Monthly Newsletter - October 2024
Hello ballers,
Welcome to the October edition of my monthly newsletter. If you missed any of the previous months, you can check them out here: https://strivefootballacademy.com/blog
The season is in full flow and we’re getting to my favourite time of year for football!
Football Camps
We had another incredible football camp at Ridgeway Academy and are already looking forward to the next one. Christmas is always tough to fit one in but we are looking at doing at least a few day camps around New Years.
All details, as always, can be found at the link below.
https://strivefootballacademy.com/football-camps
What’s going on?
Everything Strive is going well, we’re in full flow with the one to ones and the camps are so much fun to run alongside the private sessions. The next step is to hopefully add some group sessions during term-time to supplement team and/or one to one sessions - if you’re interested in this, let me know!
The Premier League is super exciting this year as it’s one of those seasons where anyone can beat anyone, which is great for the neutrals. Arne Slot continues to impress at Liverpool - they’re now 1st of the Champions League table and Premier League! Pep Guardiola has lost 3 consecutive games for the first time while at Man City, is this the start of his decline? Spurs look impressive for a couple of games and then abysmal the next and Man Utd… well, they’re being Man Utd. They have taken the first step to try and rebuild their club by sacking Eric Ten Haag - a bold move considering they extended his contract just a few months ago! Arsenal also seem a little lacklustre - it seems they aren’t quite sure on their style of play any more. They are playing longer balls more often and have become a lot more reliant on set piece goals… Jamie Carragher did a piece regarding this on MNF - I’ll link it below.
Real Madrid seem to be in a bit of a pickle with their ‘Super Team’ having lost to Barca’s ‘kids’ last week and to AC Milan last night in the Champions League. This is a great example of how important balance is in football - you can’t just throw the best 11 players together and expect it to work. Of course, on paper, Mbappe is better than Rodrygo but the energy and off ball work that Rodrygo brings allows Vinicious Jr, Bellingham and co to shine - take him out and replace him with arguably the best attacking player in the world (Mbappe) and that balance shifts. I always find it fascinating watching teams like this try to refind that balance.
Ask me a question
This months question from George:
Does playing Futsal improve my Football game?
If I had to answer in a word: yes. However, I think it’s important to separate the two… if you play Futsal on a Monday and go to play Football on a Tuesday expecting it to be the same game, I don’t think the results will be great. Futsal is great for improving short, sharp movements and ball control - in a similar way to how I think that playing 5 a side can improve your 11 a side performance. However, there are also so many differences between Futsal and Football - the weight of the ball, the surface, the size of pitch, the number of players, the size of goal and so many more.
There is a reason that Premier League players don’t play Futsal anymore - however, I bet a high percentage of them played futsal/five a side growing up… it allows you to get a lot more touches per minute and work on 1v1 situations more often.
At the end of the day, if you enjoy Futsal - play it!
Have a question for me? I’d love to hear it!
Worth a watch
Jamie Carragher analysing how arsenal have changed their style of play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpazP3o92uI
Madrid are well beaten by Barcelona’s young team: