Listen in below, as John Pranjic does a great job of hosting a discussion on topics ranging from how and why 3four3 got started, to where we are now, to where we’re going. And of course the biggest problem with American soccer – a system that limits our market’s potential, disincentivizes investments, alienates the majority […]
Solutions
Introducing San Francisco City FC – a Supporter Owned Club
Hello everyone! I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of the 3four3 community over the past few years. Back in 2011, Gary was kind enough to post what amounted to my first piece of published soccer writing. That first article launched my illustrious career as an obscure soccer blogger and podcaster. These days, I’m […]
What Coaches Can Learn from Louis van Gaal’s Recent Statement
Newly appointed Manchester United coach, Louis van Gaal, recently stated it’ll take him at least 3 months to get his team to start executing the way he wants to play. 3 months! And he’s got a whole staff behind him working around the clock. 3 months! And he’s got all international level players. 3 months! And the […]
6 Points that Improve Top Level Talent Assessment through Video
The Bottom Line Capture the ‘WOW factor’ with a short video (the shorter the better) to peak interest. In-person talent assessment is hard enough, so your video(s) need to kick ass. Video must be good quality, or your audience will leave after 5 seconds. In a long-form video, try to capture all 4 player properties […]
The 1 Soccer Policy that Cripples the National Team all the way to 9 Year Olds
US Soccer not creating a true soccer pyramid with promotion & relegation. That’s it! You want youth development on par with the rest of the world? You want our top flight pro teams at the level with the best in the world? You want the National Team to consistently be a legit World Cup contender? […]
The “Possession Movement” Has Finally Hit American Shores: How Prepared Are You?
There is a movement towards possession-based soccer in our country – and it’s about time. The possession-based game, in one manifestation or another, has dominated global football for decades. But unfortunately it has taken an extreme interpretation and execution of possession, in Barcelona/Spain, to awaken us in the United States. As a result, the word […]
They Laughed When I Said It Could Be Done; But When I Started to Coach!
That’s pretty much it, right? All too often it seems that if you want to do something that breaks the mold, people react strangely. It’s like you’re an extraterrestrial or something. Two kids want to build a search engine better than multi-billion dollar incumbents? Larry and Sergey create Google. Twitter? Who the fuck is going […]
How to Execute: Who on Earth are You Learning From?
The figure breaks coaching down into 3 fundamental elements – all of which contain huge challenges. For instance, we’ve got over 4 years of philosophy-based content here, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. But now I think there’s enough of a base to start efforts in the other two elements – Activities & Execution. The […]
How Can You Take World Class Soccer Methods, and Apply Them In Your Environment?
I think we can all agree that taking what they do elsewhere in the soccer world and applying it here, is not easy. But the reasons behind that aren’t necessarily what you think. Perhaps the biggest and least understood reason for the difficulty is interpretation. You see, reading or witnessing something, and properly interpreting what […]
The Golden Rule to Team (and Player) Development
This continues with the theme of our previous article … It is after your team demonstrates a level of mastery with your core material, that you can start layering in other principles. For instance, our founding core (the set of activities all our teams start with) does not include stuff like: Combination play up the middle. Offsides trap. How […]