Why do you watch professional cycling?

morstar

mike6 wrote:

but sadly I don't have anywhere near the talent needed, and never did. I had the determination and the mindset, but not the natural ability.No amount of coaching would have made a difference.

I played for the local YMCA, as a boy and a pub team as an adult but that was my level, I simply did not have the natural talent needed to become a pro player. That is a gift you are born with, or not in my case.

But this is exactly the same as aerobic capabilities. No amount of work is going to make me into a Wiggins. Most of us on here can relate to exactly what you're saying regardless of chosen sport. We can work tirelessly at certain aspects but if the natural capability isn't there, it's a bust as far as a pro career goes.

argyllflyer

A skillful footballer needs very good co-ordination and balance (as well as the brain to invent scenarios that can apply flair to a match situation). Practice can improve this but if someone completely lacks either of these they will struggle to be any good at the technical side of the sport, even at a minor kickabout recreational level. Personally, I'm a better player at mid 30s than I was at mid 20s and that comes from playing much more than I was then. I was fairly skillful as a teenager in terms of tricks etc but never really played much 11 a side. I have really worked on becoming two-footed which is an addition to my game that has really helped.

On topic, I watch cycling for many reasons. The soap opera aspect is a part of it I suppose, but also it's a sport of intrigue. I enjoy listening to the commentators usually and find it a good way to spend a few hours.

mike6

No tA Doctor wrote:

mike6 wrote:

What they mean is there is an innate ability that you either have, or have not. That is the part that cant be coached. George Bests talent was not coached, his fitness, strength, and positional sense probably were. You can not coach someone to do a mazy dribble past a number of opposing players as he did against Benfica. That is innate.

I love football, I played for hours and hours after school every day, till it got dark. All I wanted to be was a pro footballer, but sadly I don't have anywhere near the talent needed, and never did. I had the determination and the mindset, but not the natural ability.No amount of coaching would have made a difference.

I played for the local YMCA, as a boy and a pub team as an adult but that was my level, I simply did not have the natural talent needed to become a pro player. That is a gift you are born with, or not in my case.

I know what they mean, they're just wrong. It's a mindset that afflicts football coaching in Britain, where kids are told to "get rid of it" or to pass it instead of dribbling. That's why Britain hardly ever produces the "gifted" players that, e.g. Holland seem to be able to find regularly from a far smaller population.

Take any footballing kid and get him practising inside and outside cuts with both feet for an hour a day and guaranteed his dribbling will improve massively inside a couple of weeks. You work on his foot speed, his balance, and how he uses his body to send the wrong signals to the opposition (as simple as dropping a shoulder). Throw in a couple of drag-backs, rollovers and turns and he'll have all the basic equipment to dribble. Far from being innate, it's eminently coachable, and it's basically what almost all young kids want to be doing on the pitch anyway.

You could practice inside and outside cuts and dropping your shoulder till you are blue in the face but it wont help in a game situation. Skills are not executed in isolation, you have an opponent, or more , who wants that ball at least as badly as you do. You have to have the innate ability to use the skills you have in the right place at the right nanosecond without having to think about it. Instinctive play and use of skills are the hallmark of the naturally gifted player, like Best, Giggs, Gazza, Why dont all the other top division players use the same skills, they have all probably learned and practiced them? because it is not instinctive to them and they are afraid they might loose the ball.

Mikey23

Combination of nature, nurture and determination is what makes one succeed at any sport...

I watch pro cycling because I'm a cyclist. I watch it because I love the scenery and am always looking for potential holiday options. I watch it because the Brits are good at it. There is something satisfying to see team sky controlling the peloton and I can get on with something else. I like it because there is always some knowledgeable banter in the frequent boring bits. I watch it because of the occasional exciting bits. I watch it because it's mainly free to air. I watch it because it is an intelligent sport. I watch it because it is NOT football which I have come to loathe and despise with a passion

Having been to a couple of live stages I am even more passionate about it. I watch it because it is encouraging the naoto to get off its collective butt and actually do some exercise

RideOnTime

No tA Doctor wrote:

Joelsim wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

The idea that football skill is some sort of innate natural talent that can't be coached is laughably wrong. The kids that succeed at football - from the hundreds of millions that play - are the ones that spend every waking hour with a ball at their feet, from pretty much the time they can walk. By the time the 14 year old is getting the boot from Sunderland's football academy he will have already played thousands upon thousands of hours of football. If he didn't have some decent coaching along the way then much of it may have been wasted, as he may have just learnt the wrong way of doing things and have to take a lot of steps backwards to unlearn it.

In contrast, your average pro cyclist is probably only getting his first proper bike by the time he's 14.

Can't agree with that at all. Top footballers are born with an innate talent that is then nurtured. It's no different than running. You've either got it or you haven't.

What innate talent is that then?
There are some obvious requirements to be a footballer, not being born without legs helps, for instance. But what else?

Physique: there are a broad range of body types that are successful in football, from the midgets at Barcelona to the giant defenders and goal keepers favoured by British clubs. Or there's this:



Athletic ability: your basic sprint speed and endurance (fairly trainable) suppleness (trainable), balance (trainable).
Coordination: Foot/eye coordination (trainable), reaction time (trainable)
Vision: Judge the flight and bounce of a ball (trainable), judge the movement and shape of the players on the pitch (trainable)
Psychology: Drive and aggression - that's probably the least trainable aspect. Has the kid got the drive to put in the hours to get good?

It's also worth noting that some very technically limited players have had very successful careers. Lee Dixon, famously, couldn't do more than about three keepy-uppys. He excelled in other areas, some of them not strictly within the rules of the game.

Thankfully, most of these things are trainable simply by playing a lot of football, with some technical input. That's why as a kid Dennis Bergkamp went and kicked a ball at a wall for a couple of hours every day, and why as a player he stayed on after training to keep practising.

There's a good interview with him here that touches on some of this: http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... -love-game

Apologies all my examples are Arsenal related...

Unforgiveable.

Daz555

No tA Doctor wrote:

That's why as a kid Dennis Bergkamp went and kicked a ball at a wall for a couple of hours every day, and why as a player he stayed on after training to keep practising.

This single mindedness - nature or nurture? With my limited experience of my own children I'm firmly in the nature camp - it's in the genes.

No tA Doctor wrote:

The idea that football skill is some sort of innate natural talent that can't be coached is laughably wrong. The kids that succeed at football - from the hundreds of millions that play - are the ones that spend every waking hour with a ball at their feet, from pretty much the time they can walk.

Having seen kids from the age of 2 play football I can see there is a lot more there than nurture.

My lad can run - like the wind (for his age of 6) in comparison to his peers. Can he get his foot to meet a football in any way shape or form? Nope. Hopeless - just as I was at that age.

When you teach your kids to catch a ball for the first time, some get it in minutes - literally. Some still can't catch after months. It's in the genes.

Genes are needed for the foundation of any ability - be it cycling, football, writing or mathematics. Practice makes perfect but as the old saying goes - you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

My son is great at maths and terrible at handwriting. He lacks the fine motor skills that some of his peers have - my daughter on the other hand has fantastic dexterity in comparison. He is not great at maths because of practice and does not write like a spider because of the opposite. It is just the way he is. He got numbers from the moment he first met them - it came naturally.

Nurture is vital but nature cannot be ignored.

morstar

Daz555 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

That's why as a kid Dennis Bergkamp went and kicked a ball at a wall for a couple of hours every day, and why as a player he stayed on after training to keep practising.

This single mindedness - nature or nurture? With my limited experience of my own children I'm firmly in the nature camp - it's in the genes.

No tA Doctor wrote:

The idea that football skill is some sort of innate natural talent that can't be coached is laughably wrong. The kids that succeed at football - from the hundreds of millions that play - are the ones that spend every waking hour with a ball at their feet, from pretty much the time they can walk.

Having seen kids from the age of 2 play football I can see there is a lot more there than nurture.

My lad can run - like the wind (for his age of 6) in comparison to his peers. Can he get his foot to meet a football in any way shape or form? Nope. Hopeless - just as I was at that age.

When you teach your kids to catch a ball for the first time, some get it in minutes - literally. Some still can't catch after months. It's in the genes.

Genes are needed for the foundation of any ability - be it cycling, football, writing or mathematics. Practice makes perfect but as the old saying goes - you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

My son is great at maths and terrible at handwriting. He lacks the fine motor skills that some of his peers have. He is not great at maths because of practice and does not write like a spider because of the opposite. It is just the way he is. He got numbers from the moment he first met them - it came naturally.

Nurture is vital but nature cannot be ignored.

I agree completely. But say he wants to study maths at Oxbridge at 18. What will get him there as opposed to an old Poly?
Hard work to be better than your peers. Being elite isn't about absolute ability, it's about relative ability which is what some are missing the point of.
Natural ability may be 90% but that 10% makes all the difference. Be it academic, ball skill or aerobic capacity.

morstar

Daz555 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

That's why as a kid Dennis Bergkamp went and kicked a ball at a wall for a couple of hours every day, and why as a player he stayed on after training to keep practising.

This single mindedness - nature or nurture? With my limited experience of my own children I'm firmly in the nature camp - it's in the genes.

No tA Doctor wrote:

The idea that football skill is some sort of innate natural talent that can't be coached is laughably wrong. The kids that succeed at football - from the hundreds of millions that play - are the ones that spend every waking hour with a ball at their feet, from pretty much the time they can walk.

Having seen kids from the age of 2 play football I can see there is a lot more there than nurture.

My lad can run - like the wind (for his age of 6) in comparison to his peers. Can he get his foot to meet a football in any way shape or form? Nope. Hopeless - just as I was at that age.

When you teach your kids to catch a ball for the first time, some get it in minutes - literally. Some still can't catch after months. It's in the genes.

Genes are needed for the foundation of any ability - be it cycling, football, writing or mathematics. Practice makes perfect but as the old saying goes - you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

My son is great at maths and terrible at handwriting. He lacks the fine motor skills that some of his peers have. He is not great at maths because of practice and does not write like a spider because of the opposite. It is just the way he is. He got numbers from the moment he first met them - it came naturally.

Nurture is vital but nature cannot be ignored.

I agree completely. But say he wants to study maths at Oxbridge at 18. What will get him there as opposed to an old Poly?
Hard work to be better than your peers. Being elite isn't about absolute ability, it's about relative ability which is what some are missing the point of.
Natural ability may be 90% but that 10% makes all the difference. Be it academic, ball skill or aerobic capacity.

morstar

Daz555 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

That's why as a kid Dennis Bergkamp went and kicked a ball at a wall for a couple of hours every day, and why as a player he stayed on after training to keep practising.

This single mindedness - nature or nurture? With my limited experience of my own children I'm firmly in the nature camp - it's in the genes.

No tA Doctor wrote:

The idea that football skill is some sort of innate natural talent that can't be coached is laughably wrong. The kids that succeed at football - from the hundreds of millions that play - are the ones that spend every waking hour with a ball at their feet, from pretty much the time they can walk.

Having seen kids from the age of 2 play football I can see there is a lot more there than nurture.

My lad can run - like the wind (for his age of 6) in comparison to his peers. Can he get his foot to meet a football in any way shape or form? Nope. Hopeless - just as I was at that age.

When you teach your kids to catch a ball for the first time, some get it in minutes - literally. Some still can't catch after months. It's in the genes.

Genes are needed for the foundation of any ability - be it cycling, football, writing or mathematics. Practice makes perfect but as the old saying goes - you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

My son is great at maths and terrible at handwriting. He lacks the fine motor skills that some of his peers have. He is not great at maths because of practice and does not write like a spider because of the opposite. It is just the way he is. He got numbers from the moment he first met them - it came naturally.

Nurture is vital but nature cannot be ignored.

I agree completely. But say he wants to study maths at Oxbridge at 18. What will get him there as opposed to an old Poly?
Hard work to be better than your peers. Being elite isn't about absolute ability, it's about relative ability which is what some are missing the point of.
Natural ability may be 90% but that 10% makes all the difference. Be it academic, ball skill or aerobic capacity.

RideOnTime

80:20

No 70:30

No 60:40

Daz555

Mikey23 wrote:

Combination of nature, nurture and determination is what makes one succeed at any sport...

True. However it's complicated by the fact that determination will itself result from a combination of nature and nurture.

mike6

Bergkamp and Beckham spending hours doing extra training? Of course, they had the mindset to turn a great natural gift into something special. Going the extra mile that makes the 0.5% difference between being very good, and being great. They still had to start off with that massive natural talent, that cant be coached.