 If you want to make quicker decisions on the field, you want to be a better decision maker, you want to play faster, you have to actually know what you should be doing when you have the ball in possession and when you don't have the ball, when you're out of possession. So many players have no idea what they should be doing, so when they actually get the ball at their feet, they just panic, or they make the wrong decision, or they miss out on an opportunity because they don't know what they should be doing. Now, I'm just going to go through this really quickly to simplify this for you. When you're in possession, can you get forward? If you can get forward, get that ball forward and join in the attack, move forward, okay? So play forward with your passes or play forward with your dribbling and move forward with your movement, okay? So when you're in possession, can you play forward? If you can, go forward. To score goals, you have to go forward. So there's no sense in going sideways and backwards when you have the opportunity to go forward, unless you're keeping possession, you're trying to kill off a game, maybe you have like a two-nil lead or something like that. But even still, I think you should be going for goals. It's more fun that way as well, okay? So if you can't go forward, for example, you get closed down, instead of forcing it, trying to take on three guys when you're all by yourself, realize that, okay, if I try to go forward here, I'm probably going to lose possession. So you want to go forward, but you want to keep possession of the ball, okay? So very simple. When you're in possession of the ball. So you know what you need to do when you're on the field. If you can go forward, whether by dribbling into space or by playing passes and combining with teammates, you need to go forward. You need to get forward. However, if you cannot get forward, you must keep possession of that ball. Do not get this ball away cheaply. Do not force the play. Do not make stupid decisions and jeopardize losing this ball, okay? If the option is there to go forward, then yes, go forward. Should you still take guys on? Absolutely. If that's the right decision and beating this guy will allow you to put a cross in the box or beating these guys will allow you to get a shot off, then go for it. But if you know it's a wrong decision, it's not likely that you're going to succeed by trying to go forward, then turn, keep possession of that ball. I quickly want to talk about the defensive side of decision-making as well, because that is decision-making. That's a very important part of your game. If you think decision-making and playing quickly is only what you do when in possession, you're missing out on half the game. So quickly, let's just go through a few ideas. I made a video on this recently and I'll put a link in the description of this video. But I said, when defending, you should ask yourself two questions. Number one, where should I be? Number two, what should I be doing? So where should you be? Well, when your team is defending, you want to be in your team shape. So let's say you're playing five-a-side. This applies to seven-a-side or 11-b-11. It's all the same ideas. What is your team shape? Let's say you play a two-two-one. So as soon as you lose possession, let's say we went forward and we lost possession, we quickly want to get back into our shape. We want to get close together so now we can defend together. If we're spread out like this, it leaves massive gaps. So we want to get close together as a unit in our team formation. So what is your position and where should you be in your team's formation? That's where you want to be. And as the ball moves, we move together. So if that ball moves out here, we move together. So you're always thinking about where's the ball and where are my teammates? I need to move in relation to both of those things. So as that ball comes to the other side, we all shift and we all stay together. So question number one, where should I be? Question number two, what should I be doing? If you are the closest player to the ball, you should be pressing the ball, okay? You should be forcing him to make a mistake or forcing him to go backwards. He cannot score if he's over here. Our nets over here, if we keep them over there, they're not going to have a very good chance of scoring on us, okay? So pressure that ball. If that ball comes to you and you're the closest to the ball, pressure that ball, okay? What does everyone else do? We think about the next pass. We think about where this guy may want to play and we stay in our formation and we close those passes down. So if you think he's going to play there and this is the closest guy to you, you want to stay with him. You want to anticipate that that ball's coming in there and then you can cover like that and then everyone comes back into our positions, okay? But if that ball gets played there, you're the closest there. You press, everyone else is thinking about where the next pass may be and we're moving up together like this, okay? You can see everyone is covering the next pass. This guy closest to the ball is pressuring the ball, forcing him to make a mistake or forcing him to go backwards. These ideas are very simple but very important. It's impossible to play quickly if you're not ready to react. So standing flat-footed on your heels is a bad habit you want to stay away from. Instead, always focus on being on your toes ready to react at any moment, especially when you do not have the ball at your feet. When you do have the ball at your feet, you want to be quick and sharp with your movement. Focus on your movement as much as your touches. As you see here, this is what some players do. It's just too casual, too relaxed, too slow. If you want to make quicker decisions, also focus on being quicker with your touches, quicker with your changes of direction, quicker with your passes. So whether you're dribbling, you're cutting, you're changing direction, you're making a pass, try to make it the quickest, sharpest, and most precise movement that you can. Next, you have to play with your head up. When you don't have the ball, you have to play with your head up. This is what I see all the time is players just watching the ball. They don't know what's behind them. They don't know what's around them. They're just focusing on the ball. You want to stay away from this bad habit. Instead, you should always be looking over your shoulder, shoulder checking, whether you're running or you're just defending. Be aware of what's around you. If you're receiving a pass, waiting for the ball, know what's behind you, know what's in front of you, know what's to the side of you. So using your head, shoulder checking all the time, just gathering more information is going to help you make better decisions. When you do have the ball, you have to play with your head up. If your head is down, just looking at your ball, you can only see what's in your peripheral vision. You can only see two yards around you. So instead, you need to focus on getting your head up, always looking around, checking where your options are, where your teammates are, who's closing you down, but you can't do that if you have your head looking at the ground. How do you become better at playing with your head up? You just focus on playing with your head up. Another thing I strongly suggest you do is watch professional football and watch a lot of it. Professionals can teach us so much if we're just willing to sit and watch and analyze what they do. I can't understand players who say things like, I don't like watching soccer, I just like playing it, or I can't sit through a full game. That's ridiculous. Chances are, they probably aren't the smartest players either. Honestly, the smartest players I've ever played with are usually the players who watch the most because they've learned how to play the game properly from the best teachers in the world. So if you want to become a smarter player, watch but analyze, and what do I mean by analyze? While I'm watching the game, I'm not just watching the ball. I may pick a certain player and I'll just watch him to see what he does in certain situations. Which types of runs does he make when his teammates have the ball? Which spaces does he try to get into? What does he do when he doesn't have the ball? Which defensive positions does he take up? So focus on his positioning and his movement as much as what he does on the ball, when he has it at his feet. So also, when he has the ball at his feet, you want to think about, okay, what type of decision did he make in that situation? Did he dribble there, or did he play a little one-two? Did he try to go forward, or did he turn and keep possession? Okay, so just by watching and analyzing, you can learn so much. And yes, analyze technique while you're at it. And the great thing is you can rewind. So I might rewind the whole play. Maybe let's say a goal happened, and maybe the fullback had a really good contribution in that goal. I'll rewind the whole thing, and I'll watch from the very beginning. Okay, where did he start? The play started way over here, but he started on this side, and he made a run all the way up, and then he made a little combination. He whipped across into the box. Okay, so rewind, use rewind to your advantage, and you can learn so much about decision-making and certain positioning, and just what to do on the field in certain situations will help you so much. Another great idea is watching analysis shows. So the show that I watched the most is football today. There's Sky Sports has some, there's lots, and you can even search on YouTube for football analysis, but it's basically professionals, ex-professional players, analyzing professional football. So they give you their opinions and they break down what makes players successful or what players are struggling with at certain times, so it's a really great insight into what it takes to be a smart and good player. So really use this to your advantage, watching football, watching live games, and also watching analysis shows. The final thing I want you to do if you want to become a smarter player is review your performances. So whether you had a practice or you had a game, usually at the end of the night, let's say I had a game, I'll be lying in bed, and I'll just think of everything that happened in that game, and I'll review every play that sticks out in my mind. Okay, some I may have made mistakes, some plays I was successful, but if you just play and you don't review, you don't think about that experience and learn from that experience, you'll never become better, you'll never become smarter, you'll just make the same mistakes again and again. So you really need to be your own best teacher. So at the end of the day, as I said, usually when I'm in bed, I'll just be laying in bed, and I'll think about the game, and I'll review all the plays in my mind, and I'll try to think about what I should have done differently when I made mistakes, and I'll remind myself to keep doing certain things that worked well. So if you really want to become smarter, learning to review and analyze yourself is so important.