Story of a ball hog, and how it didn't help him in football / soccer at all
I have been better-than-average at almost any sport I have played in my youth. I excelled at football(soccer), American football, swimming, and even track and field. Until I gave it up due to not being the correct size I was even pretty great at basketball despite being under 6 feet tall. The only sport I just couldn't really get a handle on was baseball. I still suck at that and always have.
But this story isn't about me, it is about a guy that I was on teams with in my early teenage years that was actually very good but he suffered from something that I think a great many people do in soccer, he wanted to be a one-man-army and honestly, no matter how good you are this isn't going to work in a team sport.
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There is a line in this book that makes me laugh
Pig kicked and kicked and kicked the ball but he didn't kick the ball to Cat...."Will you kick the ball to me?" asked Cat
"no" said Pig... "I am having fun playing by myself."
That's a kids book about sharing and doesn't really relate to team sports but I will never forget Kevin from those days when we were on a recreational city team together. Kevin was absolutely amazing at handling the ball and was very good at not allowing defenders to take the ball from him but there is a problem in soccer/football if you are facing a competent team: they can put more than one guy on you and no matter how good you are, they are going to get it off of you.
Kevin scored a lot of goals but we still ended up having a slightly better than average result in the season because Kevin would almost never utilize the other members of the team, including me who was as good as he was. Kevin was slightly better than I was at ball-handling at that time in our lives, but I'll be honest when I say that once I did end up with the ball, me and the other members of our team were reluctant to so much as pass the ball to Kevin because we knew it was a one-way street... he was never going to pass it back to you or to someone else. He just kept it and pushed down the field until eventually he scored (5% of the time) or had it taken off of him (95% of the time).
if we ever faced a team with a decent coach or decent players, they were able to easily completely shut Kevin down by over-marking him. Kevin never adapted a different style to accommodate for this and because of it our overall effect as a team suffered.
our coach was the worst kind of coach that you can have in a youth team as well: It was a parent who knew very little about the sport and he also just happened to be Kevin's father... so the coach was never going to try to adjust this selfish behavior on Kevin's part.
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it is important to understand the distinction between a ball hog and just someone who dribbles a lot. There are some famous and very good players who horde the ball a lot, some of the best players of all time, including Ronaldo are renowned for not passing when they might have been able to but this is because the other players were not necessarily in a better position than they were, or in the case of Ronaldo it was because he was a bit of a cheat that could lure defenders into fouls that would give a great position on a free kick. These people are not ball hogs, they have a strategy.... Kevin didn't have a strategy, Kevin just wanted all the glory for himself and would on some occasions go so far as to run and take the ball away from one of his own teammates in order to get it.
Kevin also gassed himself out because he was all over the place. His father put him at center forward or center midfield but Kevin just ran all over the damn place and was never looking for good field positioning. He was just tracking where the ball was and heading there over and over again. Kevin and I would frequently butt heads on the field because I would be wide open in a shooting position but instead of giving it up to me for a much higher percentage shot on goal, he would try to weave between 2 or 3 defenders and often make a shot wildly off target as he sought to get the glory for himself.
it was a dopamine chase that he was going for and he was rewarded ever now and then. At the end of the season it was no surprise that he had the most goals of any player on the team but it got to the point where his own teammates resented him for his play-style and other good players didn't want to be on a team with him. In the following year when the "draft" was taking place, several parents requested that their child specifically not be on Kevin's team.
Kevin had the opportunity to be a great player, but his "one man army" approach ended up severely limiting him as a player. He played all the way through high school, thankfully at a different school than I attended and I will admit that when my team did face his I was able to tell my teammates exactly what Kevin was going to do and I was right. Even though it was several years later and his father was no longer the coach, absolutely NOTHING about his play style had changed.
Kevin was scouted by colleges because his stats looked good on paper, but once scouts came to see him play all of them passed on signing him up because no matter how good you are, if you don't utilize the other 10 people on the field with you, you are going to be a net detriment to the team.
Myself and 2 other people on my team were scouted and got awarded college athletic scholarships. Kevin was offered none. I never wished any ill will towards Kevin and actually spoke to him after my team defeated his for the 2nd time that year and said something like "dude, you gotta use the other people on your team. we knew that all we had to do was mark you constantly and it would totally shut your offense down!" He took offense at this rather than take it to heart and ultimately he paid the price for it.
I have no idea what happened to Kevin after high school but I know that he didn't play soccer anymore and he only has himself and his father (who perhaps more of the blame lies on) to blame for this.
Soccer/football is a team sport. You should aspire to be a great ball handler and Kevin was one of the best that I ever saw including when I played on a rather elite level in college. But if you don't use the rest of the team, you are never going to make it in this sport.
If you have children or have some involvement in soccer/football as a youth coach please encourage the players to move away from hogging the ball. I have never in my many years of playing and nearly a decade of coaching seen a ball hog go on to do great things in this sport. It just isn't going to happen.
I think every athlete has come across a Kevin at some point. Your point about them just chasing a dopamine rush is pretty spot on, although I never really thought about it this way until now. Its interesting how you said the coach sort of encouraged this behavior, as I think is actually pretty common practice with these types of players. Its too bad because they usually have a lot of potential, but perhaps they just aren't being corrected early enough.
when I was a kid the coaches were almost always one of the player's Dad and that player would get preferential treatment all the time. I think that Kevin's failure can be attributed more to his father than to himself but in the end we are all in charge of our own destiny.
That 5% goals to 95% giveaways bit really stuck with me. It shows how live scouting catches what the box score hides, the way over marking just erased Kevin and the te'am flow. I laughed but also winced at the part where he would take the ball from his own teammate, that is pure pla'y for dopamine not football :) In the long run selfish touches are like bad debts, they pile up and then the ledger bites back, and Kevin learned it teh hard way.
well often in the USA the college scouts have nothing but stats to go on when searching for soccer talent because even today it isn't a heavily watched or cared about sport in America. I would imagine that a lot of times the scouts feel as though they wasted time and money even bothering to go/travel to see these kids play. Also, a lot of scholarships are offered not because the school actually wants the team to do well but because they are legally required to not show preferential treatment only to sports like basketball and american football that make the university money.
Seems like he desperately wanted to stand out by all means...didn't know he took the worst possible approach.
he stood out alright and at a young age this was in a good way because most of the opposition is pretty terrible and is only there because their parents make them go. Things get a lot more competitive later though and I used Kevin as an example later on in life when I did some coaching myself. It was always a joy when the kids would actually listen and our team would do much better by utilizing all 11 players rather than just always passing it to the "good guy" on the team. I can vividly recall a team where I basically had to force these two "star players" to learn the power of a cross and finding open space and how they had grins on their faces when my tactics actually worked and worked really well.
I think they had never been taught this up to that point and hopefully they went on to do great things.
Funny how you have a photo of Ronaldo as he is one of these players. I remember watching the World Cup and how I felt sorry for Portugal because he on his own ruined their chances through wanting to be a one man army. If I was coaching a team I would rather have 11 good players than having one or two stars because individualism is not what it is about. I love hearing ex players say they were only as good as the quality around them helped them look good and this is very true.
I would definitely take 11 slightly better than average players than a team with 1 or two outstanding ball hogs. With the right coaching, the "decent 11" will run circles around the ball hog team every time.
Yes a team playing as a team should would be far more successful.