We Can Learn From Frank Lampard

For those of you who are Football crazy (soccer) about English Premier League, will know who is Frank Lampard. He is the mid-field superstar of Chelsea Football Club. I recently surfing the internet soccer news and come across this article which I like to share with you. Below is part of the extract on what Lampard said in the interview to BBC:

At Chelsea I practice after training because I was given that advice when I was very young: train and work on your skills after everyone else has gone home, work on your weaknesses where you can. That lesson has become part of me.

Instead of thinking I've had enough now, or I can't do it, or I can't hit it with my left foot, to try and do more on your own is a great thing to make you into a player. I do lots of shooting, passing and sometimes fitness work if we haven't played games. I'll basically work on anything I feel is relevant at the time. If something is letting me down I'll work hard on that and hopefully the improvement will show in the following weeks.

I know first hand that dealing with someone with a great technical ability can help you. Gianfranco Zola had probably the best technique I've seen in a footballer I've played with and he was so willing to help others. Zola was a massive influence on me because he arrived when he was 35 and I was amazed how someone at that age could still have that hunger to improve and to take me with him and say 'come on let's do it together'. He was the most talented player I played with and he was still working on shooting with his left foot so he was as comfortable with it as he was with his right. These are basic things but it shows you that players at the top of the game are still doing them.

Football has always been the biggest thing in my life so at any moment after school or during my lunch break I would be training or just playing with my mates as much as I could. Undoubtedly there are more skilful players than me, players like Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney, Gianfranca Zola - they're the more technical players. I like to put myself somewhere in between - a bit of skill and a lot of hard work as well. But what is important is that you make the best out of yourself. There will be players who might not be technically fantastic, but they work as hard as they can at their game and they get themselves to a good level.

I think many of us know the phrase,

Practice Makes Perfect

In fact, many of us used it very often, but how many of us actually practicing it. We have abused the very simple phrase that makes success look easy. Only those who practice it are the one who make it.