Reply to Soccer-What is a "natural defender"?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yeah, there is physicality, height, endurance, etc. b[b]ut for me the most important quality that the bets defenders have is the ability to read the game.  They have soccer intelligence.
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When they look up the field they can see the danger, not just the imminent danger, but the potential danger in the next two or three phases of the game. And then they get themselves and their team mates into the right position to deal with it. When you watch a defender at the top of their game they make it look effortless.

So a good defender needs to be intelligent. They also need to be an excellent communicator, as they need to organize the defense and midfield.

Often in the kids games defenders are looked down on as the kids who can’t score.  Totally wrong. It is a tremendous position to play.[/quote]

This is exactly what I think. They know where to be and when. They are two steps ahead of the play. It helps that they are bigger to both defend the space around the goal and to launch the ball down the field.

My dd often plays up a year and almost always put her on defense. She’s got a great read on the field and is much taller than kids in her age (and the year above her). [/quote]

I will slightly disagree, simply because the OP asked about a “natural” defender. I do think that to become a “great” defender you need soccer intelligence. But a natural defender has more of the instinctive and athletic skills to begin with.  In other words, add soccer intelligence to a natural defender and you get a great defender. [/quote]

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