Although there are some great Champions League games on today, I want to talk about something else. Football (or soccer to some of you) is a great sport. It is fun and enjoyable for me and may others to play. It teaches teamwork, perseverance and many other skills. But to have a good soccer team there are somethings that a team needs.

1. Coach-Although there are good teams with bad coaches, a coach/manager can make a team great. They control who plays and who doesn’t. they control how the team is run and how the team trains. In most teams they are the head and they control everything under them. A bad coach can ruin a team. They can ruin moral, ruin chemistry and not play the right people at the right time. they may not even run practices correctly which can also damage a team. The first step to building a great team is having a great coach.

2. Players-Although having players with motivation and character is important, what a team really needs is players with talent. You cannot compete with a team that has 10 times the amount of talent you have, trust me I have tried. A team with no talent is not a team, it is a group of people looking to have fun. To be competitive you must have players who are invested in winning, can take advice and build with it, and strive to win. Without that a soccer team will fail.

3. Support-This can come from many places but every team needs it. At a school it would come from students and faculty with help from the athletic department. At a professional team it would come from having a large fan base with support from the people with the check book. In today’s world of soccer, you have to invest a lot of time and money if you want to be succesful. If you are not interested in that, get of the field.