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Everyone can master a skill if you take time to learn it on the training pitch, but there’s some that take much more time and effort to perfect than your 360 roulette.
Excelling in a skill-set can be the difference between winning and losing and at the highest level whether it’s Premier League or European football, it can be the difference between lifting a title or finishing runners-up.
And while these five skills take place on the pitch, it’s the learning the footballers put in inside the classroom that perfects these given that the majority need a world class football IQ.
That said, here are five of the toughest skills to master:
#1 Maintaining the defensive line
When it’s perfected then it can work well but we often see teams set up to play a high line and it fails for several reasons. The main one being that too many high-profile defenders lack concentration – meaning they’re unable to play an offside trap.
At the minute, a prime example would be Liverpool’s Gegenpressing – Jurgen Klopp plays with a high defensive line but with Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip both possessing a poor football IQ, they are often caught out of position. It doesn’t help they aren’t the quickest defenders either.
A team that has got the defensive line down to a tee at the minute is Napoli. Maurizio Sarri’s side are not only thrilling going forward, but are also defensively stable.
When you're able to maintain the defensive line, then it works extremely well. Teams can play with a high line which then gives them the ability to play the offside trap as well as pushing high up the pitch to put pressure on their opposition.
Most supporters would prefer their team to play attacking football and so the ability to master the defensive line is often what that goes unnoticed, unfortunately.
#2 Building a Wall
Perhaps a skill that goes unnoticed in football is building a wall to stop a free-kick. It’s a vital one to have in football and one that could be the difference between picking up no points and three points, especially if you’re up against Lionel Messi on the other team.
And although it’s the goalkeepers' job to organise the wall, it’s the job of the people in the wall to jump in sync and to stay together otherwise they’ll risk having holes in it – which is something you certainly don’t want.
Sometimes teams may be undone by a world class free-kick that no-one can stop, but having a half decent wall will go some way.
In the past decade, we’ve seen many variations of how the attacking team will set-up a direct free-kick. Often, we see a player from the attacking team stand on the end of the defensive wall before moving inside to create space for the free-kick taker to curl one on the outside.
Sometimes though it’s just impossible to stop a free-kick that is well placed.
During the 1974 World Cup, Zaire made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when attempting to defend a direct free-kick against Brazil. The African nation lined up their wall but instead of Brazil taking the free-kick, a member of the Zaire team decided to encroach the 10-yard rule before clearing the ball.
#3 Beating the first man from a set-piece/cross
Even at the highest level, be it Premier League or Champions League, we always see footballers failing to beat the first man both at set-pieces and down the by-line. It’s one of the most frustrating things to watch when your winger gets past his man only to fail miserably at finding a teammate in the penalty area.
Crossing is a skill that takes hours upon hours of training every week while only a small percentage are perfect at it, even at the top of modern football.
Take a player like David Beckham, for example. He’s arguably the greatest crosser of the ball to ever grace the football pitch. Many would argue he wasn’t the best at dribbling and he wasn’t the fastest, but you don’t need that if you can put a good cross in from deep, which the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder certainly did.
West Bromwich Albion have always been a team that excels in this area. They're the current top scorers in the 2017/18 Premier League season for goals scored from a set-piece, while they've been doing it for some time now.
Having someone who is able to get on the end of corners and indirect free-kicks always helps. You only have to take a look at AS Monaco last season, who scored 20 from set-piece routines as they went on to lift the Ligue 1 title.
#4 Finishing a 1v1
Raul of Real Madrid
In one vs one situations, it’s always the goalkeeper who’s favoured due to the fact the pressure is on the forward to score – as the man between the posts, it’s your job to stand tall and stay composed.
Meanwhile, if you’re an attacker running through on goal, you can have all sorts of thoughts running through your head. “Shall I go bottom right? How about I go around him and then tap it into an open goal,” these thought processes can result in missing a golden chance, thus facing the wrath of your fans.
As a forward, all the pressure is on you to score but they must remain composed, otherwise, it can go horribly wrong. In modern football, someone you want in a one vs one situation is a player of Robert Lewandowski’s calibre.
If you go back in time, then you can look no further than strikers such as Ronaldo and Raul. The duo were arguably the best around at finishing inside the penalty area during their prime while there’s only a couple of players in the modern-day football that are even on par with them.
The reason being for their success was down to their composure on the ball and as we've seen in the past, sometimes the pressure can get to the forward.
You only have to go back to 2011 for Fernando Torres' miss for Chelsea against Manchester United in the Premier League to show what can happen if your forward is out-of-form and in such circumstances, it could become a season defining moment.
#5 The Hollywood pass
When you think of the ‘Hollywood Pass’ you instantly think of a player such as Steven Gerrard. His ability to spray passes from midfield at a ferocious speed and it landing at the feet of his teammate is a skill that many take for granted.
You look at players such as Andrea Pirlo and Paul Scholes in the past and although they are world class at finding players, they’re not on the same level as Gerrard in terms of spraying the ball across the pitch at such speed.
It’s a skill that not many footballers are able to do while it’s another one that goes under-appreciated. Many have tried, but the majority of them fail to replicate what Gerrard did during his time at Liverpool.
Of course, being able to spray diagonal passes from one flank to another is easier said than done. Not only do you need the accuracy but you also need the vision and composure to find your teammate.
And with that trio now retired, it’s hard to find anyone even on par with them in the current games – although the likes of Paul Pogba and Toni Kroos are great passers of the ball, they’re still some way off their predecessors.
