Coaching Tips Rocket League - Bubblehead

5:00 - Some people like to wait in goal in case their teammate messes up. All up to you.
4:54 - Don't back up when you don't need to. You did not gain anything from it. You simply wasted time.
4:49 - Try to make the decision faster. Go if you think you can get to it. Don't go if you think you can't. Don't change your mind. When you do go for it, dodge forward. Instead, you jumped up which would make you whiff 99% of the time. Your jump was nowhere near the ball.
4:30 -  You should not be going for the ball. The game is not who can hit the ball. It's who can score more. First of all, you have almost no chance of getting to the ball. It is in-front of you and the opponent has possession. Second, if you do hit the ball, all that would happen is that the ball would fly to the center for the other opponent to shoot. Instead, you should rotate to goal, especially since your partner is on the side too and wait for the shot.
4:15 - Look at where your teammates are headed. They are both clumped up together going to the left side. Why are you following them? Spread out and wait for a pass. Camp the center while continuing to stay back since you are the last man. You currently have the least priority to the ball and you should be protecting your goal while waiting for a pass.
4:08 - Pause the replay here. Look at your car. See how you have only taken one jump and you are already boosting? You are gaining way too much momentum in a direction that is not toward the ball. Get your jumps in first, align yourself, then boost.
3:59 - Refer to previous timestamp. With that said, you hit it away from your opponents, so good job.
3:52 - This is simply a reply to your question (0:59): You don't make clears to stall for time. You make clears to get the ball out of your zone. Also, as you can see, you were able to get the ball past all 3 of the defenders. That means that this is a good set up to try and score. You don't need to worry about getting boost when you make a clear.
3:48 - Don't follow your teammate. It does no good. Rather, help contest the ball.
3:36 - You were fan as you were. Don't worry about whether you should have rotated. Since you stayed back, your teammate went up. As long as one of you is there, it doesn't matter.
2:28 - Again, you didn't need to contest the ball. If you noticed, both of your teammates tried hitting it, but they missed. The rule of thumb is to trust your teammates until they mess up. You weren't wrong for not going for the ball, however, you probably should have rotate back.
3:13 - Yes, it would have been advantageous to have taken a shot, but no, I don't think you could have. Your reaction time is simply too slow to go for the shot. Also, if you look at the freeze frame, you'll see that there is one defender back there. Although he is going for boost, looking at how far back you are, there's a good chance he'd save the shot anyway.
3:09 - This is one of those small subtleties, but don't point toward the ball. What exactly were you planning to gain by turning to the corner of the field while mid? Wait in the mid field, keep the ball in view, and point toward the goal to be ready for a shot. Also, don't get that close to the goal. Stay back more.
2:39 - Fix your rotation. Both of your partners are directly in-front of you. Everybody is on the left side of the field. What if the ball gets hit to the right side? There would be nobody there to receive it. Stay more center. At the very least, stay as far to the opposite side as their furthest defender whom in this case is camping their goal.
2:33 - You do it again. Your first instinct here should be go back to goal. Instead you turn into the corner which opens up a shooting path for the opponent.
2:27 - You are the last man back. It is far too dangerous while down by 1 to be going for a ball that is being contested by everyone else on the field. Because you go for it, they clear the ball and actually almost score on an open goal. Also, when you do contest, remember, align your car first, then boost.
2:15 - Reply to your comment (2:27). Momentum doesn't matter in your case. You are way out of the play. Really, you should have been midfield at this point in time, but since you weren't, it really doesn't matter.
2:08 - Too close again. What if they make a clear? Nobody is back to defend. If you're the last man back, your priority to the ball is also last, so stay back more and protect your goal.
2:02 - This back up game is really killing me. Stop it. This should be your #1 priority in terms of fixes. TURN YOURSELF AROUND. Stop backing up. It does you such little good to do this. All your doing for yourself is slowing your rotation and making clears a whole lot harder.
1:56 - Response to comment (2:35). Even if you had not messed up the back flip, you would have had to do a perfect one with a perfect landing and immediately boost straight to the ball in-order to have a chance at saving it. You wouldn't even have had to worry about this if you had just turned yourself around earlier.
1:55 (2:52) - Are you saying, "Went for boost once again!" as a bad thing? I'm confused why you keep bringing this up. If you think it's bad then just don't do it.
1:53 - This is just a lot of unnecessary movement. Decide what you're going to do before hand and stick to it. Know where you're going to go and don't waste time doing these big loops across the field.
1:50 - I don't know what this was. Make your decisions faster and stick to them. If you're going to go for it, go for it, if not, don't. And go to where the ball is heading rather than where it is. I know you were trying to do this, but adjust for the displacement between you and the ball.
1:41 - You are ball chasing. You should know at this point that your teammate is on the side. Let him hit it and either rotate back or to the middle depending on your third teammate.
1:34 - Look where your teammates are. Why are you going right at them? If you had stayed to the left, you wouldn't even have had to worry about coming close to your teammate.
1:28 - More ball chasing. I don't think I need to explain this again.
1:24 - You didn't do a bad read. You just never should have been there in the first place. It's clear right at this moment that the defender is about to clear it. Rotate mid and back.
1:15 - Bad rotation again.
1:08 - The reason for your bad touch stems from a bad rotation. Frankly, it's quite hard for anyone to do a 180 degree turn and then get a good power shot. In this situation, you should try to control the ball instead of hitting it then clear it away or even try to dribble past your opponents if you can.
1:05 - You are the third man. Don't go for the ball. Stay back and defend goal.
0:58 - Don't contest this. You can see one of the defenders is about to hit the ball. Rotate back instead of charging up into no man's land and taking yourself out of the play.
0:48 - This isn't the prettiest example but at least it is one. Notice how you're driving away from both the ball and your teammates? Do more of that.
0:46 - Even though this is a tough ball for you to get. Now you are the first person. You should be contesting. With that said, your teammate would probably go for it regardless of what you do, so in that case, back him up. It should be your ball but you never know what you teammates might do. Even so, don't drive away from the ball when you're supposed to go for it.
0:42 - Make up your mind. You do this a lot. Decide whether to contest or not and don't change your mind. There are a few exceptions to the rule and you actually have already experienced a few of them this game, but it's better to charge in and miss than stop midway through and give the ball away.
0:33 - Reply to your comment (3:56). You probably jumped off the wall because you saw that the goal was open and that you wanted to stop the opponent from getting a clear. There's not much you can do here given your position, but the best option in these events is always to play it safe and rotate back.
0:30 - Don't point at your teammate. Go for the ball. Driving past the ball and making a very wide, long, and slow turn when there's that much pressure does very little good. Take a tighter angle and get the ball out of there. Or at least disrupt your opponent.
0:25 - Ball chasing.
0:17 - I think you got lucky here. You waste so much time making these unnecessary movements. Also, as a reply to your comment, just because you're not in an optimal setting doesn't mean your doing something wrong. The point of the game is to score, not to have boost. Sometimes you simply have to push up. Always prioritize the ball first and boost second. It's a very common misunderstanding at your level.
0:12 - Reply to your comment (4:25). YES!!! Now you're starting to get it.
0:05 - The problem isn't that you went up with little boost. The problem is that you completely turned away from the ball right after they hit it to get boost. Again, Priorities: Ball first, boost second. If you kept going, you could have probably made a block and even possibly scored.
+0:06 - Reply to your comment (4:50) - You kind of just got unlucky. This was more of your teammate's fault than yours. If anything he should have been waiting in goal and not pushing up with your other teammate. Still, maybe if you boosted and rotated back instead of driving up the wall and going for a ball that you can't get to (if you practice wall shots and aerials off of the wall then what you did could actually become one of the best options in future games), you could have possibly gotten to the ball in time. But for the most part, that is not your fault.
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Key Points
- Dodge more. This was mostly apparent in the beginning of the game. You need to start dodging. Doing those single or double jumps to try and get distance does you very little good. Hold down the joystick in the direction you want to move then jump twice. Jumping up only gives you height and not distance.
- Eliminate unnecessary movements. You tend to like to back up a lot to try and re-position yourself. That doesn't do any good. Just turn while moving to the sides or relocate.
- Trust yourself. Just because a play doesn't go your way doesn't mean you necessarily did something wrong or made a bad decision it just means that there was nothing you can do. Sure, there may have been a better decision, but that doesn't necessarily mean that yours was wrong.
- Rotations and positioning. You need to spread out more. Stop following the ball. You ball chase A LOT. Follow the open spaces instead. If there's an area that is unoccupied, occupy it. Try to stay as far away from everyone else as possible without taking yourself out of the play entirely. Your teammates are bunched up a lot throughout this game and frankly you are the most spread out person on your team. However, the reason for that is because you like to play defensive. Try spreading out laterally rather than vertically. See what happens.
- Decision making. Make faster decisions and don't change your mind half way through. The biggest mistake that I see golds make is that they hesitate way too much. The moment you're given an opportunity, decide then whether to contest or not. After making that decision, stick with it until after the play. If you miss the hit because you charged when you shouldn't have, you can deal with it then. You'll find that you'll be a lot more successful when you stop changing your mind.
- Ball > Boost. This is a very easy fix but also an extremely important one. You can win a game with out picking up a single boost pad. You can't win a game without ever touching the ball, unless of course your opponent throws. Look to the ball then boost. Don't just completely disregard the ball just because your out of boost. You allowed some extremely dangerous plays several times because you literally stopped contesting the ball because you wanted to get boost.
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Summary
Before we talk about the small fixes, we first need to discuss the big ones. I highly recommend reading over those key points again carefully. I really think that looking at the big picture, you need to clean up your overall game play. Cut out unnecessary movements, add in necessary movements, spread out, and understand what you should prioritize. I take back what I said earlier. You're #1 priority for fixes should be learning the concept: ball > boost. It's far too dangerous when you create a completely open goal because you want to get boost. You're basically just handing goals to your opponent. After you fix that, then your #2 priority should be to stop backing up so much. Since you can only boost forward and generally the camera is set to look forward, moving backward for too long completely wrecks momentum and makes plays that much harder. These two fixes are crucial for your in-order to succeed in this game. Both of these mistakes can lead to free goals and are the difference between a win and loss.
Afterward, your next priority should be to trust yourself more and decision making. These two go hand in hand. When you make a decision, just follow through with it. Don't change your mind. Also, even just because there could be a similar situation that gives you better odds if the game had gone differently doesn't mean that the situation you are currently in is a bad one. If you are contesting with little boost or if you have some weird angle, you're probably not wrong for doing that just because it's not perfect.
Next you need to try and eliminate those unnecessary movements. You like to loop around a lot and drive around aimlessly. You're simply wasting time and putting yourself out of the play. Either get to a position that put you in-between the ball and your goal, contest, or wait where you are. There is nothing beneficial driving in a big circle.
Finally, your rotation and positioning needs work. Your constantly following the ball with your car and your not following where the ball is going to be. Position yourself in a spot to either receive a pass or block the defender. Don't always be in a straight line with the ball because you're creating a giant opening. Along with that, after you contest or after a given play, rotate to the open spaces and always play it safe. Sometimes you play it too safely. Go to where the ball is going to be and not where it is and if there's no defender, go to defense; if there's no midfielder, go to midfield; and if there's no striker, go to striker. Don't always think you need to be where the ball is at all times.
Although I listed these in order of priority, you don't need to work on them in the same order. Maybe you do them all at once, maybe you do what you think is the easiest to fix first. It doesn't matter. What is important though, is that you are aware of all these points and that you are actively looking to fix them. After you have done this, then maybe we can start going into the small details.