In case you missed it — and also out of respect — you should start with the goal itself. (Youtube won’t allow me to link it here. You can find it by searching for “Pedri’s goal against Sevilla.”)
This super-goal against Sevilla clinched 2nd place in La Liga for the seemingly deflated Barcelona team, but it is the nature of the goal that, rightly so, caught the world’s attention. In The Guardian, Barca’s new coach, the great Xavi Hernández, is quoted saying about the 19-year-old phenom,
“It’s wonderful watching Pedri play. In terms of talent, I haven’t seen a player in the world like him. And I’m not saying that to eulogize him because he doesn’t like that. There are players with different characteristics, like De Bruyne or Modric, but not with his talent. He reminds me of Iniesta. If we’re talking pure talent, he’s the best in the world.”
Best in the world?! How often we hear that. Is Messi the GOAT (greatest of all time) — or is it CR7? And can we really say that either is better than Pele, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo de Lima, Iniesta, Cruyff or Socrates? And there are many more who could justifiably make this list. In my opinion, there’s no player more exciting to watch today than Hakim Ziyech. Watch just the very first pass in this clip. WHAT?! Ziyech is still young in his career, has not put up any remarkable numbers to speak of, and rarely plays a full game for coach Tuchle. But don’t blink when he steps onto the pitch. He delivers magic every time.
Why “The Best”?
So what is it about that list — Best Player in the World? They can’t have all scored the most goals or had the longest careers, played in the most games, won the most titles. Nope, it’s not breaking statistical records in futbol that captures our imaginations.
Rather, for many of us fanatics and students of the game, it’s those moments of absolute magic that are the gold of futbol. Those plays of singular momentary brilliance that fill highlight reels. Those plays, sometimes as subtle as a gentle body feint, executed so impossibly perfectly that even the professional defender and the even tougher goalkeeper got floored, all of their experience rendered powerless in the face of such brilliance. Moments like these illuminate the extreme control of the human body, and by extension the ball, as it moves with the lightest of touches. Beautiful. There is no other word. It's “the beautiful game.”
Can we train for this style of play? Absolutely. But it’s a choice. And it has to start early.
Creating Futbol Artists vs. Creating Winning Teams
Training kids to play beautifully is very different from training them to play as part of a team, or training them to win matches. Team play and winning are all about creating space and distributing the ball, defending against attacks and controlling the rhythm of the game. It’s complicated. It’s hard work. It’s what clubs are designed to do. It’s what your rec, travel and academy programs are doing, despite wildly different resources and levels of game knowledge and, by extension, with varying degrees of success. And all of it gets in the way of talent development.
Even something as seemingly elemental to soccer as passing is valuable only in game play. It is part of that great body of skills and practices which is external to the player. It is, plainly, part of the organization of players. So, should we wait to teach passing? If our goal is to develop talented futbol artists who can play the game beautifully, who will one day be capable of shooting a Pedri-style goal, then the answer is, YES!
Youth Brilliance
The key to training for Pedri-like play starts by recognizing its antecedents among very young players. Here’s a couple of examples of the kinds of play from young kids that catches my attention. Both, to my mind’s eye, are the precursors of truly beautiful play. In the first one, watch as this 8 year-old uses the right, the left and then — here’s the excellence — the top of his right again to weave between two defenders. Kids this age who can dribble with both feet are advanced; utilizing the laces is next level. Beautiful.
In this second play, there is even more to note. Watch as the young player, also just 8, pauses the ball with a defender on his back while running back toward his own goal. He has the confidence born of many, many, many hours of play. Notice how it is the controlled pause that gives him the time to look up and find his goalie as an option. The casual observer might remark on his unusual “vision,” but this is merely an outcome. He is able to see because he is able to pause because he is confident because he has mastered a technique. It’s his mastery that makes the vision possible.
And then the goalie, who is able to see the entire field in front of him and has his own set of advanced skills, one-touch passes the ball across the field, completely opening the field of play. Many kids his age, when faced with an attacker that close, would boot the ball indiscriminately. This is an absolutely extraordinary play. That the ball misses its final mark is of absolutely zero consequence. It will get there next time.
Beautiful? I think so.
Of course, the excellence in both plays is more muted than what a fully mature player can pull off. But they are also a whole lot closer than you think.
Making Greatness
There were many incredible plays in that Barcelona game, as there are in every professional game these days. Many small moments of individual excellence, and many more subtle, coordinated plays between teammates, the outcome of countless hours of practice and profound awareness of one another’s abilities. A language all to themselves.
And then, there is Pedri’s goal against Sevilla. The kind of movement that is as rare as a blessing. An instance of greatness lasting just seconds, but which rose above them all and will be saved forever in many a futbol fan’s catalog of greatest plays. So how great was the Pedri goal? Well, if, like me, you love the game because of moments of such magic, then the answer is, emphatically great.
In America, however, we seem stuck on thinking of displayed of talent like this as innate, rare, unteachable. It is better that way, we seem to think. Michael Jordan is a super-human. We like our stars to be god-like. But what if we’re wrong? Could we be wrong? The overabundance of talent among Brazilian, Spanish and more recently, French, futbolers would seem to suggest we are. And if so, what’s stopping us from implementing a program to build that kind of talent? What’s stopping the U.S. from having our own GOAT?