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The Soccer Philosophy
Technical excellence is key to a footballer’s development.
It is the belief the whole of MPFC is built on, and this page explains
exactly how Saul turns it into a session.
WHERE IT STARTS
There is no magic formula.
There are attributes.
Saul has said it the same way for twenty years. There is no magic formula to being a professional footballer, but there
are attributes that every great footballer displays. The job of a development programme is to build those attributes
deliberately, in an order that makes sense, rather than hoping they turn up on their own.
The attributes break down into five building blocks. Every player has all five in varying degrees, and the level they
reach is decided by how those five combine. One of them carries more weight than the rest.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS
Five blocks. One of them holds the rest up.
The five building blocks every player possesses in varying degrees, and
which determine the level at which they play.
Game Time
Game Training
Technical
Beating a player, striking a ball, a reliable first touch
Physical
Agility, balance, coordination, speed, and the strength to keep competing
Tactical
Scanning, positioning, and the speed a decision is actually made
Psychological
Confidence under pressure, composure, and recovery after a bad mistake
Lifestyle
Sleep, nutrition, recovery and the discipline away from the pitch
THE COMPLETE PLAYER
Technique gets a player noticed.
The rest keeps them there.
The technical block is the most vital, and it is not the only one. A player can be the best technician in the squad and still get released, because academies keep complete players rather than the most skilful one. Pace exposes a slow player. Pressure exposes a player with no composure. A missing routine away from the pitch shows up by February.
This is why the MPFC app carries libraries for mindset, physical work, scouting and nutrition alongside the technical programmes, and why the Individual Development Plan assesses every attribute rather than only the ones a player enjoys.
THE TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE CYCLE
Three phases. One direction.
The Technical Excellence Cycle is Saul’s own model, created from over ten years of teaching hundreds of players of varying standards in multiple countries. It blends the core technical skills like touch and control, adds dynamic and explosive movement, then puts both into functional practices that demand a decision.
It is a cycle rather than a ladder. A player never finishes ball mastery and moves on. Each phase keeps loading the one in front of it, which is why the work compounds over a season instead of resetting every time a new drill gets introduced.
BALL MASTERY
Thousands of touches,
on both feet.
Ball mastery is first touch and control, dribbling, ball striking and individual skills. It is the phase most players skip, because it looks basic and it is repetitive, and it is the phase that decides whether anything in phase three actually works. A touch that holds up in an empty space and breaks when the ball arrives at pace is not a touch a player can use on Saturday.
Saul’s Dynamic Ball Mastery programme is the version of this phase a player can run on their own. It is an individual technical programme that encompasses all the facets of the Technical Excellence Cycle, showing players how to develop their technical ability in a fun, dynamic and impactful way.
BALL MASTERY
The movement that makes the
technique usable.
Phase two is turning, running with the ball, body positioning and dynamic, explosive movement. A player who can manipulate a ball standing still and cannot turn away from pressure at speed has half a skill. This phase joins the two together, so the technique holds when the player is moving and somebody is arriving.
It is also where the detail lives that most sessions never reach. Which foot the player plants on. How open the body is before the ball gets there. Whether the first movement takes them away from pressure or into it.
BALL MASTERY
The movement that makes the
technique usable.
Phase two is turning, running with the ball, body positioning and dynamic, explosive movement. A player who can manipulate a ball standing still and cannot turn away from pressure at speed has half a skill. This phase joins the two together, so the technique holds when the player is moving and somebody is arriving.
It is also where the detail lives that most sessions never reach. Which foot the player plants on. How open the body is before the ball gets there. Whether the first movement takes them away from pressure or into it.
WATCH THE METHOD
The phases, filmed on the grass.
The session video and the diagrams behind the method, plus the free
training library Saul already publishes.
Individual Soccer
Training Drills
Team training is only a few hours each week. Practise.
Soccer Skills Technical
Challenges
Challenges designed from elite academies, each with a specific outcome.
The MPFC YouTube
Channel
Every session clip Saul has published, in one single place.
THE PRINCIPLES
The standards that run
through all three phases.
Two coaches can run the same drill and develop completely different
players. These five principles are the difference.
01
Every Touch Has A Purpose
A drill without an objective is just activity dressed up.
02
Both Feet, Always
A player with one foot gives defenders half a problem.
03
Drive At Pressure
Players who avoid contact never learn how to beat it.
04
Connected Progression
Each phase loads what the following phase has to resolve.
05
Quality Over Volume
Fifty sharp repetitions beat three hundred sloppy ones, every time.
THE IDP
Every player gets a plan,
not a playlist.
The Individual Development Plan is the document that sits behind the whole method. It is where a player’s attributes get assessed honestly, where the priorities get set in order, and where the next block of work gets written down. It is the reason two players can be in the same session and be working on completely different things.
What it holds:
An honest assessment of every attribute in the player's game
The priorities, in order, for the next block of work
Individual action plans the player and coach both work from
It is the same document Saul uses with professionals. Coaches who take the 121 Coaching Course get his actual IDP, not a blank template.
WHERE THE METHOD IS TAUGHT
Two ways to put this into practice.
Master The Ball…Master The Game.
Technical excellence first, then the movement that makes it usable, then the decision
that makes it count. That is the whole method, and it is the same whether the player is
nine or playing on Saturday in front of sixty thousand.
Master The Ball…Master The Game
Individual skills coaching from Saul Isaksson-Hurst,
UEFA A Licence.
Players & Parents:
The MPFC App
Position-Specific Courses
Dynamic Ball Mastery
24-Day Technical Programme
Coaches:
121 Coaching Course
Developing the Game Changer
Elite Soccer Coaching, Level 1 & 2
The MPFC App for Coaches
MPFC:
About Saul
The Philosophy
Success Stories
Clubs
Press
Contact
Free Resources:
Blog
Podcast
Skills Challenges
Free Videos
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