Coaching The Unorthodox - Part 6

The Rucksack of Finishes - Mo Salah 24/25:

Goalscorers require endless amount of repeated scenarios to hone their toolbox and create a ‘rucksack of finishes’ - (Rene Meulensteen) so the correct technique can be calmly deployed in any situation, as they would have seen it countless times within practice.

🔥 ‘Get close to the fire without being burnt’ - (Paul McGuinness); This allows him to draw the defender close and use him as a screen to unsight the goalkeeper and as a guide to give the correct shape to the ball to travel into the far corner, without the defender getting too close to make a block/tackle

🥷 Being a ‘silent assassin’ on the right hand side allows him to constantly ‘Get out of the eye line of defenders, hold your position, do not move to strike too early and exploit the element of surprise’ (Conor Washington)

🦁 The analogy of an assassin also aligns with that of a lion, who ‘moves into position and stays hidden, and attacks it’s prey with a short, powerful charge’

🔄 He also uses disguised actions to hide his intentions, such as reverse finishes by opening up his hips to give the illusion of a far corner finish, to then bring his hips across at the very last second to ‘go against the goalkeeper’s flow’

All of his actions have one thing in common; they all demonstrate behaviours of being ‘cunning’, and giving the opposition goalkeeper and defenders as little visible information about his intended output as possible.

‘Being cunning’ by definition is all about the skill of deceit and evasion, which Salah has mastered.