I recently received an e-mail that came through my ‘inbox’ with an invitation to enter a fantasy soccer league. I have entered, participated in and have always enjoyed being involved in many of these different types of fantasy leagues. From the National Football League (NFL) , National Basketball League (NBA), the Barclay’s Premier League and the European Union of Association Football (UEFA) Champion’s League, I must admit that I’m a sucker for the ‘managerial’ and realistic season-long resemblance that a fantasy league offers. So, when I read the ‘subject line’ of this e-mail, I couldn’t open it up fast enough.
There it was. An invitation to join a private fantasy league focused around Major League Soccer (MLS), the top-flight of football in the United States which just kicked-off their newest season on March 2. No worries, I thought to myself. I had only been away from the States and the regular news coming out of the MLS camps for slightly over a year. Even while I have been in Australia, I have still been able to keep up on some news pertaining to the league here and there; you know, little smidgens of information that I happen to come across. Thus, I felt quite confident that I would be competitive in this new MLS Fantasy League, so I rolled my curser over the link in the body of the e-mail and once the arrow instantaneously transformed itself to a miniature looking right-hand with a pointing index finger I clicked it and off I went to play some Fantasy Football!
I got to the site with no issues, and signing-up was quite easy. I selected my favorite MLS club (Columbus Crew), named my fantasy team (Perth Glory FC; what else) and began to “purchase my roster.”
The set-up was quite simple: You were allotted a total of fifteen roster spots and of these 15 slots you could only roster three players from the same MLS club. The program made it even easier by designating that you had to select two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three strikers. As I scanned over this arrangement, I started to smirk at its simplicity; so simple in comparison to the many other, more complicated fantasy leagues that I had drawn into before.
You were a salary cap of $1 million dollars and as I always do when I began to put together any fantasy team that isn’t selected via a draft, I began filling in the ‘heart’ of my squad with the best players available. Now, the game is set-up, so no one can load their fantasy roster with too many “high-priced” stars as you’ll run out of money before you are able to completely fill your roster. So, the savvy selection of efficient middle-of-the-road type players as well as the gutsy, risky and prophetic gamble on the young and unknown commodities such as rookies and free-agent signings becomes a make-or-break move for many. This is where this “fantasy” experience began to take a turn towards “reality” for me quite quickly and unexpectedly. I’ll explain more on that later.
The Grandeur of Delusion
Let’s step away from the game of football for a moment and please allow me to take you on a little journey; a journey to a place that I hope no one ever has to visit or experience, but a place that I need you to tag along with me right now before we can go any further.
A patient lies in a hospital bed in the neurological ward of a major metropolitan area hospital with access to the best possible physicians, treatment and care available. His head is wrapped in bandages, as he has just suffered a major trauma to the brain. The injury was so severe that it has wiped out the region of his brain that controls motion in his left arm. More than that, it has destroyed the man’s ability to even conceive of what moving his arm would be like.
He’s paralyzed, in other words, but he doesn’t know that.
“Would you be so kind as to raise your left hand?” his doctor asks.
“Certainly,” says the patient…but, the hand remains where it is. “It’s gotten tangled up in the sheets,” the man explains.
The doctor points out that his arm is lying free and unencumbered on top of the sheets.
“Well, yes,” the man says. “But I just don’t feel like lifting it right now.”
The inability to recognize one’s own disability is a disorder called “anosognosia,” and it offers an unusually clear window into that peculiarly infuriating and astonishing aspect of sport psychology: Our seemingly boundless capacity for delusion.
The disorder sounds bizarre, but we all (coaches, players, officials, administrators, commentators, press, fans, etc…) do something similar on a daily basis. Though we’d like to think that we mold our beliefs, philosophies, attitudes, loyalties, conveniences, needs, strengths, etc… to fit the athletic reality that surrounds us, there’s a natural human impulse to do the reverse: To mold our athletic reality so it fits with our beliefs, philosophies, attitudes, loyalties, conveniences, needs, strengths, etc…
Small Doses
Now, don’t get me wrong; changing your belief structure to suit the situation can be beneficial – BUT – only in small doses. So, let’s just get down to it. I’m comfortable in who I am and confident in not only what I believe, but also in what I’m about to say that I’m just not going to lay-off. It isn’t in me. I’m an extreme Type-A Personality. I seek-out confrontation, both consciously and subconsciously (which has gotten me into far more trouble than I have needed in my life). When I feel strongly about something, you will know it and if you disagree…well, you will know that too. Lest not forget the poor chap that makes that ever-fateful choice to stomp on whatever platform I’m preaching from on that particular day. They usually never even know what hit them. So, regardless-to-say, this is a fore-warning that I’m about to call many people to the carpet and stick a broom up the crawl of the entire system and twist it!
I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty confident that it’s been around for several years already, yet for the sake of this conversation, we’ll just say it’s “new” – a ‘new’ strain of virus has emerged within the Football System of the United States. I’m calling it DELUSIONAL-VIRUS (Delusional or Delusion, for short) and it’s the leading cause of the current epidemic within the game in the US aptly named, “MEDIOCRITY!”
How Dare I?
Whoa-nelly! Let’s pull the reigns back a bit and slow this chuck wagon down. Before we progress any further, I need to continue on about my recent MLS Fantasy Football experience and, as promised, explain how the ‘fantasy’ turned to ‘reality.’
You see, once I got past the point where I selected the “high-priced,” “high-powered” and “very talented” core of my team, it was time to start being much more frugal with what was remaining of my salary cap as I began to fill in the remaining open roster spots with the best possible players, but also for the best price. At first, this was fairly easy. However, as I saw my salary cap began to diminish faster than my number of open roster spots, I realized I was going to have to take some gambles on some unknowns; in this case, unproven rookies. This is where I really became frustrated and the idiocy of the system we have in place in the United States became as clear as my new contacts right before my eyes.
Who were these “drafted” rookies plucked from the ranks of the American collegiate game? I’ve been around the block long enough to know that college soccer is not an adequate environment to properly develop players to play at the professional level, so I began to wonder; why where these just graduated collegians even eligible for selection in this fantasy league? There are more than enough players without them to choose from. Why include them? This is what really got me thinking and wondering…
…why in the world does the MLS even hold a draft anyways? We’re the only football league in the world that does so and the simple fact that we do, or maybe that we HAVE to, because otherwise there doesn’t appear to be any other system in place with the ability to continue supplying fresh, new, young blood to our professional franchises. This is in no way an embossed seal on the state of the game in America, but rather the state of the game in between the ears of all of us whom have created this ugly, pimple-scarred and stretch-marked appearance of what we want to call “football,” but what the rest of the world only refers to as “hideous.” For when they look at themselves in the mirror what they see is exactly what they are. When we look at ourselves, we reach for the Avon and Mary Kay. Why? The answer is simple, but is one that most don’t want to accept, or far worse; don’t even recognize how ugly they even look.
“these Football times” just recently published an article titled “Major League Soccer: The Best by 2022?” where they discuss the recent announcement by MLS Commissioner, Don Garber, in his annual State of the League address where he expressed his ideal for the league to be among the world’s elite. ”By 2022. That’s our goal. I’m not saying we’ll be the biggest league in the world but we believe we will be one of the top leagues.”
Is this delusional? Is Garber delusional? In 1974, Lamar Hunt brought highly regarded German football coach, Dettmar Cramer, to the US to evaluate the American game. Cramer said it would take a century before the United States would win a World Cup.
Delusional?
Psychologists define “delusion” as a manifestly absurd belief held in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary; often times, but not exclusively, associated as a symptom of a disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar. However, the truth is that we are all delusional to some degree. In fact, a certain amount of delusion is actually essential for our mental health.
Yet, when is enough too much and we begin to cross that fine-line from ‘healthy delusion’ into “insanity?” The definition of ‘insanity’ is not that far off the definition of ‘delusion.’ Alcoholics Anonymous has it nailed down pretty well when they define “insanity” as: doing the same-thing over and over again while still getting the same results.
So, how many times are we going to struggle in the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) competitions? Whether it is the Confederations Cup, the Gold Cup or the ever-important International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup Qualification Process, the United States has consistently just stumbled through exploiting the weaknesses of national sides that in theory don’t even belong on the international football stage.
Of the five teams the United States will face in the final round of 2014 FIFA CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying; Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama; the US holds a combined overall record of 58-49-31(.533) against this group of five nations. That’s just barely above a .500 winning percentage against a quintuplet of teams whose current combined FIFA World Ranking is an embarrassing 252. In fact, Mexico is the only nation in CONCACAF to be ranked in the top-25 of the FIFA World Rankings (19). If an NFL team or an NBA franchise or a National Hockey League (NHL) club or a college football or basketball program and even a football or basketball program at some high-schools ever recorded a record that was just barely over .500 against a schedule no stronger than a wet Kleenex, there would be major overhauls across the board. Coaches would be fired. General Managers and Athletic Directors would find themselves suddenly collecting government cheese. Fans would stop trying to sneak alcohol and noisemakers into events and start trying to sneak in rotten food to throw at their teams. The media would have a field-day with newspapers and magazines flying-off newsstands due to cover stories about the next coach to receive the proverbial axe and websites would be receiving so many hits due to their real-time updates of the firings, trades, cuts, etc… that they would run the risk of ‘locking-up.’ It would be a mess. It just wouldn’t be acceptable…on any front…on any level…in any sport…EXCEPT American Soccer, where our own filth covers our own shoes as we proudly stand, push out our chest and say that our quagmire of mediocrity is the golden standard for excellence. This is where we are delusional. This is where we are being asked to lift our left hand. This is the point where we are agreeing to lift our left hand, but do not have the ability to do so. This is where we are unaware that we don’t even possess the ability to lift our hand and we really have no idea what it even feels like to lift it.
Competition?
Now, I have heard many make the argument that one of the reason’s the US will never fare well in the World Cup is because they play sub-par competition in qualification (we're excluding Mexico here, but playing them only twice isn't going to get the job done). They will argue that the United States will simply never be prepared for the powers they will have to face in the World Cup; powers that have played, beaten, drawn and lost to both each other and the world’s best. While I don’t buy the Kool-Aid this line of thinking is trying to sell, I do, however, believe it does hold some merit. Why are European nations so successful on the international stage? Could it be in part, because every two years they are playing a slimmed-down version of the World-Cup called the UEFA European Championship?...against some of the best national teams in the world?
Well, let’s test that theory for just a second. Of the top 25 nations in the most recent FIFA World Rankings, fifteen of them are from the UEFA region. These are the same 15 teams (plus others) whom comprise the competition make-up of the European Championships.
So, every two years, these teams are playing some of the best teams in the world – but, what is the United States doing? Soft-stepping over trip-wires in a mine-field against teams in a region whose third best team (Panama) is ranked 42nd in the world, all the while looking ahead to what many perceive to be an inevitable match-up with the only team in CONCACAF that pulls any weight against the world’s best; Mexico?
This would be the same type of situation as if the UEFA teams were being taught Nuclear Physics by Stephen Hawking while the United States was being taught the same by Homer Simpson.
Location, Location, Location
This one gets under my skin almost every time I hear it.
“Oooooohhhhh….it is soooo hard to go and travel to Panama or Honduras or Jamaica or Haiti or wherever and play at their place in that environment…that’s why the United States doesn’t do very well away from home…”
I say, “RUBBISH!”…and call “BULL S………..”
That’s nothing more than a pathetic excuse to try and quantify why a team such as the United States went on the road to the 56th ranked team in the world and lost…AGAIN! C’mon, man! This isn’t the Ivory Coast (12) or Argentina (3) the US is traveling to and playing. It’s the 56th ranked team in the world. A team that is really only receiving a ranking for the purpose of regional recognition and consideration. What other sports rank teams into the 50s?
We have to understand that there is a significant difference between an “excuse” and an “explanation.” An ‘excuse’ is an attempt to ‘explain’ something without the rationale for the ‘explanation’ having any real merit.
Ok…ok…ok…for the sake of this discussion, I’ll bite my lower lip and play along. Honestly, without having to mince my words, I’m sure it is difficult to travel and play in the environment that surrounds a match in a location such as Honduras. I’ve never experienced it myself, but I’m quite confident in the truthfulness about the difficulty of that type of playing environment. However, whether I or anyone else agrees or disagrees is really irrelevant. It should have no bearing on this conversation and no one should even try to use it as an explanation for anything. It just doesn’t fit.
What about a country like Brazil? Would they not face a similar environment when they travel to Peru, Colombia or Bolivia? What about Japan or Australia when they have to travel to Iraq, or Myanmar or Afghanistan? What about the World Champions, Spain? How do they deal when they have to travel to Bosnia or Serbia or to one of the old Soviet satellite nations making-up the eastern bloc of Europe? I’m sorry; I’m a die-hard supporter of the Red, White and Blue and will be until the day I die. When they succeed, I’m ecstatic…when they come-up short, I’m crushed…but, when I see incompetence, ignorance or just plain and simple naivety holding back the progression of this team that I love because we have become delusional in what we think, believe, see and “know” is the right thing to do and the right direction to go, and then all we keep doing is spinning our wheels in the mud and thinking that we’re moving forward because we see the RPM gauge flutter up and down with each press of the accelerator. That’s what the state of the game of football has become in the United States: a consistent series of irrational explanations made to explain what we want it to answer regardless of whether the answer even exists. In other words, our entire American football culture has been built on delusion and fueled by insanity!
Delusional-Virus
According to amateur football epidemiologists (re: the fans, supporters, coaches, etc…not involved in the game at the elite-level) at the Centers for Football Disease Control and Prevention (re: the grassroots fields and youth programs tucked into every nook-and-cranny across the United States) appearance of this “not-so-new” new strain may mean more American football people will suffer from a bout with the vomiting and diarrhea-causing disease this spring, summer, fall, winter and all the way until the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2014. However, the Delusional-Virus, even the “not-so-new” new strain, is not really that hard to beat by practicing a few basic principles, but it’s getting the football elitists and those below them who follow their every step and word to buy into those principles and want to beat the virus that becomes the hard part…as this virus is sneaky and quite clever. It is always adapting and improving its defenses.
Every four years the virus develops into a new strain and rapidly spreads from one infected person to other susceptible individuals. This ability of the virus to adapt makes it difficult, if not impossible for football coaches or fans to do anything to prevent the spread of the disease. Yet, if we are aware of its existence and how it spreads then there are a few fundamental actions that can be taken to avoid the virus, regardless of how much it adapts and changes.
As we go about our lives and careers in this beautiful game, we form all sorts of beliefs and opinions about it, which sport psychologists divide into two types. The first kind, “instrumental beliefs,” are ideas that can directly help us accomplish our goals. For instance, I believe that if a footballer swings their leg and strikes a ball then that ball will move forward with force. These kinds of beliefs tend to be directly testable: if I rely on them and they fail, I’ll have to revise my understanding.
The other kind of belief, the “philosophical” kind, is not so easily tested. These are ideas that we hold not because they are demonstrably true, but because of the emotional benefits of holding onto them: When I say that I’m a die-hard supporter of the United States Men’s National Team and will be until the day I die, or that the US Men’s National Team will be much better prepared for the World Cup when they get Landon Donovan and Stuart Holden back, I can’t really offer any evidence supporting these ideas, but that’s OK. They’re worth believing because they fulfill my emotional needs.
We get into trouble when we confuse the two types and start holding instrumental beliefs for emotional reasons.
Magical Thinking
What kind of emotion tends to lead us astray? Well, one of the most powerful is the need to feel in control. Countless psychological experiments have shown that helplessness in the face of confusion or insecurity is intensely stressful. Hence the enormous appeal of “magical thinking” – the belief that one’s thoughts and private gestures by themselves can influence the game of football around them. If you’ve ever put on a lucky shirt or jersey because you thought it would help your favorite team or club win, leaned sideways with a free-kick to help it bend right inside the post, or felt as if your team were more likely to win because your favorite player’s jersey number had some special significance with the date the match was being played or something of the sort, then you’ve succumbed to the delusion of “magical thinking.”
This kind of delusion isn’t particularly damaging in itself. No one’s going to mind too much if you wear a ratty old Claudio Reyna vintage jersey to Buffalo Wild Wings for the US Men’s next World Cup Qualifier. Nor are you going to be harmed by the hundreds of other daily delusions we swaddle ourselves in as football fanatics: how wonderful that ball was played, how well-defended those set-pieces were. However, when you start relying on emotionally motivated beliefs to make decisions with real consequences, you’re treading in dangerous territory.
Behind the Smile
Allow me to reminisce for a second back to my early days of coaching and relate an experience that explains the danger of being drawn into the delusion of ‘magical thinking.’
When I first met “Bob,” his reputation had preceded him so many players and especially parents had spoken of him as if he could walk on the waters of the game of soccer. He carried an almost palpable aura of glamour. Confident, fit and relaxed, he seemed to laze around the training facility always surrounding himself with what appeared from the outside as a fun-loving bunch of misfits who always seemed to be laughing over their last practical joke or planning the next one. Back then, in the spring of 1997, Bob had already been a successful youth soccer coach for a decade and a half, having gotten his coaching feet wet during the very early history of the modern game in the United States. However, success hadn’t curdled him. He was generous not only with his experience and knowledge – but also, more remarkably, with his time. We spent long-hours in earnest conversation, discussing what it meant to be a good coach. The secret, he said, was to be true to yourself.
I moved away just shy of a year after my initial introduction to “Bob,” yet, I still stayed in contact with him, mostly over the telephone and occasionally in person when we would cross paths at a youth soccer tournament. When I visited him again five years later, his circumstances were much changed. In the intervening years he had fled the club coaching circuit where he had been rooted so stoic for so long. He now spent much of his time holed up inside of his own home, cutting himself off from the outside world as much as possible. By his own account he had been making-up and manipulating his background and coaching resume for years. He confessed that many of the stories that he had told me and other coaches over the past few years were lies. Yet he wore the same smile as he had before, eased back into his chair with the same languor and regaled me in the same penetrating baritone voice. Bob’s world was falling apart, but he was exactly the same charmer as always.
This time, though, being in his presence made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Don’t Be Fooled
You may have come across a coaching colleague, administrator, parent or even a player who, like Bob, eventually came to seem very different than they had at first. Someone whose colorful stories inevitably turn-out to be riddled with lies…emotionally motivated yarns spun as real-life truths with real-life consequences. Someone who believes that they are not subject to anyone’s rules…that they make their own rules to fit their own needs…in their own delusional world where reality is a dangerous concoction of what they want, need and believe.
Besides being delusional, these are also characteristically diagnostic delusional traits of psychopathic behavior. Experts estimate that there are most likely around 3 million people whom exhibit psychopathic delusional behaviors in the United States alone, so the chances you’ve run across someone like this during your involvement in the game of football are good. Yet you may not have realized it. One of the unusual aspects of delusion is that it’s so hard to detect, at least at first. ‘Magical thinkers’ are above all else supremely charming. Winning other people over is their crucial survival strategy. You feel compelled to like them.
Charisma Can Mask Serious Trouble
A recent study conducted by Washington University in St. Louis shed some light on the phenomenon. The researchers recruited 111 student-athlete volunteers and asked them to complete a personality test, then double-checked the resulting assessment by surveying the subject’s teammates and coaches. Then they had the student-athletes come into the lab and be photographed twice: the first time as they appeared on arrival, wearing clothes and hairstyle of their own choosing; and then again wearing identical gray sweatpants and T-shirts with their hair pulled back. They then asked the other test participants to rate the relative attractiveness of the photos.
Dressed and coiffed as they chose, the students with the most delusional personality traits stood out for their good looks, but when restricted to shlumpy clothes they rated no better than average. They concluded that “Magical Thinkers,” then, are chameleons; ever poised to adopt whatever pose will most effectively match their needs, beliefs and win over others.
Ultimately, though, our delusions, no matter how small, will always give themselves away by the trail of chaos they leave behind. Just look at the state of the game in the United States. I remember back in the 1990’s when there was some initiative put in place by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) called “Project 2010.” That was “our” plan to develop the US Men’s National Team Program to the level to be able to legitimately “contend” for a World Cup Championship by the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Notice that I didn’t say “win” the World Cup, but only be a “legitimate contender.” However, we all know how that turned-out, don’t we?
…squeaked out of the weakest group due to some last-second heroics and then were athletically manhandled by a middle-of-the-road Ghana team in the first-stage of the knock-out rounds…
Have we forgotten about that and already forgiven our disastrous failure to even come close to achieving our own initiative that was laid-out over a decade earlier?...or are we so delusional in what we want, need, believe, have to feel, etc… that it becomes not a matter of ‘forgive and forget,’ but rather a case of simply ‘forget?’ Because the true agenda of delusion is exploitation, the warm glow of its initial charm never lasts for long. Broken promises and hurtful lies lay strewn behind like rubble behind a tank. Bridges are burned, supporters are turned into critics and the delusional personalities march onward behind a smile and an outstretched hand with the consoling touch of approval that mediocrity is just fine and acceptable…all the while ready to conquer anew.
How to TRY and Prevent and TRY and Treat a Delusional-Virus Infection
The Delusional-Virus is a simple strand of Ignorance contained in a microscopic hexagon-shaped capsule filled with Arrogance. Under a powerful microscope the virus looks very much like a psychopath or a prolific liar.
If exposed to it, the virus takes over cells in the brain; turning them into naïve’, head-nodding, follower producing factories.
This disrupts the normal ability of the football mind to absorb visual, audial and psychological cues from the game.
This malabsorption in turn leads to a severe misperception of what is exactly happening.
Whenever an infected person tries to educate another or passes on their thoughts or beliefs about some aspect of the game; sometimes described as coaching or development, their delusional-skewed thoughts are spewed into the surrounding environment. It only takes one of these thoughts to make another person delusional.
The Delusional-Virus moves rapidly through teams, programs, clubs, coaching staffs and entire fan bases causing an epidemic, sometimes called the “mediocrity flu” because it spreads like the flu.
In most football people, the illness lasts for one to three years if caught and treated properly. Even after feeling better, however, an infected football person may still relapse back into a delusional state, all dependent upon whom or what they allow to serve as outside stimuli.
The Delusional-Virus and similar causes of mediocrity can be beat by following these simple principles:
First, wash your hands of those around you who are infected. According to the CFDCP, removing yourself from the influence of those whom have helped shape your way of thinking and your beliefs which in turn has made you delusional to the reality of what is - is the single most effective way to allow yourself to refocus and be able to see the whole picture clearly.
Interesting, if not disturbing, is the fact that the Delusional-Virus is not killed by typical Coaching Education programs, coaching seminars or coaching clinics, as these all just seem to regurgitate the same information over and over again that sound good in theory, but yet never seems to be manifested in the actual play of any of the United States National Squads (men or women). Completely scrubbing the entire curriculum and philosophy down to nothing and then rebuilding it back up based upon what our “realistic” abilities and capabilities are is the best way to get this delusional garbage off our hands. Obviously, making changes to what we already have in place doesn’t work. We’ve been there already and tried that already and…well…nothing! Any halfway intelligent business executive will tell you that if that’s the case, then your only next step is to strip it all down to its bare bones and rebuild.
Second, eliminating all potentially contaminating influences like the press, other coaches, fans, pundits, and the internet is the primary way to reduce the number of potentially infectious delusional influences that a person can be exposed to.
Third, relative isolation of an infected person is important. Infected individuals should stay at home and avoid stimuli that can affect their perception of the game.
Fourth, if prevention fails, re-education becomes the most important part of treatment for the Delusional-Virus.
Serious damage and even extreme catastrophic failure, is usually related to relying too much on decisions being made by those infected with the Delusional-Virus.
As an adamant supporter of not just football in general, but more specifically, football in the United States, I wish I could wrap this up by giving you the secret for avoiding delusion, but it’s not easy. The whole problem with delusion is that we don’t want to escape from its clutches. Even I don’t.
I mean, look at us: (not taking into consideration any religious beliefs) we’re suspended on a tiny dot in the middle of the vastness of empty space, doomed to suffer and die and never knowing the reason why. If we woke up every morning and stared reality in the face, we’d slit our wrists. Maybe even literally. Psychologists have long known that depressed people are less delusional because of how accurate their perceptive of their own flaws actually are; a phenomenon called “depressive realism.” So, all I can say is enjoy your delusions while you can. Let’s just hope that they don’t wreak too much havoc along the way.
I guess, in closing, I can attempt to try and sum it all up like this: Cramer was once asked, “When will we know that the US is ready to take on the world at football?” His answer was short and concise, but arguably one of the most poignant and powerful quotes ever made in relation to football in America. “When you throw a ball to a young child and he kicks it instead of catches it.”
Forum: Coaching Forum