Challenging the belief/purpose of youth players

You know who that is. Thiago Motta. His Italian fourth-placed team [Bologna] is also no secret or mystery to you—You do not need a exclusive analytical piece on them nor is that the reason you clicked onto this article. You see, I want to start this piece via taking a journey back-in-time throughout Motta’s career ( - both as a player and with his recent time as a coach - ). He is forty-one in the Italian first tier and has been there since 2019, as a coach, while spending five years of his [playing] time in that country. While also playing for the Italian national team, it is fair to say he that he understands the culture from a philosophical, football and technical lens to a extremely high level. So, why did he go back after almost a decade in Spain within the ranks of Barcelona and Atletico? Two VERY highly perceived clubs, cities and fanbases in which he was exalted to a very high position. He claims that - in his thesis - the culture of Italy from a footballing sense allowed him to review or take a deeper look at his overall football philosophy, even those areas that seemed completely polarizing/unrelated. As a result of this, you’d find that ‘unrelated’ from the lens of tactical decisions or how you coach your players is actually a VERY SMALL subset. Smaller than you’d think—It’s all like a investigation board [football scouting/coaching] where A links to B which links to C and so on, if you think something doesn’t link, look again. If we go to Motta’s playing career in more detail, looking at where he started his journey, it’d appear that it was in the academy of the former Spanish club that I mentioned. ‘Barca Atletic.’ If you pay attention in those environments and/or situations ( - assuming Motta did - ) then he was almost guaranteed to pick up valuable information for his own coaching. Though, why am I telling you this? Because, well, in truth, [Thiago] Motta would've been seventeen years old when he started with that youth team—Even as someone who enjoys planning ahead, as someone who often ‘controls’ pressure via controllable logistics, even I can tell you that planning ahead by TWENTY-FOUR years is something that has truthly never crossed my mind. So, it is super unlikely that Motta was dissimilar at that point. Back to the initial question, WHY have I took you back to Motta’s youth-academy days as a player? You see, I believe that his ideas puts him in not only the same bracket as the TOP ‘youth-developers’ in the game, though also in an extremely unique bracket. I have seen VERY LITTLE speak on the youth as how Thiago Motta explains his principles within his thesis.

I will tell you what I have learnt from reading his work thus far, and how that relates to youth coaching/development. Though, first, it is important that this situation is contextualised further. You see, there is a question, one - simple - question that many actually cannot answer. I call it? The ‘million-dollar-question.’ Truthly, you should be answering this imminently after this sentence/paragraph, and, with this, it is necessary for me to reveal the question; ‘WHY’ do you do what you do? It isn’t a hard question to answer, and despite this, you’ll always see a young guy stutter within his response. Why? Well, you do know why your on this path? Right? It is so common to follow the crowd, to seek the validation, to listen to the loudest guys, when in truth, they may have just wasted years of your life… Though that’s not you, you have clicked onto this article with a complete awareness of what Field Visions is. You have clicked onto this piece because you’re ready for the unconventional insights; The lessons which will increase your understanding/knowledge, the information which will raise your expectations and change your perceptions, the insights (which are consistent ones…) constructed via purposeful deliveries to bring you my ideas, realisations and learning lessons as they reach me.

The $1M question which I shared. I have seen many ask, many have also exchanged answers too. You see, the responses which I have seen in this symbiotic of curiosity and/or authenticity have mostly disappointed me. Although I do acknowledge the genuine commitment I see, the large(r) subset is one with the jokers, the immaturity, the opportunistic, the ignorant. These people don’t actually want coaching/scouting though to take the opportunity away from you—IF you slow down. In truth, they try to bring you down via ignorance under your analysis or posts, though they analyse the same stuff that YOU do while deceiving you. So, what is your advantage? Actually consider this, because you can answer the question that is above, not them, they cannot. If you truthly want something, desperately, 100%, life just finds this way to put you on the recieving end though you’ve proven nothing yet. The power/secret of success visualisations is that they ‘should’ provide capacity to reach where you perceived as unreachable. So, are you going to finish here and return back to the subset of crabs, the category of the ignorant, or are you going to take that step which you’ve been considering or interested in and finally make that investment in yourself…?

[£25 a/month].