We have requested a plethora of information, including financials, that PRO and MLS have refused to provide, instead demanding we take their pleas of poverty at face value. – Lukas Middlebrook, Attorney for Professional Soccer Referees Association (PSRA) It’s a fascinating state of affairs when a snarky Deadpsin article is treated as a threat to […]
Problems
The 1 Soccer Policy that Cripples the National Team all the way to 9 Year Olds
US Soccer not creating a true soccer pyramid with promotion & relegation. That’s it! You want youth development on par with the rest of the world? You want our top flight pro teams at the level with the best in the world? You want the National Team to consistently be a legit World Cup contender? […]
Who Else Wants to Win?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Winning fucking matters! And don’t you ever forget it. The only question (AND IT’S A CRITICAL ONE) really revolves around context. Under what circumstances has winning occurred? What were the pros/cons considering short, medium, and long term objectives? But, whatever your answers … on the whole, winning matters. Chronic losers […]
Soccer Development or Player Development? Start Getting it Straight
Time to recalibrate! We’re not interested in player development here, we’re interested in soccer development. While related, they are not the same. 1) Player Development This is not the end all, be all, of this country’s issues. As conventionally discussed, and comparatively speaking, it’s irrelevant. It’s just a tiny speck of what’s going on. If […]
How to Execute: Who on Earth are You Learning From?
The figure breaks coaching down into 3 fundamental elements – all of which contain huge challenges. For instance, we’ve got over 4 years of philosophy-based content here, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. But now I think there’s enough of a base to start efforts in the other two elements – Activities & Execution. The […]
How Can You Take World Class Soccer Methods, and Apply Them In Your Environment?
I think we can all agree that taking what they do elsewhere in the soccer world and applying it here, is not easy. But the reasons behind that aren’t necessarily what you think. Perhaps the biggest and least understood reason for the difficulty is interpretation. You see, reading or witnessing something, and properly interpreting what […]
A Huge Mistake Well-Meaning Coaches are Making
They try a bunch of different activities. Doing this, creates no continuity in your training. Which means: Your players aren’t getting a simple digestible message (the philosophy). Your players can’t achieve a level of mastery in the skills associated with a particular activity. And you, the coach, aren’t achieving a level of mastery with a […]
Player Development Answered in 4 Minutes [video]
The following video is split in half. One half is conducive to high-level development, the other isn’t. One half is 1 in a 1000 in our country, the other is the norm. If you find yourself nitpicking and making arguments otherwise, it’s highly likely you are THE problem. The eternal question of course, is how […]
Who are the American Soccer “Incumbents”?
I’ve used that term a lot on twitter, and was asked to define it. This was my response: Impossible in 140 chars. But here goes: The "incumbents" are those holding the power, their supporters, and their target demographic. — 3four3 (@3four3) July 27, 2013 Here I’ll go further … Traditionally the term is used for […]
Why “Developing All Players to Their Potential” is a Lie
You can not be all things to all people. You have to pick. Let’s consider you have a single roster that you get to work with for a certain number of hours per week. I think we can all agree this roster is comprised of players with unique qualities and varying levels of talent (or […]