Every Tuesday I played against men.

I hear the same thing from parents and players every off season, and I want to be straight with you about it.

“He trains three times a week with his club. That is plenty.”

“The season is done. She has earned a rest.”

I understand where it comes from. Three sessions feels like a lot when you are the one doing the driving. And a long break after a long season sounds sensible.

But it is the single biggest reason players here do not get where they want to go. So let me tell you what my weeks looked like growing up, because I think it will change how you see the next few months.

Seven to twelve.

I was at Everton from seven years old. From seven to twelve I trained four times a week with the club, and then a game on the weekend.

That was not running around and having fun. It was technical work. First touch, both feet, passing under pressure, receiving on the half turn, over and over until it was automatic. At an age when most kids here are doing one session and a game, I was doing four and a game. And I was not special in that group. Everyone there was doing it.

By twelve the fundamentals were locked in. Not because I had more talent than the kids around me. Because I had done thousands more repetitions.

Sixteen. Wrexham.

Then it got hard.

At sixteen I signed my first youth contract, at Wrexham AFC. I want to lay out an ordinary week, because I do not think people here understand what a normal week looks like for a teenager at a professional club.

Count it up. Seven training sessions and two games. Not in pre season, not on a camp. That was a normal week from sixteen onwards, and it went on for years.

By seventeen and eighteen the Tuesday game was every single week. Wrexham reserves, against professionals. Men who were quicker, stronger, and had been doing it for years. I had to learn fast, and the only way to keep up was to train harder in the sessions around it. There was no other option.

The maths.

Now put that next to three sessions a week.

Seven against three is more than double, every week, for the whole year. Over a season that is hundreds of extra sessions. Over three or four years it is thousands.

That is the gap. Not talent. Not coaching secrets. Not better facilities.

Players in Europe are not developing faster because they are more gifted. They are developing faster because they are doing more than twice the work, and they have been doing it since they were seven.

Why Australia is behind.

I have coached here for a long time now, and I think Australia is behind. I do not think it is a talent problem. I think it is a mentality problem.

The belief that three times a week is enough. The belief that the off season is for switching off.

Here is the thing nobody says out loud. When a player rests for the whole off season, they do not stay where they were. They go backwards. Touch goes. Sharpness goes. The habits built over the season fade. And when next season starts they are behind where they finished, while the player who kept working is ahead of where they finished.

The off season here is long. That is not a reason to rest longer. That is the biggest opportunity in the whole year.

What to actually do.

I am not saying a fourteen year old should copy my week at sixteen. I am saying the off season is when you fix the thing you avoided all season.

Weak foot. First touch under pressure. Finishing. Speed of thought. Whatever let you down in games this year, this is the window to work on it, because nobody is watching, there is no pressure, and there is time.

Pick one weakness. Work on it three or four times a week for the next few months. Turn up to pre season as a different player.

That is exactly what the app is for. Structured sessions you press play on, split by age and by what you are working on, built on the same fundamentals I was drilled on from seven years old. Twenty minutes at home with a ball is a session. You do not need a pitch, a coach or a team to get better this off season. You need a plan and the willingness to do it when nobody is making you.

Do not rest. Work.

Lee

PS. If you only fix one thing this off season, make it your weak foot. It is the fastest change anyone will notice in a game.