There are many fundamental issues with talk of ‘style of play’. I’ll state two (which are intimately linked): 1) You can’t ‘copy’ a style of play. (on the coaching front) A ‘style of play’ is a specialty – like neurosurgery or cardiovascular surgery. Yes, it’s all medicine, and yes there are overlapping competencies, but one […]
Stop Playing Up! Start Playing down.
Let’s suppose that a coach would like his team to consistently execute deliberately orchestrated possession-centered, attacking, attractive, and winning soccer during matches. But it’s just not happening. Here are the two main possibilities: 1) The players are not at the level of competition. This is the most cited reason. And it’s most often not true. […]
Soccer Camps: What’s the Deal with Those?
Here’s a recent email I got regarding soccer camps: My son is 12 and [has been] in club soccer for 3 years. He loves the game and is in the top 25% of his team (not top 5%). He plays wing back right or left. Is short, fast and technical. My questions to you were […]
Barcelona Youth Academy 2001s are Ridiculous! Watch the video!
Here’s the video of our first match against FC Barcelona at MIC Cup. Watch carefully – this offers just a flavor of what gold standard football can look like for 11 year olds. Also, we did a report on this match. Context is king! Something we’ll be providing as we continue this path of soccer […]
Transition: Brian’s at Chivas USA and 3four3 Needs to “Grow Up”
Hi guys, Just a little update on what’s going on, and where that final report on how the MIC tournament concluded is at. After returning from Barcelona, there’s been a ton of activity behind the scenes. Some things are very ugly, but some things are great. Brian is now at Chivas USA (that of course […]
American Youth vs Ajax Academy
MIC Cup Semi-final vs Ajax L’estartit – Another prime time showdown against one of the top youth academies in world football. The Netherlands have produced countless world class players with Ajax being the conveyer belt. Johan Cruyff, Edwin van der Sar, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Kluivert, Marco Van Basten, Rafael van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder, and […]
Our American Youth Soccer Team takes down Spanish Club EF Baix Ter
MIC Cup Game 4 vs EF Baix Ter It came down to goal differential and FC Barcelona ended up scoring 6 on Begur, securing 1st place in our group. This meant we would now face 2nd place from group D, EF Baix Ter, a local Catalunya team. We had them scouted well, and knew it […]
The Irish tried to “Pull a Chelsea”, but We were Too Much
MIC Cup Game 3 vs Cherry Orchard (Ireland) After a monumental draw against FC Barcelona at noon, we had to shift our focus to our last pool play game against Irish side Cherry Orchard. They had just come off consecutive losses to Barcelona (9-0) and Begur (2-1) and had nothing but pride to play for. […]
The Beast, the Monster, the 800-pound Gorilla: Our match vs FC Barcelona
MIC Day 2 3/28/13 The second day of MIC would be the most anticipated match day, not only for the boys here, but for all the players who came before them and for the club and for US soccer. El Super Clasico between FC Barcelona and TFA (that’s us) was on the minds of all […]
MIC Cup 2013: Our Match vs Begur
MIC Cup game #1 TFA vs Begur 3-27-13 After months of intense preparation, the day had come for our MIC Cup debut. A pleasant 25 minute bus ride to Begur to take on local youth club Begur in their hometown stadium. A great atmosphere awaited the team and we were ready to get the well […]