Play With Your Brain: A Guide to Smarter Soccer for Players, Coaches, and Parents Paperback – Import, 18 April 2020

This book is a perfect tool for anyone who is looking to learn possession and team soccer. The author does a great job of teaching the most common principles of attacking and defending as team, using easy-to-understand explanations. The concepts are kept simple, and cover the basics of possession, movement, width, depth, body angle, pressure, and others without overwhelming the reader with unnecessarily complex diagrams or deep-dives into obscure exceptions to the exception. That is the strength of this book---it is not another in-the-weeds treatise on tactics, but is focused on breaking things down so that they can be learned quickly. It is, essentially, a perfect introductory textbook to the world of total football.I highly recommend the book for young players (U11+) who are ready to get smarter on the field, as well as for parents who are new to the game and coaches who are looking for a guidebook to help teach their players.

What? A Football book written by an American with ‘Soccer’ in the title? What do Americans know about Football anyway?!…You’d be wrong though!I’m a Brit born and raised, played Football as a youth, grew up in the culture and went on to Uni in Sports & Exercise Sciences eventually teaching the same for 10 years in FE colleges around my region.With my daughter now playing Football too and in my search for an accessible book for her to read to further her understanding of the beautiful game, I fell upon this book having read an interview with the author. Not realising he was American at the time nor a world renowned Professor of Physics (!) , didn’t think anything of nationality or anything else, I just knew the man describing his ideas was born of a deep understanding of the game but also the views of an experienced teacher that had developed the craft to make complex subjects easy for anyone to understand and so accessible for anyone, including a young girl new to the game.Sure enough, as the book arrived through the post I started reading it immediately intrigued by the subtitles to find my suspicions further proven correct.The book is excellently structured and sequenced to allow principles discussed to build on the previous ones to eventually reveal a fairly complete view of the basic principles of the game as a coherent whole.The explanations go beyond merely describing the concept as most books by engaging the reader with problems to solve in a ‘multiple choice style’ with effective diagrams to assist before the author reveals his suggestions of which option is best with full reasoning provided that does so much more to help teach the reader to think for themselves, an essential part of teaching any subject.Despite the full detail, the writing style is accessible to anyone, not just those already versed in Football and it’s unique language, such that anyone from the young footballer to the parents that wish to learn more to help their son/daughter on their journey and even through to the experienced coach that might appreciate a different take on the ‘old game’ from a fresh perspective. I myself found moments in the discussion of concepts finding a deeper understanding of something already known to me because of the brilliantly put summary that added a new layer of clarity to an age old principle. For the player, this clarity then further assists decision making with no time wasted on recognising important cues or being caught between ideas of when it’s best to take a risk and when better to be conservative and retain possession.So, in short, if you’re considering buying this reasonably priced excellent Footballing book, jump to it as much awaits you!

He leído de un tirón el libro "Play with your Brain" de Travis Norsen. Travis explica de una manera muy clara y didáctica ocho conceptos básicos del fútbol moderno utilizando a Johan Cruyff como referente. Es una delicia de libro y un "must read" para chicos y chicas jóvenes que empiezan a jugar a fútbol, para padres y madres, para aficionados, y para futuros entrenadores. Lo váis a disfrutar seguro.

Have a good library of football training books, this one is kept super simple but explains everything you need to know to build some quality into a player or a team.

This book is written in a very simple, clear and concise way that allows the reader to understand why the mental aspects of soccer are so critical and just as important to the game as the fundamentals.Travis makes this book interactive and thought provoking through the use of diagrams and the questions he presents to the reader.Not only have I read the book myself, but I have also read it with my own 12-year old twin daughters. They both have come away with a greater understanding of the game and it also helped them understand why their coaches ask them to do things certain ways.I purchased a bulk set of the book to do a book study with my High School JV and Varsity teams. We just completed year 3 of our program and many of the girls do not understand the mental side of the game. Just going over the preface and intro to chapter 1 has made a difference in the way they are performing during summer skill workouts! After everyone reads the book this year, my plan for future years is to have incoming freshman read it!