[pinchyfingers]

This is a really great question, but I can't really see a corollary in programming. Software is a much wider field than soccer. Contest problems could be similar, or running through a textbook like How To Design Programs. In reality, the best thing is probably to find some smaller projects with reasonable constraints on a simple platform, that way you can build software without spending a lot of time dealing with infrastructure concerns, and just focus on architecture, algorithms, etc.

[Twisol]

This is probably the best thing to do. If you can reduce the problem to a single, limited domain, you can focus your energy on just that one. As you feel more confortable, you can introduce others. Even in general I think it's a good idea to split things up and tackle them individually.