PART III

Commissioner, WUSA

Head Coach ’96 Olympic Gold Medalist; ’99 World Champions

In Part I, we discussed how watching a WUSA game or WNT game is a key ingredient to a player’s development.  When a player, team or coach attends a game to study top players and how she handles her position, you cannot help but learn.  Also, by seeing a game live you see the “big picture” of how a team organizes defensively and on attack.  You see the intensity, the speed of play and I guarantee the impact of seeing a game live will enhance whatever you are doing while training with your team or on your own.

In Part II, we took a look at the technical and tactical aspects of what we do well and where we need to improve as a soccer playing country.  We looked at defensive and offensive considerations.

In Part III, we will look at the psychological aspects of the American female soccer player and also take a broad look at player selection.

One of the key strengths of the female soccer player in America is their psychological dimension or mental strength.  Do not misunderstand; there are players that have wonderful techniques of the game but not the heart to match.  These players generally have success to a certain level and then can’t seem to break through beyond that point.  Most of these type of players look outward to place blame instead of looking inward at their disowned shortcomings.  For athletes such as I am describing, the phase “talent is not enough” could not be more truthful. Fortunately, we are also developing a strong willed, determined, assertive, combative and competitive female athlete that will do what it takes to find ways to sin. 

My Gold Medal Championship Team in 1996 and, of course, the World Cup Champion Team of 1999 exemplified this type of athlete.  The 1999 Champions had to deal with the pressure of playing at home, creating the biggest and most successful women’s sporting event in history, needing to win, game after game to keep the event’s potential alive and with the future WUSA in the balance (if the USA did not win the World Cup, creating professional women’s soccer may never have moved beyond the dream phase); they showed how strong and important their psychological dimension was.

The Final in the Rose Bowl itself was a test of wills.  The USA played against clearly their equal in every aspect…China.  There was virtually little between them on the field so it was going to come down to the slightest of margin on who would take home the World Cup Trophy.  Kristine Lilly’s perfect fundamental save off the line in overtime was part of that.  Briana’s save in the penalty kick shoot-out was another example and the greatest example was 5 USA players taking their penalty kicks and everyone making it.  That is almost unheard of with that type of pressure…but not for this team.

As we develop players and young players look at these players, their role models, we must always point out and, indeed, celebrate what make the USA Women champions over time.  It was their psychological dimension…there is no doubt in my mind.

Coaches, parents and players themselves can nurture this type of championship mental skills.  Everything from training away from the team (positive self-responsibility); to staying positive and upbeat even when traveling all night long in a foreign country (positive self-discipline); to finding a way to win against all odds (positive self-motivation) can be identified, worked on, acknowledged and celebrated.

My two toughest players…would not back down from any physical challenge were Michelle Akers (5’10”, 150 lbs) and Tiffany Roberts (5’3” 110 lbs).  Toughness is based on the size of your heart not physical size!

We have identified one of the key ingredients that help separate American female soccer from much of the rest of the world, we must never lose that edge!

American female soccer has also been successful because of the level of our players’ athleticism.  This is something we must maintain because it again gives us an edge on most teams in the world.  The implications here are that our coaches making selection decisions on players keep this in mind.  That does not mean there is not a place on a team for an excellent skilled soccer player that isn’t in the top 10 percent athletically.  Building a team is like putting together a puzzle.  It takes all kinds of shapes, sizes and abilities to make that puzzle whole.  But, clearly, we need to recognize the exceptional athlete and try to develop her into an exceptional soccer player.  Most of the 1996 and 1999 team had extraordinary athleticism.  Players like Milbrett, Pearce, Whalen, and MacMillan were very fast.  Other players such as Roberts, Hamm, Lilly, Fawcett and Sobrero had excellent speed and agility.  All the USA players were very fit led by Captains Overbeck and Foudy.  Some players were very versatile like Fair and Chastain.  We also had great strength in players like Akers, Fotopoulos and Parlow.  These three along with Venturini were great headers of the ball.   Are you seeing the picture, it’s a puzzle of many different strengths and qualities being molded together to create something very, very special.

Remember, we are not a soccer culture, our players are not usually as soccer savvy as other soccer playing countries, the things that make the difference for the USA are special athletes that have a special psychological dimension.

Each player must know what his or her strengths and weaknesses are.  Most do, but the next important thing is to keep improving your strengths, even at the expense of diminishing one’s weakness.  Don’t misunderstand me; if you have not developed the fundamental techniques of soccer or are not fit, those types of weaknesses will bring you down.  However, in my opinion, its more important to show something very special in your game.  When I build a team, I look for special qualities in players.  Qualities like leadership, technique, speed or overall athleticism, heading presence or goal scoring ability.  When I can identify players with at least one special quality, I can start to mold the team build on the wonderful strengths of each player.  Players must keep their special quality, special.  If you neglect to purely train on weaknesses it becomes average as compared to other players.  In this scenario, you may have also neutralized your potential to make a team at the next level.

Mental skills and athleticism are on display at every WUSA game…one only has to pay attention and you will see the player who was fouled and is angry either lose her cool and retaliate, get a red or yellow card or a player display discipline and play on…but play on with more resolve than ever with a competitive anger. 

In the 1996 Olympics, we were not only Gold Medallists but also the USA also won the FIFA Fair Play Award.  We, of course, want to play the game fairly, but I was more concerned to have my team not take silly yellow cards that would come back to haunt us with possible suspension during the games in the medal round.  We also were the least carded team in the 1999 World Cup although China won the Fair Play Award.  Being the least carded teams in those events is about discipline, self-control and keeping the team vision as one’s guiding light.

It has been fun to write about my former teams and I hope these series of articles discussing player development; the strengths of the USA female player and some of our shortcomings will serve to assist you (player or coach) with your development action plan.

 Also, I hope we convinced all that attending a WUSA game might be the key ingredient in your player development plan this year!

Good luck with your soccer.  Remember…Play hard, play far, play to win and HAVE FUN!

Tony DiCicco