luck of the draw to use a cliché.  This is a myth!  Athleticism can be improved and it can be improved significantly!  And speed is part of that equation.

It's not about turning someone into a world class sprinter.  It's about improving their speed in order to help them perform better on the pitch.

Let's use a simple example.

There is a lot that goes into increasing speed and stride length is not everything. But for the sake of argument let's say, with proper training, we are able to improve a player's stride length by a whopping two inches.

It doesn't seem like much but that player will cover 24 more inches of ground over 12 steps.  That's two full feet.

In soccer, that is the difference between making a play or not making that play.

It's the difference between being first or second to the ball.

It's the difference between finishing a breakaway or stopping one. Covering an extra couple of feet of ground is big on the pitch.

It can be the difference between sitting the bench or being the star.