Biography of Pele - The King of Football

By Niv Orlian

For us younger folks, Brazil soccer is great because that’s how it’s meant to be…we take that as a natural order of things, having grown up with the Brazilian soccer team’s successes in the World Cups of the 1990s.

But the myth of Brazilian soccer was born a lot earlier, in times when soccer started to become a worldwide “plague” and there are a lot of people who attribute this internalization of soccer to the Brazilian team of the 50s, a team that was lead to success by one of the most preeminent figures in sports, the famous soccer player Pele.

Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele climbed a steep mountain from living his youth in a poor Brazilian family, to becoming one of the most beloved figures in the modern history of sports. His father was a footballer himself, playing for Fluminense in the Brazilian league and it was only natural that young Pele would follow his father’s footsteps in the game.

He wasn’t always known as Pele though. Rumor has it that this nickname was given to him in primary school, as he kept misspelling the name of one of his favorite players at that time, Vasco Da Gama’s goalkeeper Bile.

His schoolmates gave him this new nickname and mostly made fun of him, so he obviously disliked it; so much that he punched the fellow classmate that coined the nicknamed. However, in time, he gradually became used to it and even started liking it and it wasn’t long before everyone knew the soccer wonderkid as Pele.

Living in poverty, he couldn’t afford soccer equipment, nor a soccer ball. He shined shoes for an extra coin that would help him and his friends stitch up a newspaper-filled sock to use as a football. He formed a team with his neighbors from the Sete de Setembro street and even participated in a youth tournament, where the team earned the nickname “the shoeless ones” because none of the kids could afford to waste their walking shoes (if any) on playing soccer.

A few years later, each member of the team worked hard for the extra money to get a proper pair of shoes and renamed their team to Ameriquinha. Participating in numerous youth tournaments with Ameriquinha, Pele made a name for himself at a tender age for his prowess in front of goal, becoming top scorer in almost all of these tournaments.

At the tender age of 15, he caught the eyes of one of the biggest teams in Brazil, FC Santos, who offered him a contract and by 16 he was already a member of the senior squad. He spent almost his entire career at Santos, since European transfers weren’t that popular back, although the final 2 years of his career were spent at New York Cosmos, before Pele finally hanged his boots.

Pele made his debut in the Brazilian soccer team in the same year he debuted at Santos’ senior squad, when he was just 16 years old. Amazingly, he was taken on to the 1958 World Cup squad, at age 17, becoming the youngest player in the competition. He even scored a crucial goal in the quarterfinals against Wales, a goal which took Brazil past that stage and into the semis.

But Pele was saving the best for the final: meeting Sweden, he scored a magnificent goal, lobbing the ball past a defender and volleying it into the net, eventually winning the final for Brazil. After the match ended, the effort and the joy bundled up and the 17-year old Pele couldn’t take it, passing out on the field and needing medical attention.

As a soccer player, Pele attended 3 more World Cups, between 1962 and 1970, winning the first and latter. He was the first player ever to score in 4 different World Cups and in 1970 he achieved a unique performance that boosted him to the heights of international soccer: he scored 1,000 official goals for club and country.

Although many dispute this record or try to bring it down, saying that soccer wasn’t as defensive or tactical back than as it is today (which is partially true), his merit of being a major stand pole on the international soccer stage between the mid 50s all the way to the late 70s should not be undermined. Named best soccer player in the World and athlete of the 20th century, Pele now acts as an ambassador for soccer and fair play.

Niv Orlian is the author and the owner of a Soccer Fans website that provides information on various topics related to soccer such as the history of soccer, soccer rules, famous soccer players, soccer fundamentals, soccer nutrition and soccer conditioning.

Why Are College Football Authorities Against Playoffs?

By Nishan Wilde

As an avid college football fan, I have been wanting to address this issue for a while now. My question is this - why is there no post-season playoff in college football? There has been much speculation over the past few years that points to the eventual implementation of a playoff, but so far nothing has come to fruition. With so many reasons for a playoff, I simply can’t fathom why college football authorities are so against playoffs. What reasons you ask? Well, here are just a few:

1. Every other sport in America does it. Why do you think that is? Because it makes sense! What playoffs provide that the current bowl-game program does not is a clear-cut winner. There is never any debate as to who deserves the title unlike in the BCS bowl series.

2. Sometimes the polls disagree over who should be in the title game. Currently, three polls are used to determine the championship match-up - the AP poll, the BCS poll and the Coaches poll. In the past, these polls have disagreed about rankings. If these supposed flawless, algorithm-run super computers can’t decide on the top two teams, how are we supposed to know?

3. Scheduling - There are only 11 or 12 regular season games for each team during the college football season. This means that some of the best teams in the country simply don’t have enough room in their schedule to play other great teams. If they don’t ever play each other (like they would in a playoff), then there is no way to know who is the best aside from mere speculation.

4. Every year some team or another gets left out of the title race because of the limited number of teams (2) vying for the No. 1 spot. Last year, Boise State went 13-0, but were snubbed for a chance at the championship. Now, were they as good as Ohio State or Florida? Maybe, maybe not. But we can’t know for sure. This is just one more reason why there should be a playoff - so teams with perfect records can square off against each other in order to find out who is really the best.

5. Last but not least, let’s forget about being fair and giving all the deserving teams a shot at the championship. Why should there be a playoff? Because it would be the most exciting event of the year, that’s why. Just think about the matchups - USC vs. Oklahoma, LSU vs. Wisconsin, Florida vs. West Virginia, and Texas vs. Michigan. Who wouldn’t want to watch? I am on the verge of drooling just thinking about it.

To sum up, without a playoff we can never really know who is the best team in college football.
We can know who is the better of two good teams, chosen by computers to compete in the championship game. But we can never know who is the outright best in the entire country.

On the other hand, there have been certain arguments against a playoff in the past. But as I see it, these arguments do not hold water anymore. First, it used to be true that the NCAA didn’t want the season to go past January 1st. But seeing as how the bowl games go well into the first week of January, that argument can be thrown out the window. Second, college football authorities are worried that an extension of the season to accommodate a playoff would make the season too long, subjecting the players to an overly rough season. But even in a playoff system, only 4 teams would play more games than they do now. Furthermore, half of those would play only 1 more game. Come on!!! College football players, especially the ones who play for the best teams in the nation, can handle an extra game or two.

And here’s the kicker - more games = more money.

I just don’t see a downside. Implementing a playoff structure to college football would bring in more money for those involved and more attention to the game as a whole. Conversely, the changes (# of games and length of season) would hardly be noticeable. I think that college football does, in fact, have a playoff in the future. However, the powers that be need to hurry up and do it already. There are so many reasons for a playoff and none against it.

Nishan Wilde is VP of Sales at RobbinsSports.com, an online resource for Gym Bags and Portable Scoreboards

Why Youth Football Players Quit and How to Avoid it

By Dave Cisar

I was driving with my wife and family on Sunday discussing with my her some of the conversations I had with youth football coaches over the phone this week. In many ways she is much smarter than me and looks at things through perspectives I rarely consider. She astutely recognized that youth football players have no clue if the scheme they are being taught is fundamentally sound, age appropriate or is being taught correctly. In most cases they look up to their coaches because of the position the coach holds and views him as the expert. In the youth football players mind, if they are failing with the scheme and or technique it is because they are not a very good football player and never will be. But the truth is when they fail, it is often because the scheme makes no sense for the age, practice time, coaching expertise and skill level of the player and team. How would they know?

Something like a zone blocking scheme where the youth player has to read the defensive front, make line calls, double team block the first level, come off the block at the exact right time to then go block a moving linebacker is impossible for 95% of youth linemen to do. The youth football player has no idea or perspective that what the coach is asking him to do is impossible at his age, experience level and with his athleticism. He most likely thinks he is not good enough, never will be good enough, won’t have much success in football and he quits. He becomes part of the 70% of all youth players who NEVER go on to play High School football per a Michigan State study. Most kids are going to determine if they feel they can play the game in their first season or two. If they feel they can’t compete, most often they move on to something else, in todays world there are MANY choices.

In all likelihood if the player is playing on a youth football team using something like a zone blocking scheme, his team is losing most of its games. My research has shown teams that consistently lose also have significantly higher drop rates than those teams that are competitive.
Add up the two and you have a recipe for lots of kids not going on to play “at the next level”, the supposed goal of many of the guys using this type of scheme.

Help your youth football players stick with the game by wisely coaching the game. Pick schemes that allow your players to have some success even if they aren’t great athletes. Heck, pick schemes that don’t require great athletes so your teams can succeed and even thrive. Zone blocking and spread offenses are some of the main culprits of getting kids to quit in youth football. If a player can’t taste some individual success and some team success, in most likelihood he won’t be playing the game very long. If this is your team, as a youth football coach you will have failed in performing one of your most important jobs, retaining kids and getting them to fall in love with the game of football.

Put the kids in schemes that anyone can do, like great angle down blocks, wedge blocks, double teams and with a simple and easily to teach blocking rule. Don’t use complex blocking rules that require kids to recognize fronts, make line calls and block players they have no chance of making a block on. Doing so will only frustrate the kids and you and lead to unnecessary turnover on your team. You will have failed in what I consider your main duty.

Everything we suggest in the books and DVDs is time tested and has been successful with a wide variety of youth football teams. Some teams had players, many had very few, some teams had experienced coaches and many had rookie coaches. That is one of the main reasons I coached 5 different teams in the last 6 seasons in different leagues, with 4 different coaching staffs. It didn't matter, it worked with them all.

For 150 free youth football coaching tips please stop here: Youth Football Plays
Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive and well organized. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book “Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan” was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach, Dave has developed a detailed systematic approach to developing youth players and teams. His personal teams to using this system to date have won 97% of their games in 5 Different Leagues. His web site is: Football Plays

Practice Does Not Make Perfect in Youth Football, More Effective Practice Methods

By Dave Cisar

While there are many great youth football coaches out there, I see some very poor ones as well. The poor ones do not hold the players accountable to a perfect standard in football practice on something as basic as a football stance or formation alignment, yet they seem to be frustrated and amazed when their kids are in poor stances or alignments during games.

The old adage “Practice Makes Perfect” is baloney; you can practice the wrong technique or with no technique 6 days a week 3 hours a day and never get any better. The correct adage should be; ”Perfect Practice Makes Perfect”. This is one of the facts revealed in the 2 year study I did of youth football programs, there WAS NO CORRELATION TO AMOUNT OF PRACTICE TIME AND WINS. Some of the worst teams I studied practiced more than the great teams I studied. Why? Practice Priorities, Technique and Holding the kids responsible to a perfect standard.

Some things EVERY youth football player should be held accountable to:

Listening with complete focus when asked to do so
Attending practice and games
Hustling when on the field at all times
Respect for themselves, the coaches, their team mates, officials and opponents
Proper care of football equipment issued
Good sportsmanship
Obedience to the coaches on field requests
Perfect StancePerfect Pre-Snap Alignment
Correct identification of responsibilities on all offensive and defensive snaps for their particular position
Correct first step for their position on all offensive and defensive snaps
Perfect Crab Block
Perfect fit on form tackle
Perfect fit on base block
Ball Fakes must be carried out 20 yards downfield
Correct ball security (Fumbling is OK as long as they are holding the ball correctly)
Knowledge of what special of what special teams, offense and defensive teams they are onKnowing the play naming conventions

It is extremely important to make sure this accountability is communicated and enforced day 1.
If you try and enforce a perfect standard once a lower standard has been allowed (which is an endorsement of the lower standard in the kids minds), the battle will have already been lost.

Youth football players and people for that matter will only perform to the level you expect or hold them accountable to. If you have low or no standards, low performance is the result you will get every time.

An example: One of my pet peeves is the running back stance in my offense, it is very specific and very easy for anyone to do. It is a key reason why my offense works and is so deceptive and there are just a handful of coaching points to it. Yet every year I get film of teams with kids not getting down correctly into that stance.

In my own practices, if we see our backs not in the correct stance we just have him go to the end of the line, he does not get the ball on that practice rep. If we are running our football plays out on air and I catch one of our backs not in the correct stance, I call his name out, say “Bad stance” and shout the name of another back to take his place in the rep. We never snap the ball if any of the backs are in a bad stance. In games we may make mistakes, but we will always be in good stances and in perfect alignment. You can do the same if you hold your players accountable.

Hold players accountable to things they can choose to do or choose not to do. Then praise and reward positive choices and provide them incentives or disincentives to make the right choices.
Perfection for many if not most coaching points are choices that require little to no athleticism on the part of your players. Success in youth football is really a choice for most youth football players and teams.

For 150 free youth football coaching tips please stop here:
Football Plays
Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive and well organized. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book “Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan” was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach, Dave has developed a detailed systematic approach to developing youth players and teams. His personal teams to using this system to date have won 97% of their games in 5 Different Leagues.His web site is: Football Plays