Coach question

Opinions on what?

 

"Premier/elite" to me means better training opportunities. Which is better for any player's development. "Travel" means more expense and more unproductive time tied up in traveling.

Most coaches might not agree agree with me, but imo the only justification for the increased expense and unproductive time of travel is if you cannot stage suitable local matches. Travel is unavoidable in some rural areas, but generally speaking there is no justification from a development perspective for U-littles playing in a travel league. And it creates an unnecessary economic barrier to participation in an elite program. You can easily gain all the development you need playing 5v5 matches though U12, so you don't need a lot of kids to have a quality program. For excitement you can do an occasional tournament. I would rather purchase coaching than gasoline for my kids.

 

What exactly do you have now?

Is there a travel league to play in that you can join now. What are the playing sides they will be playing?

Tell me about their perspective coaches and their experience as coaches and as players.

Try not to have a coach who has a player on the team to coach in that age group.

How much money do they want from the parent for their kid to play on that team.

Tell me about their trainers what is their playing experience are they current players?

 

You can pick pretty much any age you want as the basis for forming an "elite" team, but you create a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy. If all of the kids receive the same level of training, the ones who are "elite" at U8 are unlikely to be the ones who are "elite" at U13. But if you cull out the top U8 players and give them better training than everyone else, then you likely will accelerated their progress and decelerate the progress of all of the other players because the others will not get the benefit of the specialized training, won't be exposed to the higer level players in games or in training and may even quit due to feeling disenfranchized. So, in general, it's better to wait a little longer before you cull the pool.

In an ideal world, everyone would get the same training all the way through U12 and you'd pick your "elite" players at U13 when they start playing 11v11. The problem is that most clubs don't have the resources to give everyone the same, high level of training from U5-U12. It's just too many kids and not enough quality coaches. There's also the probelm that if your neighboring club offers "elite" teams at an earlier age than yours does, then your club likely will lose some of its "elite" players to that neighboring club. So what most do is put the top players with the top coaches at some point. This generally happens at either U9 or U10 in most areas. The earlier you do it, the more likely you are to let potential late bloomers slip through the net.

 

There are two reasons to play travel club ball at any age.

You should get better coaching. Plus, you get to play against better players.

Who should be in travel? The best players in your rec league who want to advance in the game. It should not be just the parents idea. The player has to want it.to make the move.

How do you know when it is time to move on from the parents perspective. You just saw your kid dribble through everybody, and then loses the ball to the last defender before the keeper.

Then you ask your kid why he did not pass? Then he honestly tells you there was no one to pass to. That is a good time.

 

some clubs beat other clubs because the word of mouth is so good from people who know the club. That every good player in the area wants to play for them.

They should have the best coaching. Their teams are all in their travel league best division.

They make the best players even better. They have enough sponsers that the cost to the player is relatively low.

Their club teams win consistently.

They get invited to invitational tournaments.

The club has the money to send their teams to these tournaments. They can still keep parental costs low.

 

You are doing your players a huge disservice by declaring an "elite" level for 7 year olds! Sorry, but that's just wrong. They should ALL be on the same field, same coaching, same fun and skill development. They have so much physical changing to do at that age that you simply can't predict who will be "elite" in 5-8 years reliably.

My two sons are an example, at U8, it was clear the older one was going to be the soccer player. Well that sure turned out wrong, the younger one is CLEARLY the better player, better skills, vision, reading field better athelete all around. It just didn't look that way when they were 7.

This is a case of the egos of the parents getting in the way of a good development program. And $1100 for a 7 year old to play soccer? Nuts.

 

I don't disagree with everything you said but it does not do anyone a disservice by declaring a kid elite at age 7. Top soccer academies around the world do it every year.

 

I heard about a kid who played in our town who got bored after trying one season of soccer and scoring several goals only to be told to "cool it" because he was "embarrassing the other team". He plays baseball and American football now.

putting them in the correct division or level of play and training is more important than the labels associated with it.

 

I don't think anyone would object to giving increased training to a true outlier, even at 7 years old. Let's assume you have a 7 year old kid who has tremendous skills (e.g., can juggle forever, can execute complicated dribbling moves at game speed, strikes the ball with power, great passing and receiving skills, etc.) Picture a young Messi maybe. Completely dominant within his own age group and even better than any of the 10-11 year olds in the pool. No one thinks that this kid should remain in the pool and be trained with the rest of he 7 year olds, do they?

The problem is with 7-year-old kids who are not THAT good. Kids who have middling-to-decent skills but are strong athletes with good field sense and off-the-charts desire. My own view is that this kind of kid probably should not be pulled out of the 7 year old pool and given advanced training. He still needs to learn the same ball skills as the other 7 year olds, so there's no real reason to treat him differently just because he's athletic and tries really hard in games. If he latches on to the skills being taught at a really high rate and becomes so highly skilled that he needs to be pulled out of the pool, so be it. But let's see him develop the skills first rather than pulling him based solely on the fact that he's athletic and tries hard.

 

But "declaring a kid elite" creates two avoidable problems.

First U-Little programs idealy should be inclusive rather exclusive. In other words great training for everyone. Much better to use a breakout program for gifted than completely segregated programs, if you can't provide great training to everyone. I don't know how you cannot see that the failure to provide better training opportunities to all U-Littles retards their development.

Second, while some might disagree, I accept as established that labeling players (not just U-Littles) as "talented" is a disincentive to development. Coaches and parents should attribute success to effort, not talent. I am pretty sure that the coaches at the "top soccer academies" you alluded to stress to players that much effort is expected and required to maintain their status with the academies. Parents tend to talk about "talent." Coaches should be talking about player performance and potential. And we know that progress is a function of effort. Sitting on a couch with talent gets a player nowhere. If a parent or coach is literally telling a player he is "elite," they are nurturing an entitlement mentality that will hinder the player's development.

90% of coaching is motivating.

 

The whole thing is so nuanced. You can have kids that are -

- not athletic
- athletic
- superior speed
- slow
- quick and agile
- baby giraffe
- great technical ability
- no technical ability
- really care about soccer
- its their third favorite sport
- 100 other scenarios or combinations

I believe soccer and clubs should cater to all players and be inclusive. At age 7 players that have not put in any time and "effort" per RCA should get a fun environment that stresses lots of touches on the ball. At age 7 kids that have put in time and "effort" should get a fun environment that stresses lots of touches on the ball. I don't think they necessarily have to play together although you could accomplish this through a breakout session. I don't think you need to tell a kid he is elite, the ones that are already know it. When they walk on the field and look at the other team they realize the other team is probably going to lose because they are playing. To me the special ones are the ones that don't dominate because they are a little faster or bigger at that age, but the ones that have superior technical ability. The ones that work hard to get there for the most part already understand that they are that good because they put the time in when their friends are playing the Wii. That is as true at age 7 as it is age 10 as it is age 14 as it is age 17.

What I don't agree with or buy at any age the only right answer is a big collective of players. That we must wait a few years to give all kids a chance to catch up before pushing them in practice. If Billy is technically superior than his friends then (so long as its fun) he should keep getting pushed to be better not be told to wait for his friends to catch up.

 

I think we largely agree.

I see lots of kids aged 6-8 being identified (by coaches, parents and clubs) as superior talents based on their advanced coordination, athleticism and focus level. Although the basis for their identification often is not their skill level, their advanced coordination, athleticism and focus level often allows them to pick up skills quickly if they are taught properly. So there is some basis for culling them from the pool. Doing so creates a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts. The athletic/coordinated/focused child already has an advantage in the form of having those attributes. Now you are adding to that advantage by pulling them out and giving them better coaching and advanced training opportunities. If your resources are extremely limited, this can be an attractive approach, but it's short-sighted.

Culling the pool at age 7 has a ripple effect on the kids who are left behind. First, if they are getting a lower level of coaching and less attention, they are unlikely to ever catch up to the kids who have been placed on an accelerated path. Second, their status as second-class citizens inevitably causes some of them to quit the game altogether. If your goal is to end up with a deep pool of talent, you need to cast your net wider than simply selecting the kids who are the most athletic/coordinated/focused at age 7. It's a sticky wicket though and there's no simple solution to the problem. If a club chooses to simply treat everyone equally, they likely will lose many of their "best prospects" to rival clubs who offer more opportunities to athletic/coordinated/focused 7-year-olds. It happens all the time. To some extent, clubs are forced to "play the game" or suffer the consequences.

One approach that many clubs take, particularly smaller clubs, it to move kids up to train with a higher age group if they truly are too skilled to train adequately with their own age group. This isn't a perfect solution because you're really just moving the kids up to play with kids who are bigger/faster/stronger and not necessarily more skilled. This provides the highly skilled younger player with a greater challenge on the physical front, but doens't necessarily foster better skill development. In fact, playing against bigger/stronger/faster kids sometimes can encourage bad habits, like a disinclination to take people on 1v1 or a tendency to "kick and run."

In essence, every solution to the problem creates new problems.

 

While this may seem in contradiction to my earlier posts, my club offers a U8 academy and I did not put my son there. I didn't really see the point since he and I spend time at our house or local soccer field on soccer. I also hate the word "elite" but that is more of just a naming thing. I would say normally describe a player as really good (technical and physical), or good technical skills, or bigger/faster, or older with an august birthday. I would also agree that any kid that is really good today may not be in five years but believe that is true at any age.

Next year at U10 our academy will take a pool of thirty players that they can move around between teams. Over time they will put the better kids together at practice. Some parents like that other's don't. Usually its the parents with the better kids that don't like pooling. My opinion at least for the next two years it is fine since my son needs to learn how to play the game on a larger field with teammates. I still believe irrespective of the program he will get more technical time on the ball. When we get to U12 I am less sure about pooling but we can cross that bridge when we get to it if it is even a possibility. The other large club in our city puts kids together on teams and doesn't pool and are more successful at the earlier age groups. Either way, both clubs are DA and by the time they get to U14 it evens out.

On a side note, my son got to 42 juggles last night. It has been fun to watch how quickly they progress at this age assuming they are staring around age 7
- first five juggles - months of effort
- ten juggles - a few weeks
- twenty juggles - a few weeks
- thirty - forty juggles - days to a week