The Perfect 10

I recently listened to a BBC 5 special called “In Search of the Perfect 10”. The question raised was why English football hasn’t produced a number 10 in the shape of Maradona, Pele, Zidane or Dennis Bergkamp.

I guess the first question is what is the number 10? The first thing to point out is that the ‘number 10’ doesn’t necessarily need to wear the number 10 shirt. The number 10 is a specific role that to quote John Barnes “We (the English) don’t understand the number 10” and in my opinion he is right.

In short the number 10 is the playmaker; in Italy he is the trequarista, dictating the play in the attacking half, in Argentina he is the enganche, translated to ‘ hook’ and in Brazil he is the meia-de-ligacao. Whatever he is called and wherever he plays, he is the key to the attacking rhythm of the team: when in possession he dictates the pace and tempo of the game and as a fan when he has the ball your heart skips a beat. The perfect 10 is the reason we all fell in love with this game and no other game on the planet has this type of player. Rugby may get close, but it’s not the same.

In the past 40 years the English game has produced only a handful of number 10’s. The English generally see the number 10 as a luxury. It’s still a working class game in England and the number 10 is often accused of being lazy and soft because they don’t buzz around the field ‘putting a foot in’ or ‘doing a job’ two phrases from the English game that I hate. Anyone can put a foot in or do a job but it’s the gifted ones who dictate the play. Stan Bowles and Tony Currie are two examples of English number 10’s who never fulfilled their potential during the 1970’s. Both supremely gifted players who could turn the game on its head in a split second. Between them they earned 22 caps for England. Wikipedia tells me that this is one less cap than Carlton Palmer and Geoff Thomas managed between them. No disrespect to Palmer and Thomas but that stat probably says more about the state of English football over the past 40 years than anything else.  Glenn Hoddle and Paul Gascoigne are the two other numbers 10’s to come from England, both had bigger impacts on the game but both, particularly Gascoigne failed to reach their potential.  Both Hoddle and Gascoigne were supremely gifted and for a few weeks in 1990 Gascoigne may have been England one and only truly World Class player since Gordon Banks and Bobby Moore. Hoddle was always seen as a luxury in the England team and the failure of the English game to fully embrace, Bowles, Currie, Hoddle and Gascoigne has resulted in over 40 years of misery for the English football fan.

Thankfully, the number 10 is much more prevalent in the rest of the world. It’s much easier to name the players and let you paint the picture from the name rather than list the attributes of the perfect 10. Puskas, Di Stefano, Eusabio, Pele, Cruyff, Totti, Kaka, Dalglish, Zola, Zidane, Cantona, Maradona, Messi, Platini, Riqulemi the list can go on and on. All of the players above conduct the orchestra and I make no apologies for the repeated link between soccer and music. A great team is like an orchestra and the conductor is responsible for managing the performance of his musicians, just like the playmaker is responsible for getting the best from his team mates.

So, if we know what the perfect 10 looks like and we can see all his attributes how do we go about producing them. Unfortunately the short and simple answer is you can’t set about producing a top class playmaker.

As coaches we need to try to create conditions that encourage the players to express themselves. Playing games with an extra player on the team with the ball will encourage players to get on the ball: the play maker needs to be comfortable on the ball and make themselves available to receive the ball. Games with extra players create that environment.

Encourage players to receive the ball on the front foot so that they can look forward first instead of having to go back or sideways. There’s nothing wrong with going back or sideways but we must encourage our players to look towards the opponents goal, scoring goals is the reason for having the ball.

Work with the players on running with the ball and passing on the move. Far too often our players receive it and pass it without looking for other options. Encourage them to do something a little different from time to time.

Challenge them to play passes in between their opponent, this opens up defenders and often creates scoring opportunities and more importantly, make sure they are mobile after the pass to create an angle to receive the ball back. We want the best players on and around the ball as often as possible.

Play more games in games in practice and add conditions to challenge the players, stop them playing square passes and straight passes, this will encourage them to play ‘off line’  and make it hard for the oppositions defence to deal with the movement of the attacking players. If you see a straight pass or a square pass then the team is penalised with a free kick against them.

There are lots of things we can do as coaches to challenge our players to become more inventive, and you never know, the next Messi could be in our grasp and wearing a maple leaf in the near future!

In closing, the weekends Manchester demolition of North London says more about the state of the Londoners at the moment than the dominance of Manchester. The Mancs looked good, and maybe City looked better, but there is a long way to go. And for all the scousers getting excited Liverpool have yet to be tested so calm down and let’s see where they sit 12 games in. Dalglish has performed a miracle but in my opinion they are still 12-18 months away from the finished article.