Ronaldo's Playbook: 5 Steps to DOMINATE the Field

In August 2003, an 18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo made his debut for Manchester United against Bolton. Throughout the next half an hour, the Portuguese star had everyone always on the edge of their seats. No one in the stadium that day had seen someone do so many stepovers in such a short period of time. Before Ronaldo went on to become one of the greatest goalscorers of all time, he was known more for his dribbling. He was the stepover king. He would bamboozle and embarrass defenders on a weekly basis. The speed at which his feet moved was crazy. In a blink of an eye, he would jink one way and then another. People labelled him as a world-class talent. But they were wrong. Ronaldo's dribbling ability had nothing to do with talent. It was the product of the most important training concept every athlete must take 100% seriously if they're to fulfil their potential. It was a concept that later allowed him to 10X his goalscoring output and become a 5-time Ballon d'Or winner. So what is this concept? And how can you implement it into your own training so that you can rapidly improve your skills? Well, let's find out. To understand this concept, we need to quickly talk about classical musicians. Stay with me here for a moment. A psychologist by the name of Anders Ericsson wanted to understand what makes someone become world-class at something. And he thought initially this all came down to the volume of practice hours that people put into their craft. But he quickly found that among a group of classical musicians he was studying that many of them had practiced around the same amount of hours throughout their life, but only some would become world-class. And interestingly, some musicians would actually reach a world-class level even though they had thousands less practice hours than some of their peers. In researching further, Ericsson found that yes, quantity of practice hours did matter, but what mattered more at the elite level was the quality of those practice hours. Those that reached the very top engaged in what he called deliberate practice. And from studying this concept across all other high-performance domains including sport, it's been found time and time again that those performers who engage in deliberate practice are significantly more likely to learn at a faster pace and reach the top. So what is deliberate practice? Well, deliberate practice is practice which is intentional. There is always a reason and a focus for the practice. It's not just about turning up and coasting through a training session. There is a level of intensity seen in practice that matches the intensity of in-game situations. And throughout his entire career, Cristiano Ronaldo has engaged in an endless cycle of deliberate practice to reach the insane levels of performance that he has year after year. And fortunately, there are five key principles of deliberate practice that he followed that you can too. Firstly, deliberate practice is about setting specific goals within your practice. For a lot of athletes, they just turn up to training. They go through the motions without clear intention of what they want to improve on or work on. But Ronaldo has always been laser-focused on improving specific parts of his game and because of this, he's ended up doing things that no one else was doing. Going back to his Step Over King days, Ronaldo would practice dribbling with ankle weights on to strengthen his legs so much that without the weights, his feet could move at such a blistering pace. His United teammates had never seen anyone do this before and would laugh at him. But Ronaldo didn't care. He had the specific goal of becoming the best dribbler in the Premier League. And this made him always open to trying new, innovative training techniques that no one else was doing. Secondly, deliberate practice is about following proven techniques. Those who practice deliberately actively seek out guidance from experts and will do all they can to implement those strategies into their game. For Ronaldo, in his early years at Man United, he was quite gangly and skinny. Despite his speed and skill, he could often get bullied off the ball by strong defenders. And so Ronaldo knew this needed to change. He needed to become more physical. So he deliberately sought out United's power and development coach, Mick Clegg. In the early 2000s, while gym work was increasingly growing more important in football, most players didn't take it seriously. For many, it was a chore, something they couldn't see the purpose of. But Ronaldo saw otherwise. He came up to Clegg and asked him to help him become the best in the world. And in the space of a few years, Ronaldo did just that. He became a lot stronger, more robust and insanely powerful. And it was following the guidance from Clegg that allowed Ronaldo to develop the power necessary to explode off the ground for those signature headers where he just towers over everyone. Ronaldo knew that to become the best in the world, he needed the expertise of so many different people. And so he became one of the first ever athletes to hire an entire team to do just that. Teammate Rio Ferdinand said in an interview with Goal that when he went round Ronaldo's house one day, there was like 10 people all hanging around and Ronaldo would introduce Rio to each one of them saying, that's my chef, that's my physio, that's my doctor and that's my personal trainer, etc. Having the input of all these experts was one of the most deliberate things Ronaldo did in his training regime. And then thirdly, deliberate practice is about giving your full attention to the task at hand. It's so common nowadays to see people just scrolling through their phone in between sets of the gym or just joking around and only half bothering with drills in training. Just because you're there physically doesn't mean you're there mentally and actually engaging in the training in the way necessary that's actually going to lead to skill improvement. But Ronaldo has always been super hyper focused whenever training. You hear these stories about wherever he's gone, he's always been the first to arrive at training and the last to leave. And this is not just because he's doing more than everyone, it's actually because he's taking the time to do things properly and with the necessary level of focus. For example, anyone can bash out 10 pushups with terrible form where you're barely going up and down fully. But someone like Ronaldo would take twice as long to do the same amount because he's 100% focused on doing every exercise properly and with perfect form. Because that is what actually leads to the biggest benefits. If you rush certain exercises or drills, often you're not going to do them properly and gain no benefit. It's far better to do less but with more intention because that's what's actually going to lead to improvement. And we see this with Ronaldo's free kick and penalty technique. And yes, don't get me wrong, a lot of the free kicks hit the wall. But the whole routine of the stance, the deep breaths, it's all about settling into the task so that you can pay 100% full attention to it. This was best seen in the Champions League in 2018 when Ronaldo had to wait almost five minutes to take a game-winning penalty against Juventus. There was the sending off of Buffon, Szczesny getting subbed on and the Juve players were complaining for what seemed like an eternity. And they tried to put off Ronaldo and scuff the penalty spot. But he just remained laser focused and smashed the penalty into the top corner to win the tie. That is the definition of deliberate and has paid off so many times in games because of the same mindset and approach to all his training sessions. Then fourthly, deliberate practice is about pushing outside your comfort zone. So many athletes will plateau very quickly because they get good at one thing that leads to some success and they think that that will just carry them through for the rest of their life. But very quickly, everyone else catches up or they get found out for being too predictable. But the very best of all time, like Ronaldo, deliberately seek out to overcome their weaknesses and limitations as well as try to improve them so much that they become strengths. And if you think about Ronaldo's first three seasons at Man United, he was not a good finisher. He'd score the odd banger, but overall, his end products was pretty whiffy. And he knew that if he was going to become the best player in the world, he'd have to do more of the hardest thing, which is put the ball in the back of the net. So he began practicing his shooting like crazy, left foot, right foot headers. He would practice for hours and hours each day on this key skill that he previously neglected. It was uncomfortable because he had to learn so many new things about timing, movement and body adjustment so that he could finish all kinds of chances in so many different ways. But it was this intentional effort to push outside his comfort zone that allowed him to then dramatically increase his numbers from the 2006-07 season onwards and become known as one of the deadliest finishers in the game. And then finally, the fifth principle was that deliberate practice is about developing a hunger for feedback. Let's be honest, a lot of athletes just can't take criticism, even if it's constructive. A lot of people will just blindly nod their head, but then do absolutely nothing to implement that feedback to improve their game. But Ronaldo is different. He's always taken on board feedback, both the good and particularly the bad. He was always open to the feedback that Sir Alex Ferguson gave him. Ferguson would encourage Ronaldo that if he worked more on his shooting and other parts of his game like his positioning, then that's what would elevate him to the next level. At times, he'd even scold Ronaldo for dribbling too much. In his early days, Ronaldo could and would beat a man several times before actually crossing or shooting. But he learned over time that the simple option was often better and more effective, despite it being less glamorous. He realized that he didn't have to dribble past an entire team every time he got the ball. And that's because he was open to the feedback the likes of Ferguson and countless other top managers he's played under would give him. While he may not have always agreed, he always knew they had a point. And that's so crucial if your future practice is going to be deliberate. You have to be so open to feedback so that you're willing to work on absolutely any area that could make even the smallest improvements to your overall game. So which component of deliberate practice are you going to implement first? Let me know in the comments below. Another thing that deliberate practice can help with is handling pressure better. So check out this next video here to find out more.