I’m sure many of you have seen the Joga Benito clips and the one I want to talk about today is the one with Ronaldinho featured as a young child playing for Gremio in Porto Alegre. This happens to be my favourite of all the Joga Benito clips that Nike have pulled out. When you watch the video, Manchester United great, Eric Cantona says:
Now, something I’ve found to remind you of how it should be. When you were a kid it was easy, you were not afraid to try… to dare. You do it just because you liked it. So my advice to you is, never grow up my friends.
I actually see some good advice in Cantona’s little blurb. As you watch Ronaldinho obliterate the entire team (which is of course staged, but I actually don’t think it is impossible to do) the words of Cantona seem to ring into my ears, especially when the younger Ronaldinho tried all these unorthodox things on the football court. This brings me to the point of this post.
Never Be Afraid To Try Anything
Given the right place and the right time of course. Let’s take me for example. The other day at football training, I received a ball from a team mate who send it behind my feet and I needed to get it back. Now it would’ve been easy for me to just stop, turn around and stick my leg out and control with the inside of my foot. But no, I wanted to try something. So while looking up to maintain the illusion that I had nothing to do with the ball, I didn’t turn around and stuck my foot out behind me, visualising the ball would flick forward if it hit the front of the boot. Sure enough it hit the boot and had the desired effect, but the power on the pass was too high so the ball went in front of me and out of my control. If that were a game, the thought of trying that wouldn’t have gone through my mind unless I practised it vigorously.
What Can We Learn Here
Firstly, it worked to an extent and that is something that I could work on in my own time and incorporate it into my game if I wanted. Secondly, I tried this at the right place and the right time. Training is predominately the best place to try out something you usually wouldn’t do in a real game. So take young Ronaldinho as an example. Don’t ever be afraid to try anything that you think will help out a certain situation you might be in. And don’t pay any attention to those who say “What do you think you’re doing?”. You just tell them, it’s better than trying that during a game isn’t it? It keeps them quiet everytime for me 
