One fortune cookie after another – in my brain – was just cracked open and its contents written down. Totally free-flowed and not second guessed.
- Winning is important.
- Possession is the optimal, if not the only, way to develop a player to their potential.
- Possession significantly increases your chances of winning consistently at all levels of play.
- 11 v 11 at U11 as a developmental impediment is totally overblown, if not downright negligible or even wrong.
- So-called ‘best athletes‘ opting to play other sports instead of soccer as being a, or THE, problem, is ignorance of the highest order.
- 99% of coaches don’t develop shit.
- 99% of coaches are currently not capacitated to develop players.
- Technical ability is not our country’s biggest problem.
- The rhetoric of the ‘best coaches‘ should be at the earliest of age groups is an opinion. One I do not agree with.
- The ‘best coaches‘ should be practicing their art at the highest of levels – from youth to pro.
- The highest levels (from youth to pro) are full of mediocre, to thoroughly incompetent, coaches.
- Running (ie physical fitness) should absolutely be incorporated (in the US landscape) at the early ages. Not for reasons of ‘fitness‘ or ‘winning‘, but rather the development of mental fortitude.
- ‘Diving‘ is not some sort of scourge that ruins the game.
- Players ‘complaining‘ to the ref, is not some sort of scourge that ruins the game.
- Parents are a problem in youth soccer.
- Youth club board of directors should not be comprised of parents.
- Possession football has dominated global football for as long as I know. Barcelona is only novel in that it took possession to an extra-planetary level.
- A lack of ‘soccer culture‘ is not the problem of US Soccer. ‘General culture‘ is.
- Excluding exceptions, players raised with an ‘American culture‘ are far behind players raised in a non-American one (latinos being the most prolific example).
- The more a player is coddled by parents when it comes to soccer, the more damage is done to their development.
- The more a parent believes their kid is good at this game, the worse they actually are.
- Who ‘makes it’, versus who doesn’t, is as much a matter of circumstance as it is quality.
- The US is not tapping the demographic which is comprised of the best players and best soccer minds.
- College soccer is detrimental.
- Pay to play is detrimental.
- Making money in youth soccer is not evil.
- Development needs to be monetarily incentivized.
- Development is a buzzword.
- 99% of all coaches are not aligned with the gold standard.
- Philosophy is a buzzword.
- US Soccer does have a style of play.
- US Soccer has excellent infrastructure.
- Infrastructure is not the biggest problem.
- Coaching at all levels is the biggest problem.
- Making everyone play 8v8 until U12 or whatever, won’t do jack shit!
- Barring exceptions, believing the declarations from US Soccer coaches, pundits, media, representatives, IN GENERAL, is retarded. Look at their product across time and across all levels (hell, some don’t even have a product association to speak of).
- Soccer parent ‘philosophy‘, in general, is a function of their kid’s situation.
- You must be globally literate in this game, to have proper judgment.
- Lifelong learning is required for a deep soccer education.
- Having the ‘right drills‘, in and of itself, won’t develop players.
- Having the ‘right‘ possession games / drills, in and of itself, won’t produce possession players or possession teams.
- Possession is the single most fundamental and important thing in this game.
- ‘Robot‘ players are products of culture.
- The term ‘robot‘ is not understood.
- ‘Creativity‘ is not understood.
- Coaches can only have minimal impact on technical quality. They can only refine and polish.
- There are no real tactics in US Soccer at all levels.
- Tactics are not formations.
- Tactics are the choreography behind a team (‘set tactical work‘).
- In general, poor coaches produce bad players which in turn become bad coaches. (Vicious cycle)
- Recruiting at any level is not evil.
- Catering to the needs of the ‘best‘ players on a team is good.
- Player quality is not the reason behind shit products across all US Soccer levels.
- Player selection at the professional levels is one of the biggest problems in US Soccer.
- Lack of promotion/relegation is a big problem.
- Nobody has comprehensively diagnosed US Soccer’s issues.
- The general philosophy of US Soccer across all levels is ‘no philosophy‘.
- The general philosophy of coaches across all levels is ‘no philosophy‘.
- ‘Plan B’ is an indicator of shaky commitment.
- ‘Possession‘ is a buzzword.
- Coaching is an art.
- A coach must be charismatic.
- The coach dictates style of play, not player personnel.
- I do not subscribe to the rhetoric of ‘burn out’.
- Coaches in the US allow their players an outrageous amount of freedom. Our players in the competitive landscape need less, not more, freedom.
- Coaches should not be passive mutes on the sidelines.
- The rhetoric of ‘the game is the best teacher‘ is misleading and damaging.
- The best development occurs with informal street ball coupled with formal structured play. Each has their place.
- They say soccer is a game of opinions. True and false. And that is not an opinion.
- Goals and assists, or any statistic for that matter, need to be placed in context.
- Quality of context is a function of expertise.
- Experience is not synonymous with expertise. Expertise can not be measured as a simple ‘# of years’. The traditional resume is incapable of capturing expertise. Hell, the roughly 200 articles on this site + video + the live action people have consumed still fail to capture our competence and incompetence regarding this game.
- Incompetence is easier to identify, than competence.
- The more competencies you acquire, the easier it becomes to identify who’s who.
- The main reason teams don’t play possession, is due to lack of coaching expertise in possession.
- A lack of expertise in possession, means a lack of global football expertise.
- A lack of expertise in possession, means a lack in expertise in the fundamentals of football.
- Before thinking you are the ‘exception‘, understand that the odds of that being true are totally against you – BIG TIME.
- The more you think you’re the ‘exception‘, the less you’ll learn.
- The more you expose yourself, the more you’ll learn.
- The more you suck other’s dicks, the less you’ll learn.
- The more you suck other’s dicks, the more likely you don’t know shit.
- Level of coaching license is not indicative of coaching quality.
- Paying in youth club does not entitle you to playing time.
- The vast majority of ‘development‘ occurs on a player’s own time and on the training grounds.
- Overall playing time throughout the course of a year is what’s important, not an individual game or weekend.
- Playing too many games is not the problem people make it out to be.
- Playing against lower level competition does have developmental value.
- Playing up as an individual or team has development value, but not always.
- Few things in soccer are black and white. This is what enables anyone from the most expert to the most ignorant to give an opinion. But opinions are not on equal footing.
- In its purest form, one’s philosophy should capture the entirety of one’s opinions.
- The term philosophy only recently has entered the vocabulary of American soccer. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes.
- The term development only recently has entered the vocabulary of American soccer. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes.
- The WNT is dominant not due to excellence in soccer, but due to negligence in the global women’s game.
- Caleb Porter has proven you can play winning possession soccer at the college level.
- We have proven you can play winning possession soccer at the youth level.
- Stanford (the women) has proven you can play winning possession soccer at the college level.
- Japan has exposed how poor the women’s game in the US is.
- Soccer on the female side in the US, is just as bad if not worse than the boys side.
- A huge difference between me and others, is that I place responsibility of good play on people, NOT systems.
- Brief statements, such as all of the 100 above, fail miserably in capturing one’s philosophy. To think you now understand my position is completely wrong.
I could easily write another thousand – or 10,000 – of these things, many of course with overlapping themes, but each containing a separate nugget. What I’d like to highlight for now is #101.
The what, when, how, and why of each statement (not just the 100 above, but the 10,000 I could write) needs to be addressed.
Otherwise, all we’ve got is ‘fortune cookie‘ philosophy – something heavily subject to a reader’s interpretation, and only useful to charlatans. And this is precisely what the general soccer community has and does. The most common of which may be use of the buzzwords: ‘development‘, ‘possession‘, ‘culture‘, and ‘philosophy‘ itself.
We have a bunch of fortune cookie’s walking around, and few developing a rich, coherent, and consistent philosophy. Even fewer developing one based on ‘gold standard’ principles.
Great stuff Gary. More and more when I am coaching, I find myself echoing in my mind the things I read here. This site has really helped me become a better student of the game and a better coach. I would like it if you could expand on #7. What is your ideal of a ‘developed player’? I have my own ideal and was curious as to what yours is. Thanks Gary.
99% of coaches are currently not capacitated to develop players. Due to 6. For me a developed player is one that can continue to the next higher level such as high school, college, pros.
Dr Loco – we are reminded again and again that high school, college, and pro players are crap so are you assessing developed players incorrectly? I was trying to dig deep with my question. What are 5 things you consider to be part of a developed player?
To me a developing player is one that can continue to advance mentally, technically, tactically, and physically. I understand high school, college, pro is poor quality. Nonetheless, a developing player should be able to advance through these stages. Of course an “elite” player can jump stages.
There are extensive player evaluations that can try to capture the level of development but that’s for another topic.
Hi Chad,
I don’t have one ideal of a ‘developed’ player. I have hundreds.
They are comprised of the greatest players in the world I have witnessed over the past decades.
When any player, youth to pro, emulates or shows ‘real’ similarities to any of my ‘ideals’. Then that player may have something special.
This is off topic but I want to share think u guys will like this. On YouTube check out videos by user allasfcb2 really great videos on barcelona soccer
Yes!! This guys videos are absolutely brilliant!!!
Gary,
Can you elaborate on “52. Catering to the needs of the ‘best‘ players on a team is good.”? Thanks.
The best players on the team are the important ones. However these best players change over time as seen in pro sports.
Hi Adrian,
I touched on the subject here:
http://blog.3four3.com/2012/07/31/recruiting-is-good-for-soccer-player-development/
Gary,
Thanks for passing this on. My questions are related to number 85, 87,88 and 89.
Any ‘help’ would be greatly appreciated.
If a player does not train on their own they have no future. Playing too many games is not the problem. It’s playing meaningless games. Playing against lower level competition helps develop attacking principles. Playing up helps develop defending principles.
Expanding on any of these items is a lot of work. Certainly if I want to do a good job of it.
I’ll get to them.
I think here some contradictions and things here I don’t necessarily agree with on this article. It was good none the less.
Wow! That’s a long list that one fortune cookie inspired and a lot to think about! Thanks for posting it. On my first read, I agree with pretty much everything, but I don’t quite understand a couple of points. No. 18 states “A lack of ‘soccer culture‘ is not the problem of US Soccer. ‘General culture‘ is.” I agree that this country has soccer culture as evidenced by millions of people playing youth soccer and the folks crowding the sports bars during WC, Euro or UEFA Champions league games. However, I don’t quite grasp what you mean by “general culture?” When I immigrated here from Europe, I was amazed by the diversity of this country. Aside from numerous ethnic groups that live here, there are regional cultural differences. The East Coast is different from the South, the West coast is different from Midwest. Kids from inner cities are raised differently from suburban kids or kids who live in rural areas. Gary, I think you are trying to allude to something very important by the term “general culture,” but I cannot quite grasp it. Could you explain it a bit more? Also, No. 12 states “Running (ie physical fitness) should absolutely be incorporated (in the US landscape) at the early ages. Not for reasons of ‘fitness‘ or ‘winning‘, but rather the development of mental fortitude.” Again, I agree that fitness training can help to develop mental fortitude, although some US clubs see fitness training as their way to win and make it the focal point of their training at younger ages. This is quite different from Barcelona (Spain) academy that does not do fitness training until the age of 16. Albert Puig made the following statement to BBC: “It is all about bringing high intensity into those sessions. Up to the age of 16 we don’t do any fitness training with the boys, just practice with the ball. Then we add the fitness training, but always incorporated into exercises with the ball.” Why should we depart from the most successful youth development model in the world, which does not incorporate any fitness training until the age of 16? You qualified your statement by referring to “the US landscape” and set the “mental fortitude” as the primary goal (as opposed to fitness or winning), but it is not entirely clear why the US warrants a different approach. Do the kids in the US have less mental fortitude than kids in Barcelona, Malaga, Valencia, Madrid, Paris, Munich or Amsterdam?
General culture sets the standard so it is the problem. I would like to see a new soccer organization with different culture establish themselves in the US and compete against USSF.
Dr. Loco, thanks for clarifying this – if by “general culture,” Gary meant the entrenched soccer powers in this country – pay-to-play system, the “elite” coaches, clubs, leagues, college, USSF, – it makes perfect sense – they are a big problem in terms of the ways they operate. Perhaps by general culture he also meant the general aspiration by the parents that kids will go to college on soccer scholarships (and be subject to limitations on practices per NCAA rules), while in Europe or South America the focus is on making it to a professional club, where the focus is to develop a first team player.
General culture is what you see down the streets in your neighborhoods. If there is nothing there then it’s a problem. Make it or got find it.
Went to a birthday party and adults where dancing in the backyard while kids were juggling the soccer ball around the DJ. See the difference.
That example is more about soccer culture than general culture. The general culture issues are broader and bigger: The parents who pay for the most “prestigious” athletic team or music teacher or private school and expect that alone to make their child a prodigy. The kids who know the minimum to get by (including cheating) and still spend maximal time on xbox, facebook, whatever. The media who trumpets the instant celebrities. Everyone who buys into the status quo of the quick buck of sustained mediocrity.
In my neighborhood you don’t see anything! There are no kids playing nothing happening. It’s like everyone is a robot inside their homes doing their robotic tasks – homework, reading, TV, XBOX, eating, drinking. Nobody hanging out playing, partying, dancing, creating. No spontaneity anywhere.
General culture, to me, is the change over the past 30 years from rewarding accomplishment to rewarding attempts. When I was a kid, I got a hat for playing baseball. I got a trophy my 3rd year when we actually had the 2nd best record. There’s also that dilution, if there are 10 tournaments this weekend, you 10 chances to be “the best” our of 160, instead of maybe 1 tournament that invites the best 16 to start. I think the culture also relates to the running for mental fortitude. It gets them used to doing something that they might not like, like, work. You can pay for matching bags and warmups that say “Elite Gold FC” but you can’t pay someone to run for you. You can’t pay the coach to not run. You suck it up and you do it. Everyone wants to shoot and scrimmage, nobody wants to take a ball and hit it 50 times each foot against a wall by themselves.
This is a good sign for me…my son does that without being told! Perhaps our time and energy really IS being well spent. 😉
‘General culture’ has nothing to do with soccer.
It’s anthropological, and requires an extended treatise. But at least I can give you a sense…
What this country produces in mass better than perhaps all other countries are human beings that follow instructions and ‘stay in line’. The American industrial complex requires that kind of human resource ( a 9-5 compliant worker). And the education system was created for that very reason.
We indoctrinate our people from birth through elementary school, through high school, through college, to ‘follow orders’. “You will show up at this time. You will be excused at this time. You will comply with your teachers. You will complete this homework by this time. If you do not comply, there’s going to be big problems. So on and so forth.”
At home, parents continue with this indoctrination.
All geared to produce non-special compliant 9 to 5 workers (blue or white collar, doesn’t matter). ROBOTS!
This indoctrination spills over to the soccer field. And guess what, those ROBOTS have no flavor, no swagger, no creativity. And why would they? Those sorts of things have been systematically taken away from them.
So, that’s a brief little touch on ‘general culture’.
While I agree that America’s General Culture is inhibiting soccer development, it is not for the reasons you stated Gary. American culture and the education system, for all its faults, cultivate creativity and original thought much more than most other countries, especially Latin American countries. Since when is showing up on time, not taking a break anytime you want, learning to complete an assignment on time stifle creativity? And believe me, Latin American schools are, if anything, more strict on these things and following teachers’ orders than American schools. Being great at anything (especially creative endeavers) take an incredible amount of dedication, perserverence, hard work and energy. As ChrisP365 rightly points out, THIS is the problem with American culture and soccer: a great many kids in today’s society have no idea how much hard work, dedication and effort it takes to become a great at anything (including being a great soccer player). They’ve never had to earn anything in their life. This is the greatest cultural problem to overcome.
Your response is straight from the indoctrination manual.
People who do remarkable works, work hard at them not because school taught them to work hard.
“We indoctrinate our people from birth through elementary school, through high school, through college, to ‘follow orders’. “You will show up at this time. You will be excused at this time. You will comply with your teachers. You will complete this homework by this time. If you do not comply, there’s going to be big problems. So on and so forth.””
Are you saying that schools in Argentina, Spain, and the Netherlands- three countries that produce a lot of creative players are any different?
Most of the “highly” creative people drop out of school to pursue their passion whether it is sports, business, religion, art, music, etc.
I also stated we are perhaps the best at doing it.
Our indoctrination is the strongest, because the standard of living that compliance has historically provided is perhaps the best on planet earth. Compliance in the US, has historically been a very safe route to take. So our mass believes in it more than any other.
Hence, my critically added note that parents continue this indoctrination of their kids at home.
In other countries, overall compliance with ‘the man’ is not as rewarded. People are forced to find alternative or supplemental means.
Finally, like I said, all of this requires a formal, lengthy treatise. But at least people have a clue what I mean by general culture. ROBOTS!
“Our indoctrination is the strongest, because the standard of living that compliance has historically provided is perhaps the best on planet earth. Compliance in the US, has historically been a very safe route to take. So our mass believes in it more than any other.”
You’ve obviously never been to Canada 😉
I don’t think he has traveled much of anywhere.
I am confused…So then you’re saying schooling cannot influence people? (“People who do remarkable works, work hard at them not because school taught them to work hard”) But that was original argument- that schools DO influence behaviour (negatively in your estimation) . Or are you saying that school can ONLY influence people negatively and not positively, which if that is your argurment, is totally asinine. Good coaching (basically teaching which is what it should be called at the youngest levels) teaches BOTH discipline AND creativity.
And Loco, the number of Nobel prize winners from the U.S. almost all U.S. school trained (and who need to be creative to the max to achieve that distinction) all would point otherwise. I would suggest reading Thinking in Jazz: The Art of Improvisation for getting an idea of how important schooling (both formal and informal) and intense study is necessary for creative success. Jazz, like soccer, means being able to be creative within an established framework, it does not mean going off and doing whatever you feel like with no regard to what is being played.
Discipline is a learned art and is essential to become an artist. Discipline does not equal conformity.
“You will show up at this time. You will be excused at this time. You will comply with your teachers. You will complete this homework by this time.”
Following order creates followers not leaders. Leaders don’t need to be compliant. They show up earlier and leave later. They complete their work before the time it’s due. They make up their own accelerated time schedule.
Personally most of the schooling I experienced was compliant-based. It did little to positively influence me. In fact I had to spend a lot of time unlearning things. Not to say that schooling is completely negative but school did not teach me to work hard.
I’m not sure discipline can be taught effectively in school. I think it comes more naturally from your family and cultural upbringing.
Many of the Nobel laureates I heard about were culturally not from the US, not your common everyday kid.
Cristiano Ronaldo arguably one of the most creative players seems to do whatever he feels like. Kobe and Lebron tend to do the same. In fact, I think they are all friends.
I’m confused too. This coaching stuff is really complicated.
Dr Loco,
“The more you think you’re the ‘exception‘, the less you’ll learn.”
You seem to think you are the exception.
No, definitely not the exception. I have so much to learn. Not sure if I will even scratch the surface before I’m done.
If the macro path to success is compliance, that mindset will extend to soccer. The parents look for compliance – the “right” club. The coaches seek out the right drills – coerver, barca, etc. Comply comply, just give me list, maybe, 10 commandments/drills, thats all :-). Guys that can run a 5v2 drill all day, know 50 different surfaces of the foot. All T, no I, in the Dutch terms. That insight is lacking among a lot of coaches, so the kids don’t get it. They don’t seem to teach it in the USSF courses. It’s all fine if the goal is to produce a larger fan base for the game and healthy crop of USL/NASL/MLS subs. If you’re trying to produce elite players though, you want that 1-4% at the end who are going to work at it because the idea of the 9-5 safe existence is alien or not an option.
Personal theory: I’m not sure anyone was playing “beautiful soccer” in the 30 – early 50s. In another thread someone mentioned their ethnic social club in old chicago, another thread someone posted a lnk to Beadling. I know a bit about the last one, primarily a club for the miners about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh. By the 70s most of the kids I knew who were affiliated were descended from the Italians who worked the mines. It was a top club between the wars. I think, hd the US continued to embrace soccer, we could be ok right now. But the idea of “the melting pot”, which saw those immigrants and their kids flock to baseball and later the NFL cut the legs out. Other countries with similarly rigorous schooling and compliant cultures have had 40-50 years of innovation since the pyramid got inverted – Michels, Cruyuff, etc (my knowledge of latin soccer is woeful, one continent at a time.) which the US missed. So even if they are “compliant’, they are complying with a solid blueprint that has produced results for 30-40 years.
“So even if they are “compliant’, they are complying with a solid blueprint that has produced results for 30-40 years.”
Compliance slowly becomes outdated. The world, business, sports are always evolving. Look at Holland, France, England. They are no longer powerhouses. Italy had to reinvent themselves. I think soccer is on a 8-10 year cycle. Presidents are 4 year. HDTVs 2 year. iPhones 1 year.
“They’ve never had to earn anything in their life.” Yes this is the Mitt Romney problem.
“Since when is showing up on time, not taking a break anytime you want, learning to complete an assignment on time stifle creativity?” Holland suffers from these issues and still it’s considered to be the center of player development. In fact most of Europe is like this including France, Spain, Italy, Greece.
Real “thinkers” and “creative” minds do whatever they want whenever they want. They might not be “rich” but are driven by their inner passion. Some call them bums and losers but others call them artists.
Read a biography/autobiography or interview any great artist in any field (music, sports, dance, art, visual arts). Every single one spent incredible amounts of time honing their craft. It might not have been in through “formal” training many of them did) but they all practiced their art relentlessly.
“Every single one spent incredible amounts of time honing their craft.”
True but what does this have to do with ‘following orders’ and ‘staying in line’?
Right, general culture has little to do with soccer. It’s how you live your life within our societies. Music, dance, celebration, food, work, sport, religion, beliefs, values play a big role in developing your cultural identity.
Following orders and staying in line are anti-freedom and anti-expression ideologies.
Thanks for the explanation. I get the flavor of what you are talking about, when you say “general culture.” I can definitely see it in the school system with my kids. If the society indoctrinates us to stay in line and be 9 to 5 robots, what should a parent or a coach do to develop creativity and originality?
That is the challenge.
I have ideas, but they are not well developed.
Perhaps the starting point is not being afraid of not ‘fitting in’.
It is that fear which funnels most people to the middle.
“Perhaps the starting point is not being afraid of not ‘fitting in’.
It is that fear which funnels most people to the middle.”
Not having a fear of not fitting in is a result of confidence and passion.
Really cool discussion I am reading here between Dr. Loco and TDsoccer I think you both have good points. I believe excellence is driven by passion. For instance you can look at Kafka and Nietzsche two of the best writers ever and no one read or knew about them in their times… these men didn’t do it for the money or fame it was just something inside of them that they had to do. I would say they follow both of your ideas. Nietzsche’s entire life was dedicated to writing well so he put in the time. And he also did it his own way with disregard for standards… if you are familiar with his writing you will see how unique his style is.
IMO creativity is not its own different trait but just what dedication and excellence looks like from the outside.
A society that pushes everyone to the middle instead of leading from the front!
I’ve recently moved to Mexico, all of the kids wear uniforms, get reamed by their teachers if a hair is out of place or they don’t have “white” shoes for P.E. The thing I’m finding amazing is that, even though they all wear a uniform, stand in lines to move from class to class and look like Robots their individuality is actually celebrated and appreciated.
Maybe the repression (uniforms/lines) actually fuels their desire and willingness to put themselves out there, to be different in their various endeavors (soccer, dance, choir).
Back when soccer started in the U.S. it was a suburban sport (1980) – I know there was earlier play, but it exploded in the 80s. Parents liked it because it was a “team” sport and little jimmy could share the ball – baseball and football are individual sports. If you dribbled, you were a ball hog. We ran the ball hogs out of soccer and into football. We killed individual expression and creativity.
Our current problem is;
Coaches want the kids to always do it “my way.” They don’t let play develop and see if the kids solve the problems on their own and with creativity. Coaches don’t plan ahead to create the SSGs/situations for the kids to face the problems and adjust the SSGs on the fly if the problems aren’t showing themselves enough. You know what they do, they buy a book and run some drills/SSGs. Hey, if it is good for Michael Beale then it is good for me.
Guess what – You have to have a Philosophy first and then pick the activities that support that philosophy. I heard a great coach say that once… his name is Jose Mourinho.
“Maybe the repression (uniforms/lines) actually fuels their desire and willingness to put themselves out there, to be different in their various endeavors (soccer, dance, choir).” Interesting concept. I like it. Kinda like the school girl in Britney and Lady Gaga.
“Guess what – You have to have a Philosophy first and then pick the activities that support that philosophy. I heard a great coach say that once… his name is Jose Mourinho.” Exactly!
MG,
In my reading of Gary’s opinions on the subject of the Barca academy it seems that he doesn’t necessarily think that it is the Gold standard just because the current Barca team is what they are. Either that or that even if they are, we don’t need to copy them.
Lots of stuff to digest here, but I immediately agree wholeheartedly with 87, 4, 35, and 64 among others.
Excellent! Add this:
102. Quantity does not produce quality. There are too many players and teams in the sport of soccer that it dilutes the player pool.
Agree with most but would modify these:
12. Running should absolutely be incorporated (in the US landscape) at the early ages. Not for reasons of ‘fitness‘ or ‘winning‘, but rather the development of proper form. Track lessons would be most appropriate.
26. Making money in youth soccer is not evil if you are truly developing players.
“12. Running should absolutely be incorporated (in the US landscape) at the early ages. Not for reasons of ‘fitness‘ or ‘winning‘, but rather the development of proper form. Track lessons would be most appropriate.”
I strongly disagree. Over emphasis on running leads people to be weak and get injured a lot. If you want to have people who can run well and not get injured and with good form I think you are better of spending more time in the weight room doing stuff like deadlifts, barbell loaded bulgarian split squats, bench press, weighted chin ups, and mobility exercises as directed by the FMS. At the very least you will want to do this in conjunction with a track program.
Enjoy the blog and agree with many of the fortune cookies. However, I think numbers 81 and 82 are beneath you and do nothing to make your case or provide wisdom or thought regarding the gold standard of soccer.
Why?
Because an ‘educated’ human being should not have at his disposal the full arsenal of the human language?
How do you know it doesn’t help make ‘my case’?
AS- While I agree with many (most?) of the thoughts/ideas, once I got to #81 and #82 I instinctively turned off.
To the dorks asking Gary to elaborate…please see #81 and #82. Think for yourself, read between the lines, and do your own research. You are just proving so many of his points above about general culture, sub par coaching, and lifelong learning to name a few. Easily, my favorite is #61 Coaching is an art. So many of you ask Gary “what drills do you do?” , “tell us how to develop players/teams?”, “give us more insight on your training sessions”. Create your own training sessions! The game provides you so many opportunities to set something up for your players to work on. BUT, that is the problem. Not many can see it and that is why there are so few top quality coaches. It has to be in you. You can’t read a book or blog posts. You have to live it.
Calling people “dorks” because they are interested in learning from a successful coach is rather ignorant wouldn’t you agree? I come here to learn so excuse me if I am not already on your supreme level of soccer knowledge. Over and over again I read here that American coaches suck. I am attempting to raise my coaching game and this site helps me do that and you calling people “dorks” for wanting to improve as a coach is wrong. Go fuck yourself prick.
Chad – don’t take it so personally. #61 Coaching is an art. da Vinci did not begin with color by number. It’s was just in him. You must find your own answers. If you can’t, then it’s not in you. Then see #50 and #73. I was only trying to help you out.
VDub,
Even da Vinci had a Master… Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. In the Renaissance was fueled by trade guilds, where the youth would apprentice for a master for a number of years… Leo didn’t find “it” on his own, just like Josep Guardiola didn’t…
Just because you ask someone’s opinion, doesn’t mean you immediately agree with them.
The enjoyment of coming here is to see as much as what Gary writes as to what the responses are.
Poor da Vinci, such a Dork! 🙂
Nice one, VDub. Than needed to be said.
In many ways, #81 and 82 are the elephant in the room. Gary’s riff on robots, above, stopped me in my tracks when I read it. Once you stop laughing and really consider what he is saying, it is more than a bit disturbing.
And it will also confuse, especially when people start to juxtapose that robot comment with an earlier remark about players just doing whatever they want on the field.
Someone shared this blog with me a while back, and I love it. I come to it as a parent of a soccer player. Without wanting to be one of those asking for a long explanation on particular item number, it would be great to see at some point your thoughts on what is the proper role of the parent in developing a player. Stay out of the way completely? But how do you foster the desire to touch the ball more, in a culture where that doesn’t happen naturally as much as we would like…
Burke,
You don’t need to stay out of the way completely. Ask you kid to kick the ball with you, then have fun with them when you are doing it. Create the enjoyable time around kicking, dribbling, playing 1v1. Celebrate the nuggets of magic they produce – that perfectly weighted pass, the left foot pass, the half volley, etc.
Give them a challenge when kicking the ball… but don’t be dogmatic about it. Throw in there every once in awhile.. let me see your left/right. Can you trap it with your chest and pass it to me.
In the car on the way home, kids are different, some want to talk about the game, others will go a few hours and then want to talk about it. Give them this time. But the questions I like to have my parents ask is 1) What did you do well today? 2) what could you have done better? 3) what are you going to work on this week to get better? (age dependent). This is also meant to get the parents thinking positively about the experience instead of reaming the kids for missing a pass.
Read Mindset by Carol Dweck… great book on how to help your player embrace challenges.
Find the things you can celebrate about the game with your player and talk about those. Don’t PREACH. Turn the games on the TV on the weekend. Wake up and watch a game on Sunday morning with the kid and hang out. Ask them questions and LISTEN! They give some insightful and funny answers.
I’ve heard from a 5 year old.
“Xavi looks everywhere”
“Puyol has hair like a girl. But he’s tough.”
“That was beautiful!”
Find a local supporters group and take the kids to the big game. We went to the Clasico at a friends restaurant in SF one time – they are from Barcelona and the atmosphere was magical. The kids feed on this. We bought the Barca song and they play it all the time. Buy them jerseys of the players.
Feed the love and joy of the game.
Gary,
You’ve outdone yourself! Best soccer blog of all time!!! What you jotted down is a kind of Body of Knowledge all coaches, DoCs, clubs, USSF, and ODP need to read, digest and understand.
I was at NHB Cup over weeked with my son and daughter. Ugly, long ball, kick and chase. Total crap on the pitch. Winning coaches collected trophies, parents happy and all fat, dumb and happy with how good they are. Frigging crap and they love it!
Gary, you should condense it to a Bill of Rights for soccer player development.
Gary,
Many clubs have been eating their own crap for decades. So your fortune cookie picture about being easier to resist at beginning rather than at end is crucial. Clubs like FC Barcelona USA started fresh, away from deeply rooted crap of the past. Now they can’t change. The DoCs are often old school English types or ones who came up in stone age of USA soccer and totally clueless to the world game.
For old guard clubs, making the change will be hard and political. Some may survive and others die off to make way for the new and better . . . . like FC Barcelona USA!
102. A coach who teaches one thing at practice and has team play differently at a game or tournament is false prophet.
103. Almost all mistakes are mental.
104. Yes, you can take chances in the attacking third, that’s not being ball-hog — it’s creating chances.
105. Robots can be programmed; zombies can’t.
106. A coach who allows his team to play kick and chase is a criminal felon.
107. The more a coach borrows outside players, the less he trusts his team and the more he is only concerned about winning at expense of developing.
108. Yelling can be good; barking orders that add no tactical or technical advantage is bad.
109. ODP is crap! Completely select wrong players.
110. Skill, smarts, ability to play quick > size, power, strength. 98% of coaches rank physical attributes higher than technical, tactical, and mental abilities because it’s easier to set a bull free than to tame a cat.
111. Knowing the coach / being friends should not = playing time.
112. Players with two left feet, no coordination, and remedial abilities DO NOT belong on USDA teams playing in SCDSL or Premier level — but they’re there in droves. Funneling crap like some public schools graduating dunces because they feel sorry for them. Money talks in pay to play!
113. Pay to pay is not a model: it’s a recipe for disaster.
114. Soccer isn’t played on vertical tracks going north and south at 100 mph for 90-minutes.
115. The best defense is a good offense (possession)
116. The best players are intelligent ones. Intelligence is the difference maker. Something totally non-existent, lost on coaches in US youth soccer. “Who needs smarts when we got a man-child who can bulldoze opponents”?
117. There is little to no literature on “the art of coaching” and developing “intelligence” but much on the technical “Xs and Os”. And USA doesn’t have historical collected experience of elders, hence why we suck!
118. To develop more intelligent players, coaches need to talk less with more substance and allow players to learn and not always be told.
Roger,
Regarding your 117). There are many books and studies on developing “intelligence”. See the following:
Developing Sport Expertise: Researchers and Coaches Put Theroy into Practice
Horst Wein’s books, Developing Youth Football Players and Developing Game Intelligence in Soccer
Athlete-Centred Coaching: Developing Decision Makers
Then there are some more general books that touch on development and intelligence: Mindset, by Carol Dweck; Talent Code by Dan Coyle, Talent is Overrated
There are many more studies published on specific development, but I found the above group to be the best.
You can find them here: http://soccersource.org/good-stuff/
Also, we suck, but mostly because there are coaches in power picking the wrong players. See Gary’s #22.
Roger, nice additions!
Gary, I would be interested in seeing an entry on what you think will happen with the Portland Timbers now that it has been announced he will take over in December. Maybe a timeline of improvements and successes we can expect to see???
Sorry I was referring to #95 Caleb Porter, but didn’t state it.
“Dick sucking”, “culture”, “robots”….
1. Lack of “creativity” isn’t the problem. I see plenty of “creativity” in the adult pickup games every week. What I do see is horrible decision making.
2. “Culture”. It’s more of a lack of dedication. ie. there aren’t enough, serious, dedicated players that are also students of the game.
3.We select players based on the wrong criteria. We select skillful, but dumb players or otherwise one dimensional. Or we select players due to artificial, “physical gifts”.
Athleticism does come into play at some point. But certainly shouldn’t be the priority at 11, 12, or even 15. We aren’t creating/developing more complete players.
The reason we have yet to produce a “Messi” type yet is because we don’t have the patience or even the knowhow to do it. In the interim, I’d be content with a technically/tactically gifted midfielders. And technically/tactically competent defenders who can build from the back.
Not only is the coaching bad in most cases. But on top of that, by and large the vast majority of American youth players train about half (or less) as their foreign counterparts.
So, spending more time on the ball AND learning the tactical awareness/game intelligence (age appropriate) will go a LONG way!
Someone like Messi was born not made. We don’t have the correct cultural environment with the proper encouragement to allow someone like Messi to develop on their own.
If you are talking about the lack of soccer culture in this country and that it negatively has effected soccer development, I would agree with you. If you are saying somehow North American culture does not allow intelligent, creative, players to develop on their own in general I cannot agree. Look at basketball-a sport where many of the same attributes.are valuable. John Stockton was as a creative,skilled, intelligent player with vision in basketball as Xavi or Iniesta is in soccer. So was Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Steve Nash, Isiah Thomas. Look at Gretzky in hockey.
The problem that soccer is overcoming in America is that we are playing catchup with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we turned to British soccer doctrine when we tried to catch up. We also happened to try to catch up when there are a lot more distractions for kids that take away time from practicing soccer (internet, web games, many more other sports choices, television). The explosion of soccer participation without the requisite number of qulified coaches has meant that young players aren’t really playing soccer (their ignorant parents think they are because they have never watched nor understood real soccer) they are playing kickball/chase ball. It will take a couple of generations for players to become coaches with each generation getting a little better understanding of how the game should be played.
Overall I always enjoy reading your comments.
Here is something to think about.
“The problem that soccer is overcoming in America is that we are playing catchup with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we turned to British soccer doctrine when we tried to catch up. “
Given our current population demographics how do you think America would be if we had turned to say Italian, German, Spain, Brazil, Argentina for our soccer doctrine?
Would it even be possible to not turn to British soccer?
“It will take a couple of generations for players to become coaches with each generation getting a little better understanding of how the game should be played.”
Blind optimism could lead to making bad decisions: study
Roger,
I like your comment about players with two left legs. Over past 8 years, I’ve seen several players move from team to team or club to club who are AYSO level but get on a team somewhere around 16 – 18 for playing position. They play 5 – 10 minutes on regular basis and rarely get in during quarters or semis and not at all in finals. Yet they keep coming back and getting spots on the team. Not a snowball’s chance in hell these players will ever “develop”. I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing this.
Above is function of pay-to-play (or more like pay to be on the bench). If we are to develop top teams with top talent, we can’t lower the bar just for $$$.
Then there are players I know who have been bulldozers since U10. No skill, no creativity, just bull in china shop. But funny thing is those players do start and some never leave the pitch. I know I’m not alone in this as it’s commonplace. I know of precious few teams that truly stick to a philosophy and limit rosters if players aren’t a fit. 99% of clubs / teams do not have such discipline because of pay to play. If everyone were like LA Galaxy or Europe or SA, we would not have this problem. They take who they want . . . and those are the most promising players. Not time to waste on clumsy Johnny with two left feet.
Roger,
I really like your #116: The best players are intelligent ones. Intelligence is the difference maker.
American football and baseball are very structured. Follow coach exactly on set play after set play. Soccer is more dynamic and not time outs and lots of running and playing defense and offense and lots of on the spot adjustments in controlled chaos. So intelligent players is beyond critical. I think part of problem is the collective USA psyche thinkst it’s all physical and athleticism. Soccer is played with the brain as I think Pele said.
“I think part of problem is the collective USA psyche thinkst it’s all physical and athleticism.”
I don’t think that’s the underlying problem. I have a group of kids who never played any other sport besides soccer and still refuse to use their intelligence. Soccer is not in some way crippled by football, baseball, basketball. Fundamentally I believe soccer suffers by how the kids are raised within their family’s culture.
Dr. Loco, you want your players to show intelligence and make decisions, yet you have identified yourself as a “joystick” coach. Players who have the Coach in their ear the whole game will hesitate so they can hear what he wants them to do. That hesitation replaces thinking ahead. Players who know that the Coach is not going to instruct them in games will realize they better think for themselves. After a while you will see them start coaching each other and then they will really learn and improve.
I do “joystick” some players but not others. Of course not the entire game. I think there is a balance needed. There are some players that just don’t get it. When players start coaching each other that’s a good sign that they don’t need the coach. I have yet to see these players.
Do you think the players from the MNT and WNT team coach each other?
That brings up an interesting issue. Verbal communication on the field is something that seems heavily emphasized in American coaching circles, and the players reflect that. I’ve taken a couple of coaching courses with former ODP players (I was not) and that is one thing that has always struck me about them — the amount of chatter.
My observation is the USNT players talk to each other a lot on the field. My observation is that the players of La Roja and Barca do not talk to each other as much (verbally) in the run of play – their communication is more non-verbal and therefore much faster. It is possible of course that my observations (based on what I see on TV and a couple of occasions in the stands) are not accurate.
Related points:
– providing information (i.e. – “man on”, “time”) is not the same as telling someone what to do
– dropping verbal cues to remind players of what they have been previously been taught to do in a given situation (i.e. “drop”) is not the same as “joysticking”
– there are times when guided discovery is not the best teaching tool and you do just need to tell the player what to do (so in this I agree – “joysticking” has it’s place, just very limited IMO)
#68 above answers a lot of the questions alluded to here. Players need lots and lots of both (1) unstructured play (to figure things out for themselves) and (2) formal practice (to learn the game from a quality coach). As Gary says, each has its place. This is a recipe for player development which has no exceptions that I am aware of. If your players are not getting enough of both, excessive amounts of one or the other will not fix what ails them.
I think the non-verbal of Spain and Barca (especially Barca) is via long time familiarity with one another from La Masia as well as pattern passing. They know where to be and supporting players always moving or going to space. Total trust in everyone’s game intelligence.
I’m with you on this one Nova Mike
The over the top emphasis on the quantity of verbal communication in the US always seemed to me like a sign of lack of soccer sophistication…the more the better is the overall rule
10 teammates barking for the ball even before I have a chance to pass it is supposed to be helpful, never mind if half of them are closed down
Shrieking for the ball when you are on a great position on the blind side of the defender and I am about to lift me head in your direction, is supposed to be great even if you just brought the attention of the all defense towards you,
and so on and so on
Amen to all of that! Glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed it. It can seem like a lonely world out there …
I’d rather be lonely in the soccer world than agree with all the puppets that contribute to 4 points over 3 games and absolute shit soccer against 3 minnows in Antigua, Guatemala, and Jamaica.
Kevin,
Minnow only refers to population size. USA is huge 300M plus. Uruguay, Paraguay, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and many other top countries have fraction or small percentage of USA. The “American is big country with large population” argument is not the problem. USA is in fact a “minnow” (i.e., second or third tier) soccer country. In terms of technical and tactical and intelligence — we are in nursery school!
Throw Canada into that discussion of minnows as well – yes, we only have 35 million and are small in that regard, but we’re the #1 or 2 richest country in the world…..on a per-population and standard of living basis. We should be far better at this sport than we are – but have all the same cultural issues and geographic issues USA has. Though the Canadian geographic issues are even more difficult as populations are small and isolated compared to USA which has “major” markets relatively close. Vancouver to Calgary, for example, is only a 1 hour flight, but is a 10 hour drive. And flights in Canada are expensive.
I meant minnow in soccer quality I am well aware that many great soccer nations have extremely small population sizes.
So, the same problems occur out in SoCal as well huh?
I thought SoCal was the major “hotbed” in the country?
Even more depressing…
You’re right! It’s definitely a hotbed. A very depressing hotbed…
But because its such a large hotbed… there are plenty of positives buried here. Thankfully there are people like Gary, and his followers, that are attempting to uncover and dust off these buried gems. And, with time, these gems will shine bright.
Gary, I do have a question that has yet to be answered or addressed.
At what age should a player be trained for their ‘natural’ position?
Understanding that one teams’ center mid is another team’s (or coach’s) right back.
Thank you Hall.
On the ever increasing to-do list. 🙂
Gary
Please comment about #66, the mute coach…I know that there is some hyperbole there
.
My son, a 12 year old, plays with a higher level team that indeed plays possession based soccer. The coach is often rather quiet during gametime and I understand why. Its interesting to listen to some of our newer parents or comments from parents from opposing clubs. Some want the American football coach who shouts. Its as if the kids are now being “coached” and we’re getting our money’s worth.. Its almost a show for them when teh opposing coach is vocal. But we have several ethnic kids on the team too ..African, 3-4 Hispanic ( Mexico, Guatemala..etc) and my sense from them is that too would like more “noise” from the sideline because then the boys are then being coached. Training is obviously a completely different thing.
What was your experience in Europe with their clubs coaching style during game time- Barca, Ajax ?
I’ve seen them train at DeToekmst but haven’t seen them coach the youth academy during game time.
There has been a lot of talk about “joystick coaching”. I hear Barca USA sidelines; indeed they are not mute. There is a lot of “instruction” happening during gametime whether it be “drop the ball”, “get wide”..etc. I can hear it through the audio. I’m not questioning the product and if you say that’s why we do it, sobeit
Thanks
Just from my opinion I think the coaching should be done during training and during games pre-game, half-time, and post-game. The results might be better if you tell a player what to do but if he eventually figures out what to do he will be much better off. Rather than telling a player what to do take him aside postgame or at the next match and discuss how you think they can improve the game or set up a situation for them to discover it themselves. That’s just my opinion though.
Kevin,
I think it depends. What are you “coaching” in the game. If you are making comments about something well done that you’ve been working on, then why not (positive reinforcement). If it is a tactical issue because your player didn’t move up to fill the space (focus) why not remind them to move up. If it is something more involved, pull them to the side and remind them of their job – during the game, maybe, halftime sure. If the defense is not pushing up fast enough, what’s wrong with reminding the whole back line.
I think helping them figure out their responsibilities during a game is helpful for them. Its not as though you get to practice 11v11 during the week. Games are development time too… hopefully with more observation than coaching… but to make a hard policy limits you as a coach.
I think it’s ok to give a player options during the game. During the game there are coachable moments that might not be present otherwise. Also, coaching time is limited with players. If you don’t do it in the moment might not ever get to it.
I’d also encourage a notepad with you on sidelines.
These moments can be reviewed at halftime and adjustments made
@ Tyler and Dr Loco – very well said from both of you.
Totally agree Kevin! Too many coaches try to micro manage in games. Prepare them well, set them free to learn in games, then follow up postgame. Reinforce they have responsibility to learn and incorporate what they are told pre/post game. Let them think for themselves in game. Players who struggle with this either don’t have the intelligence, dont’ care, or not on same communication path as coach. An intelligent player will ask and learn. A lot of the bulldozers i’m familar with are hard headed and don’t learn quickly, repeat same mistakes weekly but somehow keep starting spot???
@kevin, totally agree. A match is just more training for these kids. If a player is forgetting about stuff the coach went over in practice, why shouldn’t the coach remind them? As with all things, I think there is coaching from the sideline that helps and coaching that is detrimental, but I think that is down to the quality of the coach. And, we’re talking about the younger age groups here (u12). Coaches that are “zen” on the sideline are annoying. Like, the kid obviously needs some pointers, or reminders, why not help him out?
oops, agree with tyler instead. hehe.
Agree Kevin. I occasionally see a boy over on the sideliens with individual instruction during game time but more difficult now with the 11v11 field. Your examples are all reasonable to intervene..etc. But maybe natural consequences of a ball played through an unorganized back four and having to get the ball out of your net would change behavior more than prodding 30 times a game 🙂
I don’t like too much instruction when the ball is on the boys foot as to where it should go, should they go at the defnder ..etc especially on an 11v11 field. the angles are too hard to see, the communication is often late and the boys need to figure it out.
Now back to the original question..what was it like on the Barca and Ajax sidelines?
Wow, great post.
“The more a parent believes their kid is good at this game, the worse they actually are.” Why else would I spend a sh@tload of money if I didn’t believe this? 🙂
You’ve got a witness in me Kana! I see same stuff as you with AYSO players somehow getting spots on supposedly top teams. And I also see lesser skilled “bulldozers” getting starting spots and expense of smaller more talented players.
Same here! And I think Dr. Loco’s comment is crucial within this topic. I think too many coaches pick out the “best players” on the 6 V 6 field, and never realize they are no longer the best, when they get to the 8 V 8 or 11 V 11 field. They receive so much praise for what works at the younger/smaller level, that they end up not developing the things they need to succeed later…and the coaches aren’t paying attention.
“The best players on the team are the important ones. However these best players change over time as seen in pro sports.”
my quick comments.
12.Running (ie physical fitness) should absolutely be incorporated (in the US landscape) at the early ages, Not for reasons of ‘fitness‘ or ‘winning‘, but rather the development of mental fortitude.
.
What for? they’re kids, they run to the washroom for god’s sake, running does not necessarily = mental fortitude….postive thinking, talking to your kids how to deal with conflict of a “bad game” is developing mental fortitude…maybe just buy your kid an Anthony robbins tape, much more valuable than running in training at 8 yrs. old.
27.Development needs to be monetarily incentivized……..
YES, but it could backfire, people do silly things for the mighty $.
35.Making everyone play 8v8 until U12 or whatever, won’t do jack shit!……..
Neither will forcing them to play 11v 11…..look at england!
55.Lack of promotion/relegation is a big problem.
at the youth level??? are you not encouring winning by the fact there is promotion/relaegation in the first, COMPETELY DISAGREE.
87.Playing too many games is not the problem people make it out to be.
No, but the ratio of training to games is….too low in this part of the world vs Europe.
Oh boy.
Fortune cookie responses to fortune cookie statements.
And round and round we go.
You’ve missed the entire point of the article. But I suspect you’re not alone.
“55.Lack of promotion/relegation is a big problem.
at the youth level??? are you not encouring winning by the fact there is promotion/relaegation in the first, COMPETELY DISAGREE.”
Seriously, why not? There are obviously differing levels of play. Does it benefit either of the teams when the score is 10-0? The losing team literally shouldn’t be on the same field, and it’s a waist of time for the winning team. When my son’s team wins by this type of scoreline they are bored to death. The coach makes them possess the ball and not to take any shots on goal. Oh, thats fun!
And it gives teams at a lower level a clear goal. This isn’t F@ckin rec man.
dont think i missed it, maybe a little, but i am fat and bald, so have the right to do my own fortune cookies!
cheers!
If you are winning 10-0, that is an organizational problem, who made those teams? You want a 10 year old’s motivation in a given Saturday going into a game to be “let’s not get relegated boys. ??? If you are the coach, you tell me how you would approach that pre-game speech? You want to instill good technique, possession and all that great stuff in that kind of environment?! I think alot of people talk on both sides of their mouth, they say they are for development but then they come up with this stupid relegation stuff for young kids. ….Ask your son (don’t know how old he is) why he plays soccer? you may be surprised what he answers…actually, get your wife to ask him so he gives an honest answer.
Listen to interviews of some of the best footballers in the world and listen to what they say about when they were that age…yes they had a dream but really dont think that Iniesta was worried about relegation for his club team at 10 years old. Up to 12 years old, it is the learning phase, how the heck do you learn when you play in fear at that age?!
and by the way, for an 8 year old, yeah it is F@ckin rec.
I’ve studied the Clairefontaine setup in France. They bring 13-15 yr old players into residency and the focus is on technique. On weekends, they go back and play with their local club teams. Not much attention is paid to the quality of match play. It is viewed by the Clairefontaine coaches as applying what has been learned during the week. (The inference being there is something to be gained playing lower level competition.) At 16, they generally enter into the apprentice pro stage…finishing school.
If you look at the training hours, you would think they would be producing an even higher number of technically gifted players.
Yet, when I watch Ligue 1 matches, I see the playing style is very similar to the EPL. (Outside the top 3-4 clubs.) The ball is in the air alot. Plenty of hard, physical 1v1 battles….as opposed to tactically brilliant play. Lots of athletic, strong players. The technique is good but not great. granted the best french players end up in the EPL or even La Liga or Serie A.
10 years ago, after France had won a couple of major trophies, the French system was lauded as the best for development.
Now, Barca is considered the gold standard. From a style of play perspective, this all seems quite cyclical.
Going back 25 years or more, players basically “developed themselves”…I guess organically. They played in the streets…every day for hours presumably. Then around the age of 16, the best were picked up by the professional clubs. Platini and Zidane are 2 prime examples. Neither were part of “academy” programs.
So, the real question is, are the academies developing better players…or are they just “capturing/recruiting” the best players?
More importantly, how can American youth players get the same results? Especially if they are outside the Development Academy programs? (Debatable as to whether the DA even gets the vast majority of the best players.)
Hall97,
Your post is very insightful. Here in SoCal, you see 90% or more ball in air, physical play chasing down the ball. All of which favors big, strong, not as technically or tactically talented players. Chasing down bouncing balls doesn’t take much talent, just braun and aggressiveness. The ones who excel at this find their way to ODP and National team. And so the cycle goes.
I know a few kids who play up to U15 and the coaches rave about them. They are all 5’10” man-child types with average skill and tactical intelligence. If they were 5’5”, they wouldn’t be there. But this is commonplace in youth soccer. Puberty and early growth has its advantages in youth soccer. Just the way it is and sucks for smaller more talented players.
Local USDA clubs like Chivas, Pats, Galaxy, and Surf both capturing and recruiting the best players. 99% of players on non-USDA clubs aren’t in the eye of ODP, National Team, D1 colleges, and MLS.
USDA clubs only pull from their regional base. But by and large, USDA clubs do seem to field “best” players.
When you are referring to “90%” are you referring to 90% of ALL soccer in your area, or just the top level?
The reason I ask is, although in a perfect world the lower levels/tiers would try to play “the right way” the reality is right now those levels don’t have players who watch/study the game, and they almost certainly don’t have parents who watch/observe the game and are being coached by parent-coaches who are very well meaning, but misguided.
However, if you are discussing the elite level or top tier that is playing that way….yikes.
My sons play SCDSL Flight 1 at U14 and U16. Maybe only one or two teams really play what I consider good passing, possession soccer. A handful close behind but a lot of ball in air, mostly because a handful of their players are big and strong and disrupt what seems to be coaches trying to play proper. But i’m not sure why their coaches keep those players in? Most of other teams (well over 10 per age group) are just ball in air, non-tactical / non-technical physical soccer. I’m only speaking for SoCal. But teams we play outside SoCal fall into same categories. Others may disagree, but I think this is widespread.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a large metro area, especially with multiple DA club options, that’s obviously the best route.
My own son has the dreaded mid December birthday..so that is a hindrance to making regional/national ODP sides. (Should be thankful though…not shelling out $$$ for what seems an antiquated ineffective player selection process.)
He is a U15 playing up for a team with plenty of technical talent. Coach is teaching possession and they are coming along nicely. (Top 10 North Texas team currently…just for frame of reference.)
The physical gap is closing. He’s 6 feet tall now. he has caught up and passed (most of) his older peers physically. On top of that, he has always played up and learned to use his brain and technical ability to make an impact. Eventually a player has to have the right mix of skill, intelligence and athleticism.
He did train with an MLS preacademy side this past summer. He was invited back by the coach..but logistics (several hundred miles 1 way) prevented seeing the process through.
He would have to live with a host family in order to play for an MLS DA program. Bottom line.
ussf’s decision to go even younger with u13/14 DA programs concerns me. Because in my experience, the smaller clubs and independent teams have really produced the players. The DA clubs recruit them and do not necessarily develop them IMO.
How can a player gain the ability without being in that type of environment? Is it even possible?
There are players out there, outside of the mainstream, megaclubs, that do at least have the potential to become high level players.
As I pointed out in my previous post, it certainly has been done in the past.
I just feel the USSF “farming out” player development to the ‘name’ clubs isn’t doing what needs to be done. It’s a money grab. If they were serious about improving the level, they would do it themselves.
Or, the pro clubs would be handling it. By and large, they aren’t set up for that yet. Even if you took all the MLS, USL, NASL ‘pro’ clubs, assuming they all had completely funded residency programs…you still wouldn’t have a big enough ‘net’.
Easier to figure out a players potential at 16 or 17 than it is 12-14.
My emphasis with him is still on the technical and tactical. Only now is he beginning to work on the physical side. (Which is consistent with what the foreign academies seem to be doing.)
The real problem is, who will see him? If he had the chance to enter a truly professional environment, would that be best for him in lieu of college soccer?
The problem with my U14 is he is very technical and great tactics, but on small side. So he is often overlooked. His coach is very nice and ad its it’s an uphill battle since US is more size and power. It’s the system we live in. Not saying he would make it, but living elsewhere where size is not important would be a Godsend. This is true for many smaller players. If they could just grow another 5-7″ they would have more chances and get noticed more. Unfortunate but the state of affairs in US soccer.
Along the them of culture, we have all read the 10,000 hour rule via Outliers(its a book that talks about how many hours of practice you need to become outstanding at anything in life)….Here is a brief calculation: take a player that is now 12 years old…..
He has been playing for 7 years….on average, most players will play/train 3 hours per week ( (2) 1 hour trainings sessions and 1 hour game) x 4 weeks x 10 months(2 months off for summer) x 7 years = 840 hours of soccer in 7 years….if he was to achieve 10,000 hours by age 21, he would have to play 4.3 hours per day!!!!!
Work it backwards:
He has 9,160 hours to go and 8 years to do it in….that is 1,145 hours per year….if we divide year into 11 months(lets say he will take one month off per year)…that is 104 hours per month…which is 26 hours per week….if we say 6 days a week(takes one day off)….that is 4.33 hours per day!
Again this is for the average youth player but i am sure that some kids play more, but how many do you know that put in that much time?. I was fortunate enough to paly at a high level and looking back, i played about 2- 3 hours per day, because my parents could not afford to drive me to some Academy for hundreds of dollars per month. i just went and played. I am first generation Italian so alot of this was culture not just my own desire. I felt like i had no other choice, not because my parents pressured me, but i was surrounded by soccer 24 hours per day.
4.33 hours per day is a staggering number and can incorporate, playing pickup, team training, watching games, who knows……however, if you think of it in the context of how much tv/xbox/ipad your child consumes per day then 4.33 is not a lot of time.
How many hours do your players/kids put in on a weekly basis? How old will they be when get to 10,000 hours.
Our players do not play enough, BUT does your son/daughter WANT to put in those hours.
You allude to a major fault in the 10,000 hours hypothesis: does a player “WANT to put in those hours.” Putting in 10,000 hours does not CAUSE you to be an expert in something; it CORRELATES with becoming an expert. Willingness to put in those hours, especially as a child, also likely correlates with passion for the task, and likely correlates with having enough talent in performing the task (be it a musical instrument, sport or just plain reading) to achieve a continuous improvement in the task that is emotionally satisfying. This creates the positive feedback loop between passion, skill, and desire/self-discipline that results in achieving those 10,000 hours at a relatively young age.
I hear what you are saying regarding training time required. And we all know about “perfect practice” etc etc…
But be very careful. 4.33 hours of physical activity daily is not the same as 4.33 hours of video games. I don’t think you can expect a child to train as much as they can sit on a couch? You know what I mean?
Definitely need daily activity – 4 hours a day, ya, if the kids didn’t have school. No easy solution.
of course, was not suggesting that a child playes soccer 4 hours per day, just wanted to put things in perspective, as many coaches will encourage their players to play more and not just rely on training sessions. So how much is too much? 3 hours per day (ok, maybe every second day during the winter) for me was just fine.
I’ll offer this perspective. Currently a U9 parent, love this site, realized we are doomed in the US but will march onwards. I played basketball – was basically a gym rat – would sneak in whenever possible, would poach during volley ball practice – would even keep score at games so I could shoot at halt time and between games. I was obsessed. Anyway, if any kid could put in an average of 1 hour a day, six days a week ( 6 hours )I would be impressed… for u10 and under. For U12 – maybe 8-9 hours. And then slightly more as they age. I am amazed every time we go to a field and not a kid in sight … never. Maybe a few at the high school during the season … but that’s it. Pay to play creates an elite playground … and the kids are perhaps a bit “soft” … not all, but they have an easy life. No one talks about this.
Hoping to get in the 10,000 hours …. Forget the 10,000 hours – lets work on 3,000 first – cause 10,000 will not happen.
You need kids to be obsessed with the sport just like they are with video games. The only way that can happen is if the kids are immersed in the correct American culture. Their environment including family, friends, neighborhood, school, church, TV, etc all have to support and encourage it. Everybody has to care and nurture a superstar. So far we have come up short.
@Mark, love this post. I played basketball as well and was completely obsessed. I remember walking 2 miles from my house to the school in order to shoot around. I would be there for 5 hours sometimes. And sometimes there would be other kids there and we would play pickup games. Sometimes me and my friends would get to play a team of adults. The problem with US Soccer is so obvious when compared to the basketball culture. There are absolutely zero kids out there playing unorganized soccer. I never would have been near as good at basketball if the only practice I got was 2 days a week, doing drills etc.
I try to take my 12 and 10 year old out as much as possible so that they can play cuppies. I boot the ball they run for it and go at each other 1v1. When they get a shot on goal I do my best to keep it out. I developed my skill in basketball playing 1v1 so I’m doing my best to create a similiar environment for my kids.
“of course, was not suggesting that a child playes soccer 4 hours per day”
“4 hours a day, ya, if the kids didn’t have school. No easy solution.”
Take a look at regular competitive girls gymnastics programs in your area. They train 4-5 days a week from 4-8pm. Girls typically do their homework and eat at the gym. Some even stick around for free time until they close at 10pm. It’s like a family. These girls are not even olympic level.
Besides the contagious kick and chase we spoke about in another blog, unintelligent play is a problem. Poor positioning and lack of anticipation causes players to often lunge at opponents. Like kick and chase favors big strong players, so does unintelligent play because everyone is always reacting (gets contagious) and ends up in a rugby scrum. It seems everything about US soccer is setup to favor big, strong players with ugly kick and chase: shitty coaching, desire to win, play to play, ODP selection process, gridiron football culture / mentality, macho culture of USA (the soccer is sissy stuff mentality), lack of European style academies, college soccer.
I’m glad Jamaica won last night. Hope we don’t make WC. We need a rude awakening. Nothing will change unless a catastrophe happens. Fat dumb and happy in status quo.
This kind of sacrifice for the long term good has crossed my mind as well. But USSF is so damn incompetent that I don’t think even after a disaster like not making the World Cup I don’t think they’ll make the changes or bring in the right people. We would likely blame it on hiring a foreign coach who “doesn’t know CONCACAF/The American Player” whatever that shit means. We’ll end up with some clueless American Robot coach like we have seen all to many times. The problem is that Klinsmann talks a different game but on the field his teams play the same as Bradley’s and Arena’s did.
Thanks Shawn. I get my son out also all the time. Not always easy … but having no one in the neighborhood to play with … and they do not do it on their own at school …. so it’s his only hope. He is on a club … but they are really all mediocre to be honest … whole other topic.
It’s great what you are doing … let them go at each other – sometimes make the defender just keep body in front … not allowed to take ball away ( low pressure) – this allows more time for attacker to practice moves more – and make them go to the goal and shoot. We expect them to pull the trigger in the game – but they never get much practice at shooting goals. Get them to a tennis court – volley the ball back and forth over the net – nice way to break up monotony and it’s still soccer skills. Lastly, a wall can be your best friend … always returns the ball.
Also Shawn, As I am trying to help fill in gaps with his training, and learning as well about technique, came across Hubert Vogelsinger’s videos and DVD’s. Older but best “detailed” instructions about the fundamentals. Start with kicking, then get all 5 – on eBay and Amazon. At the last club our “English” coach mentioned how they would learn by watching them … blah blah blah. no one was really kicking properly . I taught my son more in 1/2 hour than he learned in two seasons last year.
Can you say Jamaica “Gap”?
I understand, and agree with the ‘Outliers’ concept of deliberate, continuous practice.
That said, the top Academies in the world aren’t anywhere near the 10,000 hour mark. The typical number of hours an academy ‘grad’ puts in through their u19 year is around 4.000 hours.
I try to bridge the gap with my u15 as well. 2-3 days of team practice is augmented with another 2 days of technical work. Plus a night of pickup with mostly Hispanic and Euro expat adults. 90% of the technical work is centered around first touch/control.
So, the total ‘hours’ devoted to actual touches on the ball is around 500 hours per year.
I think the touches and time on a ball are always able to be fit in if it’s what the kid wants to do. Example – My 6 year old played in his latino league tournie this past week and it ended Friday with us returning around 8:00 pm (2 games that night). As soon as we walk in the door he is on the ball and working hard in our living room making moves and pounding the ball against a matress against the wall (his goal) til after 11:00. A couple times we asked him if he was tired or wanted to break from soccer for a minute and he said no til he decided to go to bed. He gets up and is ready for school early and gets touches on a ball for 30 minutes before he hits the bus. We have kept a mental track on his hours and since he is 4 he has been putting in around an average of 1:45 a day on a ball and his touch shows it. His team time is on top of that.
Our issue is that there is not enough street soccer around us. My time in Brazil showed that this is what is key and it is happening everywhere there. Either with a real ball or a sock stuffed with newspaper or an old coconut shell there are kid games going on everywhere. I’m ready to move to a place that has that …
i feel like at pick up games here many adults bring their kids and have them sit on the sideline when they should be playing with the adults. thoughts?
Maybe not with the adults … I saw the problem at when we practiced with our last club last season. All the parents would sit on the upper lot, the fields being below, and there were several smaller siblings just hanging out. WE left the club for several reasons … but it doesn’t take a genius to realize that some space should be set aside for small kids … show the parents how to play soccer with them and let them go at it. These will be future players …. instead they sit around wasting time and the parents sit there and do nothing. Many hours wasted.
Understand completely. Been taking my younger son with my while my other kid trains. We would play/shoot/pass/juggle out of the way not interfering with any on-going practice. This is aside from his 2 team practices. The team recently received an email that siblings and parents are not allowed to use any open space. We must sit on the sidelines and just watch plus we have too make sure we are far enough from the fields. Oh, but it is for our safety due to balls flying all over the place during shooting drills. Goes back to the cultural discussion that is being discussed on another thread.
Talk about 101 fortune cookies…
Does Todd Saldana even believe this tripe….my word:
http://www.soccernation.com/youth-soccer-player-development-vs-winning-at-all-costs—part-3-cms-3368
What a nutter.
Zemalandia is back!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KT60o5OcJc
Genius, quack, or …..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L46x-70rWA
Since the post went up I’ve been thinking of how to meaningfully contribute. I agree with 80% plus of the fortune cookies, and most of my disagreement is simply quibbling. What I will suggest is a little bit of a focus on “tradition” as an addition to “culture”. In a sense tradition is the legacy of a culture, while culture is the present. America has a certain affinity for tradition and “traditional values” thus it is important to understand what traditions we actually have.
Firstly, our sporting culture is dominated by much different traditions than the rest of the World. We have dominant sports whose basic operations are in stark contrast to how soccer operates. American sports have two characteristics not shared by soccer, the stop-start action and the relatively high importance of physicality in success. One impacts the relative impact of the coaching instruction on the conduct of a competition (i.e., robot players); the other impacts the player selection and success. Both of these are greatly present in the issues with soccer in America, and how we undermine our success because traditional approaches to sport.
Where America has adopted soccer traditions, it is originally and predominantly from England-Scotland (where Scottish soccer is unfortunately, a worse version of English soccer). It is worrisome that the first tradition adopted becomes engrained as the dominant and most comfortable culture (one of the key mechanisms where dysfunctional cultures re-establish themselves is the comfort individuals take in the traditional culture and values). America is generally suspicious of progressives while embracing tradition despite evidence to the contrary.
This forum is full of progressives preaching a gospel of modern-forward looking soccer. It is unequivocally the right way to play the game and succeed at the professional and international stage. No rational person can argue against these facts, yet the resistance is unrelenting. Soccer in America on the other hand is dominated by Kick-and-Rush that takes its inspiration from England-Scotland of 60’s and 70’s. Club, High School, College and MLS look more like the classical English game than the game presently found in England. This is the tradition of American soccer. Everything you preach on the other hand is so damn foreign.
The modern world with cable and Internet is left to combat this tradition. Everyday you can see the game played more astoundingly than most traditional American soccer people could even imagine. We have to hope that today is the right time to overthrow the tyranny of our unfortunate traditions. Barça makes the right way of playing look culturally acceptable. When some youth team (tries to) play that way it becomes OK rather than an affront. Tradition looks less comfortable when confronted by obvious brilliance. Hopefully greatness can trump comfortable tradition, brick-by-brick, player-by-player, coach-by-coach, fan-by-fan until we tip…
A guy can dream, cant he?
Nice to have you back, BillR.
Great post BillR,
I’m starting to think of most coaches being bi-polar addicts. Bi-polar in that they like tiki-taka possession but play English / Scottish kick and chase. They are addicted to kick and chase, want to go cold turkey but it’s like a vice grip. And like an addict hanging with the wrong crowd, they are surrounded by big strong American boys who seduce them into kick and chase. The desire for a quick fix to satisfy the DoC and build club reputation is overwhelming. “Just one more suck of the pipe and I’m done”. The first step in rehabilitation is to admit it, then seek professional advice and counseling. Seek out Gary and Brian and put your trust in them. But the English long-ball pushers are on every street corner keeping a watchful eye. Their enforcers are ODP and USSF. Chicago of the 1920s would smile lovingly on the US soccer syndicate.
Love this. “In a sense tradition is the legacy of a culture, while culture is the present.” “Barça makes the right way of playing look culturally acceptable.”
Let’s just pick the right American culture to start creating the traditions of playing.
What makes other clubs and teams unique is their traditions among the people in their regions. Can we find these traditions in America?
Take a look at Barca.
The jersey will feature the famous red and gold stripes in an attempt by the club’s directors to promote the team’s connection to the autonomous region and its people.
According to Sport, Barca is “reinforcing the sporting and sentimental ties that the majority of the population of the region share,”
Where is our autonomous region? Sentimental ties of the majority?
Other international clubs are special too. We need to create a “special” club in America to start the traditions that will become engrained and dominate.
Which single basketball team, baseball team, football team represents America? Let’s do the same for soccer.
Dr. Loco,
As pointed out by Kana, we need an epic Bird v. Johnson; Lakers v. Celtics, Dallas v. Redskins, or Yankees v. Red Sox battle to build tradition and influence larger culture. We need the great rivalries of Barca v. Madrid, Boca v. River Plate, Fenerbache v. Galatasaray, Benfica v. Porto, and so on . . . .
The bull-shit made for TV Galaxy v. Chivas or Galaxy v. NYRB is not a derby or classico! It will happen naturally, but need right mix of politics, regionalism, heroes, and fanaticism to pull it off. And right no it ain’t happening in MLS!
Red Bulls v DC is a pretty serious rivalry. Has a short but storied history.
Well said and I think we get caught up with believing it’s only “culture” at the root of our problems. The word “tradition” is a perfect way to describe American soccer as I would use “culture” in describing other styles of the game. “Culture” and “Tradition” are not synonyms.
A couple of thoughts since last night:
1. Tradition is the sort of thing dads share with their sons and daughters, and what feels “right” when playing/watching/talking about the game. Tradition can blind us to the problems.
2. Spain used to have a different culture backed by tradition. For Spain the overthrow of Franco acted as a strong lever to overthrow the traditions associated with that regime. The result is there for all to see.
We throw around “culture” a lot in this forum but seldom talk about tradition. Culture has many layers and harder to define. Tradition is things like long-established beliefs, customs, behaviors, and practices handed down from generation to generation (verbally and non-verbally). In American society, things like watching the Super Bowl, supporting your local NFL or NBA franchise, playing baseball or football or basketball, and participating in sports that require big strong athletes are common beliefs, practices, and customs. Soccer is considered a “foreign” sport played by smaller athletes. Doesn’t fit American tradition.
Culture has a lot in common with tradition. Traditions can become part of larger culture, such as celebrating Christmas and July 4, the electoral voting process, belief in American legal system and individual rights, treatment of the sexes, treatment of different races and religions, and accepted behavior in public and the workplace. In essence, culture is shared behaviors and beliefs at the generic societal level. Then there are sub-cultures, such as Asian-American or Mexican communities. I think soccer is a sub-culture. The big 3 American sports are a sub-culture, but one with deep traditions and influence on general society. For example, Babe Ruth, Jim Brown, and Michael Jordan resonate at the societal level. Messi and Ronaldo are pushing the barrier but still largely at the soccer sub-culture level. Pele may come closest to breaking the sub-culture to societal barrier in USA?
In other countries, footballing stars are societal icons, not just in sports sub-culture heros. European kids of all races, social classes, religions want to copy Ronaldo’s hairstyle or play like Messi or be the next Xavi. In USA, they want to be like Kobe or LaBron. They don’t know who Garrincha, Best, Batistuta, Nedved, Shearer, or Butragueno are. They don’t have reverence for Maracana, Azteca, or Wembley stadium. They sure do know Lou Gehrig, Bobby Bonds, and Yankee Stadium. American media and marketing keep this alive. Tradition and culture blend.
Until American soccer has a Babe Ruth, Magic Johnson, Frank Robinson – it will not reside in the hearts and minds of the collective society and not be a tradition passed from generation to generation. We forget that the big 3 American sports had to have iconic events (e.g., Super Bowl and World Serioes and sports hero’s) to make it what it is today. Soccer just started its journey, but it will get there. And as it gets closer to that place in American society, I’m hopeful for bigger and better things for US Soccer. We will never be Brazil where football is part of the culture. I think best we can hope for in near future is solidification of soccer sub-culture, which is getting better and better since 1990 World Cup and exploded in last 10-years.
THERE IS HOPE … slowly but surely, just watched a U8 boys team play a friendly a few weeks ago … talking to each other …. ” common , 4 passes then try for a goal.” It’s a start !
USA is far from having soccer culture that even remotely touches national psyche. The sub-culture is there but dysfunctional. I can’t say the sub-culture has any real traditions? How many watch Gold Cup, US Open Cup, CONCACAF? We kinda watch WC qualifiers and MLS Cup not a huge thing. World Cup and Champions League seem to be a blossoming tradition.
Gary,
So happy to say, I have been quietly reading these blogs for a couple of months now, I don’t get on somewhere and speak until I know or don’t know what the heck I am talking about…… I love that my brain has been exploding for a while reading this blog…… I have been a trainer for the past 10 years, coaching for 20 years and thought I was doing it at a very high level….. dude I get an F, did not know crap!!!!! lol….. my thoughts have changed, learning to be part of the 1%….. loving it, Thanks!
Kg
Welcome aboard Kg! Nice to have new folks to contribute.
You can argue all day and all night on the causes of the problems in soccer youth development in the United States but what good does it do? It’s just mental masturbation. And, in some ways, irrelevant to the solution.
Revolutions and significant changes start with a small group of individuals who act locally while thinking globally. Given that large parts of country where soccer is a white middle class suburban pay to play with little or no sophisticated soccer knowledge, tradition or culture, how can a knowledgeable coach develop sophisticated players? It can be done.
1) Education of the parents from the very beginning is a must. Through emails, meetings, lessons, they must clearly understand how good soccer is different from other American sports. They must understand how it impacts how it is coached and how it is learned. Short, medium and long term goals and strategies must be explained and understood.
2) Proper Selection of Players. Criteria has to be clearly established for the selection of players. Player selection has to take into account parental attitude, as well as player attributes that you are selecting for. Player selection has to be based on potential to develop into the type of player you want (technically proficient, intelligent, motivated).
3) Players must clearly understand expectations and be held accountable from the beginning.
4) Short, medium and long term goals must be set for individual players and the team collectively. A clear, realistic, achievable plan for achieving these goals must be devised and employed.
5) Continuous rigorous honest evaluations of goals and methods employed must be conducted to make sure that you are optimizing your methods, staying on point, and not getting distracted or off track.
“17 – Possession football has dominated global football for as long as I know.”
In case you are not sure about this one and might think this possession stuff might just be a fad, please watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMu5_2wHqUo&feature=player_embedded
Isn’t it fantastic, entertaining soccer??
Possession, total futbol more than 50 years ago
And maybe as dominating if not more than Barca or Spain are today.
Yes, unfortunately US soccer got stuck with the white shirts trying to tell us how to play the game…
Amazing! Even England looked good.
There is not much game here. High scoring more like bball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ7TTogwH28
Dr Loco
This match in 1953 is considered one of the most significant on the history of the game …it caused (together with the return one that Hungary won 7-1) seismic vibes and various reactions…some more positive than others…a less positive was the development in England of the “scientific” and somehow chauvinist long ball game
Here’s one of its most notorious followers and son to be England national team manager defining the philosophy behind it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkrFqgzbVow&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Unfortunately this was the style that was carried over to many soccer hotbeds in the US at all levels
By going forward England went backwards.
Wow! Kick and rush soccer compared to sophisticated football. Is that where the style all began?
Graham Taylor is much older but is he correct?
http://performance.fourfourtwo.com/tactics/graham-taylor-playing-the-long-ball
That is complete bullshit. “Passing into space” is a middle-aged euphemism that obscures the brutish imprecision of pounding a ball carelessly in the direction of your target guy, always making that not-so-subtle run to goal. At least, that is the way it looks in the thousands of such games that I have witnessed.
I respect more the younger Graham, who proudly chirped that football is a simple game, for the man on the terrace. The younger Graham, who spewed his contempt for “sophistication” and stringing together fifteen passes– as he beseeched, who wants to see that?
Now there was a more honest man. Equally wrong, but more honest.
Nuno, eres un pedazo de pan. Thank you for that. As I understand it, Puskas was supposed to go to Barcelona. Franco didn’t like that, so he ended up in Madrid with Destefano. The rest, I guess, was history.
In any case, you’ve added a new dimension to the entire discussion of possession soccer for people like me by tracing it back so far into history. We could also talk about Soviets, East Germans,….
Gee, I guess it’s not just a fad then?
Gentlemen, this blog is great stuff and we seem to be like minded in our efforts and philpophies on how to develop players. I don’t mean to be negative or anthing, but nothing has ever changed for decades because there is not enough people with balls to get it done! yes, there have been some successes, th US has grown considerably since 1994, but still no world class player, Canada has not been to WC since 1986, and we are even worse for development.
i was speaking with friends at my parents house about all of this stuff a few nights ago, the usual banter of development etc…, my father (76 yrs. old) walks into our conversation after listening for about 15 minutes and says to us……”Boys, you guys are talking about the same things we talked about 40 years ago, nothing has changed, the conversations are the same, there have been small glimmers of hope only to be replaced by long periods of disappointment……….My father immigrated from Italy and was on the Board of Directors for our provincial association and they spoke about the same things in 1968!!!
so what is it going to take? do we need 1,000 of these blogs? a revolution would be good, but you need the right people in the right places on side.
Will you be that dad in 30 – 40 years that says the same thing to your son?
Klinsmann was hoping for the fortune cookie that read “You will be blessed with promising pupils.” Unfortunately, the waiter gave it to the optometrist in table next to him and Klinsmann ended up with the one that said “you will inherit a riddle within an enigma.”
USA needs more than fortunes, palm reading, skull and bones with chicken blood, or Cuban voodoo. Maybe USSF, ODP and most coaches need a good ole’ fashion kick in the ass and a “fuck you and the horse you rode in on”.
Beating Jamaica 1-0 was a fucking joke! Pure luck that is masking bigger problems. One of those our pipeline, or lack of pipeline from younger ranks.
I think Klinsmann’s fortune cookie should say, “you will come upon twenty-two pupils whose VO2/Kg Max rate is above 70. And the are also really, really aggressive.”
Klinsmann was brought in and Bradley was fired because we were trying to move forward in our approach at least that’s my understanding and what I had hoped. We are getting the exact same results tactics and player selections as we did with Bradley and arena. It’s that simple. He is not doing what he brought him in for, Klinsmann is just another American coach lying to our faces using the cool to throw around words like possession and attack minded but then doing none of the above on the actual field of play. This needs to stop!! Talking the right way doesn’t cut it, actual actions and decisions are far more important! We could have saved a he’ll of a lot of money and hired a generic American coach to get these results and player selections and game tactics.
Kevin, I disagree. Klinsmann is not just another American coach. He won the World Cup and Euro with Germany and he certainly understands that US soccer is a mess. His challenge as the head coach is that the inherited a limited pool of players, which largely came through the old system that does not encourage possession soccer. But Klinsmann is not an enemy of possession soccer. He gave a chance to Caleb Porter with our U23 team and supported him. See cookie No. 95 “Caleb Porter has proven you can play winning possession soccer at the college level.” The game Porters team played against Mexico was fantastic – they managed to make Mexico U23 team chase the ball pretty much entire first half and a good portion of the second half. Klinsmann is not perfect, but he certainly is a step forward from BB.
MG,
Do have players ready to play possession soccer or we don’t?
Because if we do and they are good enough to make the Mexico U23 chase the ball…well then bring them over to the full squad
You expect a clear philosophy, identity and courage to implement it and stick to it…for crappy soccer with average results and the occasional back against the wall, survive the onslaught good result Arena and Bradley did just fine
Nuno, Klinsmann did bring some of the youngsters to the full squad – eight of the players from that U23 got invites from Klinsmann to join the first team squad for various camps/games – Corona is the latest example. Most young players take time to develop before you can plug them into the first squad for the high stakes WC qualification games.
I honestly don’t give a shit what Klinsmann did 20 years ago as a player. If he understands that US Soccer is a mess then why is he repeating everything? If the only positive thing you can say about Klinsmann is a coach he hired for another team, that’s not very encouraging! For not having a good player pool, no one on this blog is saying we can pick different players and be better than Spain or Brazil, etc. but we do have players to get similar if not better results than we currently are anyways while playing a much better brand of soccer, and one that will put us in a far better situation for the future as well.
Mario,
Understand your frustration…things are turning…you can make a difference
As I see it, there are actually only a couple of key requirements that you need in order to establish a quality possession based soccer program:
# 1 – Quality Coaching Staff
The most important by far…this has been the “meat” of the this blog and it’s a “battle” out there everyday….philosophy, know-how, art, empathy, leadership, courage…wolves in sheep’s skin…
# 2 – Quality playing surface (matches and practices)
From all the physical resources this is by far the single most important one…great strides have been made in the US recently…a great surface doesn’t guarantee it (always the coaching)…all possession oriented coaches should focus on and try to secure the best possible playing surface…kick and rush coaches don’t see that as a priority at all (they might lip service though)…they actually love pot holes and mud baths….bad fields give them a great excuse to kick and rush, so they might even actively promote it (eve if discretely) as they see as another precious tool to bully “sophisticated” soccer followers into submission
So, if you are a parent or board member, and you want to make a difference…get the best coaching staff you can secure, make it a priority to provide good even playing surface to practices and matches, and then check the product on the field and make them accountable (hopefully if you are a regular on this blog, by now you have a clear idea what the product should look like)…no excuses
I’m sorry but I disagree pretty strongly with number 2. There are so many more important things than playing surface, that would be WAY down the list of concerns for me. Would it be nice? Sure. But there’s much bigger fish to fry than that.
“Good playing surfaces” might not be the MOST important ingredient to playing possession, but it DEFINITELY is a big factor. When you are dealing with U12s and below, you cannot expect them to play super high quality possession soccer on crappy fields. Kids at this age do not have a perfect first touch that can accomodate funky bounces due to pot holes on the field. Kids are already slightly intimidated by circulating the ball along the Back 4 for fear that if they mess up, the other team will have a chance to score off of their mistake. Kids don’t like to look bad, and giving the ball to the other team in your defensive 1/3 with a scoring opportunity makes them look bad.
If the field conditions are good, kids will feel secure in playing possession soccer and moving the ball around the Back 4. But if the fields suck, they will be much more apprehensive about doing this DURING matches because of the fear of the funky bounces.
It’s great training for practicing on bad fields because the kids are forced to deal with the weird bounces and not having as much time on the ball. When they do return to the good fields it will be a piece of cake for them. It will feel easy for them. BUT, for matches, it is really heplful for the kids to play on good surfaces, if possession soccer is wanted.
Fire ahead Kevin
Kevin, here’s some visual inspiration / education to inform your more detailed counter argument:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-H2S27ThU&playnext=1&list=PL5A9B7193DC30DEE0&feature=results_video
Looking forward to it
Coaching is the bottom line, and I’ve seen bad fields slow down good teams.
It’s hard to make long passes on the ground when the grass is not cut. But field conditions and availability are realities that financially challenged teams and clubs just deal with.
What you don’t mention is the amount of time playing and practicing soccer- aka the 10,000 hour concept. In the US, basketball is the only sport that has a true pickup game culture. Futsal is the best way to increase the amount of time on the ball and is very productive. My sons U12 team plays futsal concurrently, year round with outdoor. It’s increased their total time by over a third. Rather than just adding more practice, it breaks things up and is great cross training. They train on an unused tennis court with no net and in a gym during the winter.
Well a simple and quick counter argument is poor kids all over the country playing with crap-quality balls, if even real soccer balls on rocky dirt areas with little or even no grass. I think a perfect surface you could argue makes it to easy, and the poor surface demands an even higher level of technique to control the ball. I think there are pros and cons to bad and good surfaces and all surfaces should be used: street, grass, bumpy, high grass, low grass, anything. Time on the ball, time playing the game, and being a student of the game is far more important than the surface you play on. I played on pristine pitches my whole life and i suck!
Nuno, eveyone would agree with your point #1, coaching is absolutely crucial and the most important thing here. I would agree with Kevin on the playing surface, dont think it would even make my top 10. I played on gravel most of my life until 20 years old, and it didn’t do anything bad for my development.
it starts at the top of the soccer federations, there needs to be the political will to turn this whole system completely upside and start over, the masses get teased with these little success and think eveything must be ok. US wins Gold Cup, maybe even gets into second round of WC, but then never gets back in for the next two WC’s….so things must be good……WRONG. there is no sustainability becuase the foundation is not there. That will take a generation or more. One club with a blog in California is not enough!
i think bad fields will promote possession. this is based off of the time i spent living in bolivia. really bad fields, it helped develop technical ability… and you can only possess the ball with good technical ability.
Most of the “fields” in developing countries are actually dirt (with some rocks). These dirt fields do not inhibit passing too much. What inhibits passing in the U.S. (at least in our area) is that the grass is TOO LONG. You can adapt to passing on a dirt field. There is almost no way to pass quickly and normally on fields where the grass is too high and really slows the ball down. I would much rather play on a fast bumpy dirt field than a slow long grass field. Most American cities cut their grass high for maintenance purposes and because its fine for football and kick and run soccer. It is a disaster for quick short passing teams.
Fields having nothing to do with development, attitude, philosophy and proper coaching does. It may be more difficult on a dirt field, but it does not matter, it is how you want to play that matters. I was in Italy in July and watched my cousin’s son play (12 year old). They played on a dirt field that used to be a farm, they basically threw some crushed gravel on the dirt. They played posssession, passing, everything we talk about here. Sure there were instances of where the field caused a bad pass etc…but it was the philosophy of how they approached the game, and that is the key. This was a select team by the way and one of the players is going to AC Roma next year in their academy. So here we have an elite 12 year old playing on gravel, and in the west we worry about the quality of the fields as a factor of success in development ?! Sorry, but i just dont get that.
Read my post Mario. I said playing on dirt fields DOES NOT effect possession (like you played on in Italy) . Those surfaces are fast. What inhibits possession is when the grass is thick and long. You cannot pass quickly on that thick long grass. It is much harder to compensate for. Of course you can overcome it, my team does all the time, but unlike a bumpy dirt field, it does nothing but inhibit my boys’ development. Give me dirt bumpy fields anyday over long thick grass fields.
TD, my comment was not directed at you, was more of a general one.
Thought this might open up some old fortune cookie pearls, but the level surprised me a bit
How can possibly someone who has ever tried to play possession soccer say that the pitch quality is not a significant factor??
OK, what is a quality field? A field that allows for precise passing at decent speed
The grass doesn’t need to be very lush, it doesn’t even have to be grass…guys, I grew up playing in many dirt fields…a good dirt field can allow for good possession soccer
What is a poor field? A field that makes passing over the ground less precise or slows down the tempo of the game. It can be holes, irregular, mud, thick, tall grass, hard, bouncy etc all coming in different mixes and levels of crappy
So what is the big picture here?
Possession, precise soccer vs Kick and Rush random ball
Wondering how many of you are down there trying to win this battle…
Perhaps it’s best for younger players to develop on crappy fields AND also experience top quality fields or turf. Last year, I took my ( then U8) son to work on a few passing drills – since his Club never did these. Went to the field and tried to do a few things slowly … and realized our fielde sucked! You could not have a slow rolling ball … just wasn’t possible. We did then go work on turf at the local high school. Perfect …. well, actually too perfect. Cutting to the chase, the turf is faster – good for improving reaction to faster balls – but if you get used to always being on turf, well good luck when you have to play on grass. Good to perfect some skills also.
Bad fields have an advantage – and limitations to a degree, but make you react to bad bounces. Tall grass might make you a bit stronger – young kids that is . So I say mix it up. And get used to a ball on concrete or dirt – another learning devise.
Interestingly, I have the same attitude about the 11v11 debate. I know it would be hard to switch between 11 and 7 or 8 per team, going back and forth might allow different perspectives to develop for younger players.
I’m new here so go easy on me. I also have lots of questions and dissagreements.
#25 Pay to Play is Detrimental
Seams to me that without Pay, nobody would be playing. Who is exactly supposed to pay for all the coaches, the fields, and so on.
Gary, could you please explain how the finacial model works at Barcelona. If the players don’t pay, then how do the coaches get paid. Can the same model be used at other clubs?
You are correct, Robert. What most people who complain about “American” pay to play don’t know is that in Europe, South America it’s pay to play too. The vast majority of youth players join an athletic club and their families pay dues for them to get coaching and play. The best of the players get picked up by professional teams’ academies and those are fully funded. In essence, its the same as it is here except there are a lot more professional teams with fully funded academies in Europe and South America. But still, the vast majority of youth players pay to play in these countries.
Barcelona has “La Masia”, their fully funded professional academy. In addition, Barcelona has the FCB Escola, which is pay to play. All players who play for FCB Escola in Barcelona pay for that privilege. Barcelona does scout the FCB Escola and occasionally offers a kid a place in La Masia. Barcelona also franchises out the FCB Escola name to other countries (like the U.S., Peru, etc) and there is some coaching oversight of these franchises, but mostly they are run independently. But FCB Escola does not even fall under the Operations branch of FC Barcelona’s corporate structure (unlike La Masia). It falls under the Marketing branch of FC Barcelona’s corporate structure.
Thanks for that information. I was familiar with some, but you added a lot. More specifically, I was wondering about the financial model that Gary has at the Barcelona USA Club. I have always assumed that it was fully paid, for all the members of the team. I could be wrong. Something like the Chivas USA youth teams, also in SoCal. Does anybody know? Do players at Barcelona USA here in the states get a “free ride”. If so, where does the money come from?
Is this the anti “Pay to Play” that Gary is talking about?
Uh, pay-to-play is quite different in Europe guys. Club dues over there tend to be around $100 a year…give or take.
So, “pay to play” over there compares to rec fees here.
What club in Europe only charges $100/year to play youth soccer?
I thought most kids outside the US did not play organized sports until 12 or later. Why waist your time and money on bad players who don’t really want to be professionals?
Interesting reading.
http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=673566d4-b94f-4f33-a1bf-39fb416498f4
“The lower competitive levels in a club may not be any better than local recreational leagues and therefore may not be worth the extra money”
Just about every Euro expat (as well as my own research) that I’ve spoken with have told me it cost them very little to play.
To be fair though their own experience may be out of date.
Nevertheless, the majority of Europeans just don’t have the discretionary income to pay 5, 8 or 10K a year (fees plus travel) to play the game.
Frankly, they don’t have to. There are enough ‘volunteer’ coaches and enough competition available locally. Their attitudes are quite different as well.
Why do you think so many foreign coaches flock to the us to secure coaching jobs? Because there’s a lot more money to be made in the US. (If they are that good, they’d be better suited to remain there.)
Anyone who is paying $5000-$10000 a year for their kid to play youth soccer either doesn’t have to worry about money or is a sucker.
I agree TD. But they still do it…”scholarships”
The major clubs in Dallas charge around $2-3 thousand alone for club dues and uniforms. More for “special services/events”….
It’s ridiculous….
TD, regarding the pay-to-play system, I cannot speak about the cost of youth soccer in South America, but in Europe youth soccer is very inexpensive. Admittedly, my own experience of playing soccer as a kid is outdated, but here’s what Klinsmann said about the current costs of organized youth soccer in Germany:
“In Germany, organized youth soccer all happens through the local sports clubs and the clubs only charge a small membership fee. Through that membership you can choose the sport you want to play, including soccer, which is the most popular sport in Germany. So, in Germany, youth soccer is very inexpensive and that way everybody can play. And my approach today is the more you play the better you get. The more inner drive you have in playing your games, the further you will make it in your career. That’s how I look at it. “
This reminds me. One of the topics my Academy coach and I have discussed (about a year ago) is the college system. Not that college is bad or poor for developing pro player. It is more that the high school / club to college route favors players who are either academically inclined or have family structure to allow for good academics and good soccer. He has been a coach for maybe 20+ years and can and has pointed numerous talented players who ended up bagging groceries instead of college and thus missing a pro career because they lacked SAT and GPA. College not for them. He also mentioned a concern than drugs, gangs, girls, and getting into wrong crowd has also ruined many a budding career. In short, he believes the pay-to-play, professional via college system does not capture or take care of those who do not fit the All American scholar athlete model.
Roger you make some interesting points about college not being for everyone. I’d like to see more young players opting for USL Pro/NASL as a developmental route.
That said, girls, drugs, gangs, etc. have ruined many talented athletes…not just soccer.
Harsh as it sounds though, people making bad decisions like those mentioned above are not conducive to being successful in life. In other words, they wouldn’t have made it anyway with that type of decisionmaking.
Agree Hall97. The Academy coach I’m friends with said family structure is a contributor to player success. And in pay-to-play, players with solid, economically stable families have advantage. In other countries, the Academy system sort of adopts talented players. Gives them a chance and provides stable environment. Sure some clubs see $$$, but some truly provide an alternative to typical school, which is not for everyone. England, Spain, Germany, and most top clubs in European countries are this was from what I’ve researched. I persoanlly know of several coaches who only got to jr. college because they weren’t good scholar athletes. No drugs or gang problems. Just SAT and GPA holding them down.
Unfortunately I don’t buy the total pay-to-play argument although it does have some merit. How do you explain club volleyball (you think soccer is expensive), baseball, softball, basketball, water polo etc? The US is worldclass in all those sports. Football is largely developed through city and high school programs – not club and is typically less driven by economics. Lets not skip the most important contributing factor to developing world class players. The majority of coaching in the US sucks. They have no clue, there is no passion, there is limited knowledge I could go on and on. We can banter about the kids with no economic means to play and they are getting passed over. This is a fact. What are you going to do about it with the current culture and economic system here in the states? The issue there is bigger than anyone can handle. How bout taking the athletes that are playing and give them wold class coaching as a start. Do that and 80% of the problem would be solved. That is the issue and one that can be attacked. The other 20% would be how to get those getting skipped over involved. That is a far larger question. Bottom line, we have players they are just not getting coaching. That is club, academy, ECNL, college, MLS and NT. Keep listing them off. The coaching has to get better.
“How do you explain club volleyball (you think soccer is expensive), baseball, softball, basketball, water polo etc? The US is worldclass in all those sports.”
Our pay-to-play system is the most highly developed compared to other countries so we have inherit advantage. It does not mean those sports have the best players possible.
Say what you will Pulguita, but trust me when I say coaches and DoC’s i’ve had opportunity to speak with via Academy coach I know feel same. Remember, they are not saying pay to play is the problem, it’s that in that system it can make it more difficult for players in less stable environments. They get sidetracked and it ruins their chance to college. Any kid faces those problems. Just that kids in less stable environments are at more risk.
Like I said earlier, the Academy coach I know and in speaking with DoC’s he’s introduced me to — they agree pay to play lacks safety net for kids at risk since the path to pro is via college. I’ll go step further, these folks I talk about have many college recruiting connections. They talk about troubled kids and poor grades and inability to get to college because of that. They in turn don’t recommend kids to college recuriters. Don’t want to pass along a problem. So all they are saying is in a European style Academy system where path to pro is via the Academy, kids get a little more of a break if they screw up. Of course some clubs like Barca have zero tolerance on trouble makers.
The discussion on alternative options for elite players reminds me about a post about a month ago on the Portugal system and how it was efficient at discovering players and moving them to higher levels if they had the quality. I see in Soccer Nation that Chievo is having a USA Academy. Many other European, Mexican, and South American clubs have affiliations with US clubs. However, players selected are few and far between. None have made it big.
If there were seriously good players in USA, European clubs and scouts would have grabbed them. Only precious few like the LA Samba kid who is in La Masis (Ben). More and more clubs having USA affiliates and is good sign. for future growth. But when we are pumping out seriously talented kids, the flood gates will open. For now we need to realize options are few, except college. And I don’t see Europe or Mexico or SA clamoring to get top soccer draft picks. Takeaway is we got a long way to go.
I just wrote a draft post in response Kana.
I’m not picking on you, but the thought that if the talent is here, European clubs would have scooped it up is not true. This needs to be addressed.
Sounds good Gary. Looking forward to your thoughts. I can always change my mind, so let’s see how your opinion sounds and others chime in. I may not change my mind but will likely learn something in the process.
My guess is that between u12 and u16, there are hundreds (maybe more) of youth players in this country that are ‘good enough’ to be picked up by foreign pro academies.
But two harsh realities prevent these players being identified.
First, they aren’t always in the most ‘likely’ places. (They don’t all play for high profile teams/clubs.) Second, how many American parents are actually willing to take that step? Especially given the typical American attitude of associating sporting excellence with higher education? (College soccer.)
“signing foreign youth players remains the exception”
“At around the age of 15 or 16 the decisive phase in their education begins”
Most top players are the same up to age 16, then the real men start to emerge. Academies around the world have hundreds of players. They don’t need more from America.
I miss Kephren 🙁
http://blog.3four3.com/2011/11/18/us-soccer-progress/
About two weeks ago, I saw a USDA (U18 Academy) coach I’ve known for years. We have lunch every now and then. Anyway, we had a good chat over lunch recently. He’s a respected SoCal coach who has playing pedigree. I think it’s good insight to hear some of his thoughts. Below is “unofficial” summary of that conversation:
1) Parents and coaches create almost all of club politics. Parents that complain often and loudly; coaches who show favoritism or who have a parent who doesn’t agree with them . . . and most of the time it centers on their child.
2) He believes ODP is selecting wrong type of players, but also says they are up front about the type of player they are looking for (big, strong, powerful). While many may not like that, they are sticking to their philosophy . . . like it or not. He said ODP won’t change unless they get new leadership or USSF mandates new philosophy. He is a former ODP scout and readily admits problems in budget, # of scouts, over-reliance on player performance in a tournament as opposed to their long-term potential, and influence of “big clubs”.
3) He said it will take another generation or two for coaches to come about who were schooled as players in possession, tiki-taka soccer. Not realistic to expect that from coaches who were schooled in EWnglish long-ball or American system back in 1980s or early 1990s. He said it will take time to evolve and is inevitable since it’s a global game and youth soccer is more and more going that route.
4) He said he and most coaches have an eye for talent and which kids are committed and have potential for long-term. But the problem he said is they don’t fit into ODP model and not enough opportunities to funnel these players into right setting. He thinks U14 Academy is great but need programs to identify elite players and give them opportunities. He thinks ODP could do that but current philosophy prevents them.
Each time he and I talk, it reminds me of how much politics there are and how fallible clubs and coaches are. But he insists this is no different than most organizations and they are working in best interest of players and the long-term. The problem is “leadership” gets mired down in status quo and lack of vision and inability to act. For example, he said the U14 Academy is something that was years in the making and that these important decision need to be better coordinated and streamlined but blames much of that on USSF. He also said youth soccer (he was referring to clubs, ODP, USSF, local federations such as CalSouth) need to be a lot more proactive instead of reactive to identifying future player identification and development needs.
I told him abou this 101 Fortune Cokie blog and he had a good laugh.
With volleyball in particular, it’s a socioeconomic ‘numbers’ game. When you have 300 million plus, you are going to have sufficient infrastructure to field quality national teams.
Baseball/softball is expensive but sponsorships are more common. Plus, I don’t think you have the money going to coaches that soccer does.
Why not soccer? Simple. First, soccer is a player centric game…unlike the coaching driven ‘entrenched’ American team sports.
Second is the most obvious…and the whole justification for this blog. There aren’t enough coaches with a strong corpus of knowledge required to develop a larger number of elite players.
Finally, with soccer, you just don’t have a large enough pool of players that spend as much time as possible doing the necessary, repetitive and ‘boring’ (to most of the kids) technical work.
In essence our soccer ‘culture’ mirrors the “rah rah, take-one-for-the-team, do whatever it takes to win now” philosophy.
Oh, and the rest of the world is catching up with us in all the other sports too. basketball, baseball, track, et al
On a per capita basis, we just suck…
The optimist in me sees the next generation being much, much better. I’ve seen some talented players that, with the right guidance and environment, can and hopefully will take the USA to the next level.
#13 – Diving is not some sort of scourge that ruins the game.
The NBA is trying to eliminate ‘flopping’ with a league review after games and $5000. fines. They are seeing it as trying to trick the referees. Although College basketball has a lot of charging calls, flopping is relatively new to the NBA- I think it was a European player, Vlade Divacs who advanced this strategy and maybe he saw it in Soccer growing up in Croatia. Has diving always been a part of the game at top level of Soccer? I am new to Soccer but do not see diving attempted much in the youth game. In fact they seem to go the other way and encourage rough play.
hi Lads
i coach in Ireland U11 team we play 9v9 but my concerns we will be playing 11v11 next session.could you please advise me how many players i need ,and how to deal with subs and with parents interfering,
i have at the moment 16 players half of them not soccer on them that all ,as you know in Ireland ,in our club we dont do testing all can registered ,any advice about 11v11 training drills and possession in the match ,help please ,thanks lots ,
Wondered if the knowledgeable audience here would give me their opinions on:
35. Making everyone play 8v8 until U12 or whatever, won’t do jack shit!
I get the 8v8 additional touches mentality, and the increase rate of “actions per minute” however in the bigger scheme of things I believe it is doing more harm than good. We get the kids plenty of touches in practice three times per week. Comments please. Thanks.
True playing 8v8 alone won’t do anything. I would prefer 7v7, 8v8, 9v9 up to 8th grade. The analogy would be small class sizes in school. Would an elementary teacher prefer 20, 30, or 40 students per class. To me, the smaller the better because it allows for more attention and interactions with the teacher. Now if the teacher sucks the size of the class won’t do jack shit!
Nicely put Dr. Loco. I’d also say that with smaller team sizes you would get better teams, as you wouldn’t have to dilute your player pool to field 11 on the field and carry 15 kids.
Also, it puts more responsibility on the kids to perform/be involved in the game with the lower numbers.
I took a team this year that all have played a lot of soccer (I’m in Mexico, btw)… we played an 11v11 tournament in the fall and we were horrendous (13-15yrs old). The kids play in the street/playground all of the time, but they’ve never played as a team. We played in an indoor league (5 on the field + gk) for 5 months. We just started playing 11v11 games again last month… night and day… completely different team. Where we’d get beat 5-1 or worse before, we are winning games now.
The smaller team size let me focus on smaller group responsibilities, movement and technique (there is no sense in my group of letting the ball cross your body to receive open to the field). I’m not sure that it matters for games though if you have the kids from very young age in a good environment to bring them along. I think in such a case, you’d be able to have them play 11v.11 at a younger age… but is a year or two of more 11v11 soccer going to make or break their chance to play for the National Team?
I’d also say as far as coaching quality goes, we have very few coaches that could properly teach an 11v11 game to younger kids (it will take a person that can communicate well with this age group and understand their cognitive abilities).
Maybe we could clone Brian and Gary?
Man this was good
Gary, I imagine this are busy times but hopefully you guys are still able to keep this kind of interaction going
We need top people at the top here. We need them to succeed and we need them to share WHY they succeed
The potential is immense, but so are the hurdles
We are talking cultural revolution here
Good luck!!