Soccer moves - playing soccer is not always training

Just play the game of soccer to learn skills?
Who in the world came up with this stupid thought?

As a specialized soccer coach I have seen soccer players that have played the game of soccer for years and years, but have horrible basic skills.
This is quite prevalent in US youth soccer where 95% of the soccer players can't perform a traditional straight kick. (Many reading this article don't know the definition.) I am so tired of people that claim the great soccer players of today are great from just playing the game. The first question I ask them, Have you ever sat through a week of two-a-day practices with a professional soccer team? I have and it may shock you.

If the greatest players in the world are great by just playing the game, why do many of them have specialty coaches, they hire, that work with them one on one to improve basic footwork and foot speed. (Bet you didn't know that did you.)  We are talking about the great European players. 

Let me clarify this point for you.
When Tiger Woods needs to improve his overall game he focuses on individual skills first. This means he goes to the driving range and works in slow motion to correct bad swing patterns and bad muscle memory. Next, he speeds up these new patterns it a full speed swing. Then he hits hundreds if not thousands of balls to make sure the new swing is now a muscle memory. It must be a reaction, not a thought process.  Until he FEELS the right swing, it can not become a lifetime swing thought or pattern.

He then takes that fixed swing to the course and implements it into the game.

The same applies to the soccer kick and soccer moves.  To learn these skills we must break them down into a step by step, slow motion learning process. Then slowly speed them up until we have the correct FEEL. Then we perform them over and over until they become a muscle memory and a reaction. NOT a thought process.

Simply "trying them" in a game will NOT program them into a muscle memory or reaction.