- Aug 18, 2012
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Well, this might be a shit analogy, but I'm left handed and left footed and was always encouraged to use my right, whether for writing or sports, when I was younger. Noone who was right handed or right footed was encouraged to use their left, because was seen as "normal" to use your right.I hit Dele with it all the time. Most of the goals his misses are because he can't use his left foot (and his right ain't that great either but that's a whole 'nother can of worms I would prefer not to open again...at this moment ).
But on our team name a right-footed player that doesn't utilize his left foot when necessary? Harry? No. Sonny? No. Eriksen? No. Dier? No. Vic? No. Serge? No. Are you seeing a pattern? Now let's look at the lefties use of their right foot - this is gonna be fun. Mousa? Lamela? Hugo? Danny? Jan? Davies? What's that pattern look like? Perhaps this is why you don't hear about righties because all of our can and do but our lefties don't or can't.
Look through the league and pick out lefties and gauge how much they use their right foot. You get some real humdingers like David Silva (who I love) but he does the 'Scotty Parkers' to get back to his left. Mata? Tadic? Sane? Ozil? Wilshit? Salah? These are real left-footed people that can barely walk such is their disregard for their right side.
You see, the issue IMO is that lefties are usually really 'leftie' whereas the right-footed players are always taught to utilize their left even if that teaching is perfunctory. Youth teams are usually so happy to have a left footed/sided player that they don't get the coaching reinforcement...IMVHO.
That probably stems from historical attitudes to left handedness: my dad was literally forced to learn to write with his right hand. Because lefties are the great exception - about ten per cent of people - I think there is far more pressure on them in certain aspects of their life to confirm to something more "normal", and i would not be surprised one bit if those sort of norms didn't find their way into football coaching and development.