Welcome to Joga11, the football program that puts you in charge of your own development. 

 'Do you dream of playing with the surface of the Camp Nou underfoot, of lifting the Absa Premiership trophy, or firing a game winner into the net on a glorious night in the Allianz?

 If it is your ambition to be a footballer in one of the best leagues in the world, then I'll bet that you are already working hard, training hour upon hour, to achieve this goal.

 Hard work is the first step towards excellence. If you were to take two players from exactly the same backgrounds, the better player will always be the one who trains the hardest, rather than the one who is thought to have natural talent.

 The belief in natural 'talent' is the most enduring explanation for excellence in sport, despite the fact that there have been many studies taken that prove that even if there is such a thing as talent, the effects are negligible.

 In 'Bounce', Matthew Syed explains how skill at any complex activity has a direct correlation to the number of hours spent practicing, as opposed being born with the ability.

 Syed states that the true factors that contribute towards success are purposeful practice, and superior systems.

This is true, but only half the story.

 There are tons of skillful, hardworking players that never realize their dreams, even in countries like Spain and Holland where the youth system is second to none. Obviously, there are deeper factors at work, that dictate whether you will even get that chance to be in the kind of system that will eventually see your goals become reality.

 The key to success is luck, if you are not lucky you will not be born into the ideal circumstances for football.

 A good example is Lionel Messi. If you look at his early life, you will see that his circumstances were ideal for a footballer. His father was a coach, giving him a good early start. He was the youngest boy in his family and had two older brothers as well as several other relatives that he played football with and against constantly as a young boy, giving him the advantage of learning the skills needed to play against boys much older and bigger than himself. Messi also lived close to a first division club, Newell's Old Boys, where he played in the youth teams.

 Messi's initial luck manifested itself in his circumstances, and gave him the opportunities in life to climb to the top. Working hard all the way was necessary, but circumstances and opportunities made his work effective.

 We will not achieve our goals in football if we don't have the right opportunities, and very few of us have the luck necessary to get us through our development to the highest level. But I'm not writing this to destroy your dreams. Instead I want to show you that there is a way to break these barriers.

 To make your goals a reality, you need to be proactive, which means that you take charge, put yourself in the driver's seat of your own development and ensure that you get closer to success every day, no matter what difficulties you face.

 To do this you need a personal development plan. Considering that no two players are alike, your plan will be individually tailored to your skills and weaknesses in the same way that nobody goes to the doctor to get the same script as the patient that went before.

 This is where Joga11 comes in. We give you the tools you need to assess yourself and know where you stand in all aspects of the game. Using this knowledge you can craft a personal development programme that will unlock opportunities and create the 'luck' that will kickstart you on the path to meeting your ambitions. As we grow with your help and support, we will address other issues, especially giving you a chance to train and play with like-minded players.

 We are currently working on a comprehensive assessment, which will allow you to discern what your strengths and weaknesses are, giving you the first step towards realizing those dreams that started all your hard work. This 'Joga11 assessment' will be available on our website as soon as both the site and the assessment have been completed.

 Joga11, development despite circumstance.

Finding Brazilian Soccer Schools

FINDING BRAZILIAN SOCCER SCHOOLS...

The one thing harder than finding football shirts in South Africa is finding good football training.
This is the tale of how we found the latter. This is what we wrote for the BSS KMFEzine.

The Cordeiro family’s journey to meeting Simon Clifford on his visit to South Africa began about four years ago, with their boys wanting to learn to play attractive possession football. So Dad, Christopher, began researching soccer coaching and training systems.

When talking to parents who had kids at soccer clubs or whose kids played soccer at school he found that a lot of the time was taken up by fitness training of the "run around the perimeter of the field five times" type and then playing a match.

They were told that kids didn’t like drills and would rather play a match.

Both at schools and at clubs, the focus seemed to be more on discovering talent than working out what made a talented footballer and training children to be the best footballers they could be.

Neither of these routes seemed to justify the time and effort involved. Also, most schools and clubs only played seasonally. It seemed mad, if you wanted to develop as a player, to train for only a few months a year. It would be like a musician who only practiced their scales for half a year and then expected to be world-class.

They realized that they would have to follow a Do-it-yourself route.  Christopher explains, "We began scouring bookshops, and bought every coaching manual we could. While the manuals were better than what we were seeing in local schools and clubs, they didn’t seem to have an integrated system of coaching, and they also neglected the small skills, the building blocks that players need to know and practice before they go on to the more complex drills."

"One evening while researching on the Internet, I came across a reference to Simon Clifford and the revolution that he was leading in soccer training and coaching.  I downloaded a lot of information from the Brazilian Soccer Schools website and gave it to the boys to read."

Simon soon became one of the boy’s heroes. They had not only found the kind of football that they wanted to play, but someone who was training players of all ability levels, to play in a fast-paced and attractive style.

Christopher continues "Unfortunately we couldn’t find anyone who was doing Futebol de salão in South Africa and so we realised that it was the D-I-Y route again."

"Thankfully we found that Simon had made two DVDs, and with a bit of searching, we were able to find a supplier of a ball that we thought was a Futebol de salão ball. On meeting Simon we learnt to our dismay that these balls weren’t 100% Futebol de salão balls, but they served their purpose."

When the balls and DVDs arrived Gregory and Xavier set up their own training programme and have been practicing with them every day for the last two years.

They however lacked the dedicated coaching that they would have liked to access, and they also wanted to find a group of players alongside whom they could develop their skills.

Gregory takes the story further "A few weeks ago I was reading the local sports section of the Saturday paper, and came across an article on the launch of the Brazilian Soccer Schools in SA. I showed it to my Dad and asked him to call when he had a chance."

"The article just mentioned the opening of the soccer school and so it didn't seem that there was any reason to call immediately."

"When my dad phoned a few days later he spoke to Nick Aresti, who had brought Brazilian Soccer schools to SA. We were then given the big news.  Simon Clifford was in the country, and we could meet him on Friday!  Our whole family was very excited, as we had been fans of Simon and his approach for years."

"We invited our close friend, Prince, to join us and meet Simon, as he had heard about Futebol de salão and the Brazilian Soccer Schools from us and was keen to know more."

"We couldn’t wait for the big day, and when we met Simon we were impressed by his very kind and generous manner. He spent a long time speaking to us, and very kindly signed the soccer balls and DVDs that had been the basis of our training for nearly two years."

Within the week Gregory and Xavier signed up to join the Brazilian Soccer Schools, and both boys are now happily training alongside the growing group of South African soccer players learning to play the Brazilian Soccer Schools way.

Gregory and Xavier want to say a big thank you to Simon and to Nick for bringing BSS to South Africa.

Brazilian Soccer Schools

(This article was originally published in the Brazilian Soccer Schools KMFEzine.)