I love the FIPFA Powerchair Football World Cup. It was a pleasure to watch the world's best players face off in Argentina. Not only that, but because power soccer is such a close-knit community, it was great to see friends of mine on an international platform, bringing increased attention to this game that I hope continues to grow into the future, not only here in the United States but across the world. Someday, I dream that just as many countries will participate in our World Cup as in the running competition, and I hope I will have a similarly extended, month-long tournament to obsess over power soccer.
Every World Cup brings something new to the table. I remember during the last World Cup, the United States debuted a variety of creative, motion-oriented sideline and corner kick plays. By the next season, everyone in the United States was trying to do the same thing. Naturally, most teams couldn't execute them as well as the best of us, but their creativity gave us ideas we used to develop our game to higher levels. Even though we weren't all on the team, they inspired us, and the game grew as a result.
I started thinking about the most recent World Cup in the same way. What did we learn from this tournament that will impact power soccer going forward, not only at the international level but also at the club level? Let me know how you feel about each of the items on this list.
Ballhandling Is Back
I love to watch beautiful, passing power soccer. England in particular does a beautiful job using space to its maximum advantage, and they had an incredibly successful tournament as a result. However, the conventional wisdom that you often hear is that good passing will ultimately outlast a great individual. France disproved that theory.
Mohamed Ghelami is the greatest player of our generation (only truly rivaled by Michael Archer in the greatest-of-all-time conversation). While he does pass the ball, the French attack relies on his tremendous ball-handling abilities. The rest of the team would still be one of the best in the world without his talent, but his ball-handling lets him overrun opponents with relative ease.
As a result, I expect teams that rely on one dominant player to start to transition to this type of offense. We see this in the United States, too. Consider the Minnesota Shockwave. Each player is tremendously talented, but their offense relies on Riley Johnson dribbling the ball down the court, out-handling everyone else, and getting set pieces to let Pete Winslow unleash the cannon. Expect to see this play more and more.
Dynamic Wings
While we all don't have the luxury of wings like the English team, it was clear that both wings can generate a lot of offense by facing backward, ready to unleash a spin kick at any time. Between Dan McLellan and Dylan Kelsall, the British attack had plenty of opportunities, and the always reliable Jon Bolding used his wings to great effect.
Many teams have become very comfortable with one player being designated as the weak side player. Depending on skill level, some teams may have to stick with that mindset; however, those that can should expect more involved, dynamic wings. It does raise the possibility of overcrowding, but teams can work on that skill more effectively, and awareness is a skill that anybody can develop.
Crowded Defensive Boxes
There were very few massive blowouts throughout this tournament. Why? Defensive play has improved across the power soccer world. Rather than the old-fashioned approach of keeping the goalkeeper back on the line, I believe every World Cup team brought the goalkeeper to the front of the box, with the non-goalkeeper defender back on the line. This allowed another defender to sit on top of the box, creating much more congestion and limiting passing options.
Again, this change will increase the possibilities of overcrowding. The goalkeeper will have to stay in the box and tap the ball to the offensive player on top of the box to avoid creating a two-on-one by coming out. The non-goalkeeper box defender will need to stay back on the line and not climb up too high, or it will create a two-on-one with the player on top of the box. However, these are again communication, repetition, and awareness issues. Teams at all levels can develop the skill; as such, I expect to see very crowded defensive boxes at all levels of competition, which will make it even harder to score.
For those of you who love power soccer, I imagine these observations are relatively obvious. You may already be applying all of them with your teams. However, they helped produce one of the greatest power soccer tournaments in history, so hopefully these ideas will trickle down to all of us at the club level and ultimately raise the level of competition across the country and world.