SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP What is Flair anyway?

What are we trying to convey when we say a player plays the game with "flair"? Is this flair important or neccessary for success in soccer?
SL.

Depends on the definition, doesn't it?

Too many players/coaches/parents celebrate style over substance. THAT kind of "flair" is fool's gold.

I think of "flair" more as a sixth sense, or vision, or "understanding." THAT kind of "flair" is keeping it amazingly simple, or finding just the right play.

As a Supreme Court justice once said of obscenity, and I paraphrase: Can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

A player with "my" kind of flair makes his teammates better.

He may not score 30 goals, but scores 12 at just the right time.

So does your flair then equate to confidence, being in control, commanding the field but not neccessarily embellished soccer movements?
So looks like there are two types of flair or is your flair something else i.e a totally different attribute like "composure"

Wooooooooooo Woooooooooooo

Daddy: Justice Potter Stewart, in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), famously stated that, although he could not precisely define pornography, "I know it when I see it". (Source: Wikipedia)

Looney: "Embellished soccer movements" are fun to watch but often irrelevant to the outcome. I strongly believe we (as a nation) are too hung up on individual tricks and "skills," as opposed to glorious simplicity and making one's teammates better. Think about it: If you assume that each team possesses the ball roughly 50% of the time, and that of YOUR 50%, any single player MIGHT have it 20%, what does this say about the relevance of juggling skills?

I saw a match recently in which Iniesta (in 80 minutes) completed 86 passes (89%) and scored a goal. And yet, it was mostly simple, measured stuff.

Flair? You tell me.

Flair...is what makes soccer an awesome game.

Flair.....is what makes watchers gasp, and say..."wow".

Flair....is all about the play, and not at all about the player.

Flair can be Iniesta connecting on 90% of his passes seemingly effortlessly. It can also be Messi cutting thru dense traffic without losing the ball or getting knocked off the ball. It can be the Mexican u17 at WC this past summer who scored a late goal off a header to tie Germany (i think) and crack his head open in the process.....and then come back out with his head wrapped and get the game winner.

Flair is brilliance. Its when the light bulb goes off and you sit back and have an "aha" moment.

"Embellished soccer movements," are when you exaggerate the easy and simple and try to make it look impressive.

Flair is when you do the impressive and make it look easy and simple.