How an American journeyman revolutionized Japanese soccer—and why it isn’t happening in the U.S.

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by LouisianaViking07/09, Mar 11, 2014.

  1. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    since someone mentioned him in a previous post of mine, I figured i'd put this up for discussion.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/sport...se_soccer_a_player_on_the_world_football.html

     
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  2. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
     
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  3. jond

    jond Member+

    Sep 28, 2010
    Club:
    Levski Sofia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #3 jond, Mar 12, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2014
    Yeah, I mentioned him earlier. Also posted a thread on him a little while ago.

    https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/the-case-for-tom-byer.2000013/

    It's a huge red flag to me that this guy is American, arguably the best American technical "developer" currently living in terms of developing youth, has a great track record, won awards internationally for player development, and no one in MLS seems all that interested, or with our youth NT's for that matter while coaching/tactical acumen/tech ability remains by and large our biggest weakness across the board.

    And I'm not questioning here why we struggle in those areas, but rather how committed are we really in improving in these areas when Tom Byer after doing the work he did in Japan, received more interest from China than here in the states. It says just as much about our state of development that no one who's been working here all this time has done anything even approaching what he did, in any academy/ODP in this country.
     
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  4. Master O

    Master O Member+

    Jul 7, 2006
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
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  5. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Slate? Really?

    But getting over that is the dude part of the Japanese FA or in charge of the Japan youth National teams?

    Does he work independently or for one of the J-league teams?
     
  6. jond

    jond Member+

    Sep 28, 2010
    Club:
    Levski Sofia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    He works in China now and does clinics throughout parts of Asia. Not doing nearly as much in Japan anymore. That is part of what raises a red flag for me. After what he did in Japan and when looking to move on and help another country, it was China which went after him, not anyone affiliated with USSF or MLS. Hence why he's now helping rebuild the CFA from the bottom up, as he did with Japan.

    Meanwhile, much of our footy infrastructure is still based on hiring guys within our system and giving chances to friends/ex-players instead of looking outside the system, which is what Japan did, not only with Byer but also with Eastern European coaches and Brasilian coaches. And, it's partly why they've seen a much quicker change in development and player skill than we have here.
     
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  7. MPNumber9

    MPNumber9 Member+

    Oct 10, 2010
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wait--so why isn't it happening in the US? That part wasn't really explained.
     
  8. FakeFlopper

    FakeFlopper Member

    Jul 21, 2005
    Austin, Tx
    I think there's several factors involved here, one being that in Japanese you don't have ppl going "Soccer, who the hell plays soccer here? That's boring, this is Japan. We have karate. " If there was a show in the mornings about soccer here geared towards kids, it would struggle to take off, although I think it would be great. We have the right ingredients for a soccer revolution in this country, but there are a lot of things that still need to be in place before it happens.
     
  9. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    I don't think his not being contacted is much of a red flag. Youth dev in the team sports of the US is almost exclusively amateur-based. The emphasis is on team building and winning typically for your school. A while back someone posted Bradenton's(the USSF academy there) prospectus. The emphasis again was on playing 'winning soccer'. There was nothing about technique and skills dev.

    That's the culture, though things are fortunately starting to change somewhat.

    What's been more disappointing has been the general lack of continuing ed at MLS level. Kudos to the Dom Kinnears of the league for truly developing players like DeRosario, Clark, Ching, Holden, Cameron and 'middle class' guys like Ashe.

    It's interesting that elite football development in the US and Japan mirrors the countries' respective industrial growth with the former relying heavily on immigration and the latter on the importation of experts. Guess this guy Byers is the Deming of soccer over there.
     
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  10. SpencerNY

    SpencerNY Member+

    Dec 1, 2001
    Up in the skyway
    Japan WC 1998-2010 31st, 9th, 28th, 9th
    US WC 1998-2010 32nd, 8th, 25th, 12th
     
  11. bye_urn

    bye_urn Member

    Aug 13, 2009
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    US amateur soccer development infrastructure, strategy and implementation (both player and coach) is a clusterfu$% run by the good old boys who have very little interest in disruptive innovation because the first thing that will happen is we will all finally see without question the emperor's have no clothes.

    I'll just leave that here.
     
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  12. Master O

    Master O Member+

    Jul 7, 2006
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Even so, if the USA wants to be elite in soccer, our infrastructure needs to be overhauled.

    This is a basic requirement if anyone here wants to see the USA hoist a World Cup ever.
     
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  13. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Absolutely, plus we have a higher elo rating and had more success at the Confederations. On the other hand, they're doing it with an almost non-immigrant population--a tougher proposition when you're starting from scratch. Imagine if we had to roll with only the non-recent immigrant part of our pool.

    Also the lack of success of Americans in the top leagues of Europe has been a recent topic, so the superior fortunes of the Japanese makes the issue of skills dev relevant.
     
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  14. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sure but to me the article sounds like an exaggeration on what the dude has accomplished.

    I mean is not like Japan has won any youth World Cups like Mexico or Nigeria.
     
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  15. bye_urn

    bye_urn Member

    Aug 13, 2009
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Can't tell if sarcastic or not
     
  16. bye_urn

    bye_urn Member

    Aug 13, 2009
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree completely and that was the point of my post. I won't overplay my connections, but I do know some folks at very high levels within the US Soccer and I assure you they have zero, none, no interest at all in over-hauling the current system. Not because many of them don't see the need, but because to do so would require a level of reach and political arm-twisting that would see them looking for new jobs before any progress was made.

    Just look at what should be the easiest system to change, coaching education. Our current system does nothing to support an aligned, standard and strategic approach to bringing along the best and the brightest. Any number of professional learning organizations have models that could be adopted for true coaching development. As it stands, if you can fake it for a weekend or a week AND if the coaching staff like you during the course, you get to advance to the next level of license regardless of what you do the other 98% of the time you are actually coaching.
     
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  17. Master O

    Master O Member+

    Jul 7, 2006
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sounds like Washington, D.C. :thumbsdown:
     
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  18. Dr. Gamera

    Dr. Gamera Member+

    Oct 13, 2005
    Wheaton, Maryland
    The beauty of applying the Tom Byer approach to the USA is that you might not have to work within the USSF system. You do, however, need to convince the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon to start airing two-minute Coerver-method soccer skills instructional programs. I know that at least the Disney Channel already airs shorts regularly, so the vehicle is already in place.
     
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  19. jond

    jond Member+

    Sep 28, 2010
    Club:
    Levski Sofia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Have you tried typing is name into google and pressing "enter"?

    There's far more on Byer if you care to look.
     
  20. MPNumber9

    MPNumber9 Member+

    Oct 10, 2010
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It's not a matter of convincing them, but buying the air time. Be my guest!
     
  21. jond

    jond Member+

    Sep 28, 2010
    Club:
    Levski Sofia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Doesn't even need to do that. Make some DVD's and send them to every academy/ODP/training center in the country, or at least those who are interested. There has to be a demand for him to do that first though.

    I've watched a few of his videos. I also see youth footy teams practicing regularly where I run(SJ affiliates). Takes all of two seconds to notice their philosophy and what they do is far different than what Byer does in his videos, or what happens many places abroad for that matter. I still see straight line sprints without the ball as being a popular drill and a decent amount of practice doesn't even involve the ball, whereas in a place like Holland, cardio is done with the ball. Training methods are completely different.

    We don't need a segment on Disney. We just need some of this information and demonstrations shown to our youth players. Get a copy in the hands of youth coaches. It'd be a start. U13's and U15's are too late in the game. Any U7, U9 or U11 coach should have Byer's videos or similar videos and should be stressing touch, touch and more touch. We don't have that though. And it is a very cost effective start to fixing that problem. Costs next to nothing in the grand scheme of things for youth coaches to buy a handful of DVD's and play them for their teams, then work on what they see.
     
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  22. An Unpaved Road

    An Unpaved Road Member+

    Mar 22, 2006
    Club:
    --other--
    Ha, I remember a few of my youth coaches trying the VHS approach. Didn't go over well. Although to be fair back then the overall youth failure was best summed up by the fact that while at soccer practice kids didn't talk about soccer, but football, baseball, basketball hockey, even boxing. Kids today might be more receptive if for no other reason than I assume they're passingly familiar with pro soccer.
     
  23. Wessoman

    Wessoman Member+

    Sep 26, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A couple of misnomers in that post. For starters, my first exposure to professional soccer was thanks to the J-League, and it's no secret I'm a big Nagoya Grampus fan (It's where I first learned who Arsene Wenger was). There are a lot of interesting parallels between Japan and the US, developmentally, but there are key differences.

    For one, the growth of the Japanese football program and of the J-League is in fact because of their immigrant population. Japan has a small but vibrant Brazilian ethnic population, and their increasing numbers in the 80's and 90's is what fueled the catalyst behind the J-League. Pretty much everybody in Japan knows who Ruy Ramos was, the lone pioneer who seemed to really be a pilgrim of football in the land of the rising sun. Many of the J-League's Brazilian players have close ties to Japan or are Japanese immigrants. Japanese Brazilians have been a mainstay of Japan's national team program: Wagner Lopes, Alex Dos Santos and Marcus Tulio Tanaka come to mind. Heck, even us Yanks also have our own Japanese Brazilian, Paulo Nagamura. Furthermore, Japan does have a small Korean immigrant population (Which has paid dividends for the National Team as well).

    However, you are correct IndividualEleven, that Japan and the J-League doesn't exactly pull talent from those ethnic minorities, those small ethnic communities make it inviting for non-Japanese players to play in Japan. Practically every J-League team has several Korean (North & South) and Brazilian players on it. Sure, Brazilians play everywhere in the world, but a lot more Brazilians play in Japan than say, MLS or the A-League. Brazilian neighborhoods, like the Asakusa district in Tokyo, make it really inviting for Brazilian journeymen, much the same with Korean players. It's also the reason why many Central American players flourish in MLS--Not just because of the quality of football, but a Honduran player will be far more at home in places like Los Angeles or Houston or DC than Sydney, London, or Tokyo.

    As for the success of Japanese players overseas, this has quite a bit more to do with the Nakata effect than perception of talent. Let me explain: In the late 1990's--The Japanese public became football mad. Not only was Japan named a World Cup host, but Japan had finally qualified for the World Cup itself. Interest was soaring. During France '98, Perugia noticed the dynamic #8 playing for Japan, Hidetoshi Nakata, and decided to take a chance on buying him. The response was tremendous.

    Ya see, Japan went completely nuts with Nakata-mania. At the height of Japan's football craze, a top player was bought by a Serie A club, leading to Japanese fans suddenly buying thousands of thousands of Perugia kits and Serie A getting covered by the Japanese media. It also didn't hurt that Nakata was actually really good, Micheal Bradley good, and ended up getting bought by Roma and even won the Scudetto. Japan (And Italy) used him as a marketing vehicle, and his face was used to sell everything from boots, cars, and suits.

    So, am I saying that Japanese players aren't any more talented than US players? Yes, I am. But when Nakata made people in Italy very rich, an interesting phenomenon occurred: European teams, who are wary of taking chances on players, realized that buying Japanese players is a solid investment, because shirt sales and TV rights money were definitely worth the risk. A good example: Junichi Inamoto, who was only really impressive at selling shirts and ads. Of course, eventually Nakata-Mania died down, but what also died with it was the stigma attached to big clubs buying Japanese players, something that US players have not really overcome overseas.

    As far as skills development, Japan and the US have had similar success at the World Cup, for different reasons. For one, Ruy Ramos and Tom Byer emphasized skill-based approach, while the US approach was definitely a team mentality. I remember getting into an argument about the J-League and MLS back in 2000, where I considered both leagues equal where many Japanese posters disagreed. I let them know that while the J-League was a skilled league that was fast with organized defenses (And still very fun to watch), tough man-marking and goalkeeping in the J-League during that time was dreadful. You can still see those remnants in the Japanese national team, where occasionally you see poor marking out of the Japanese mid, goalkeepers having horrible times with high crosses, or J-League based forwards trying to rip 30 and 40 yard screamers after a good run--Shots that probably are goals in the J-League but won't beat any international goalkeeper, just the way you see US players attempt long errant passes, or get caught out when trying to press forward (Especially the wingbacks), or refuse to try and beat players 1v1 and go for the safer lateral pass every once in awhile. (I feel that this may be the reason behind the recent J-League exodus to the Bundesliga, as these skills are lacking among Japanese players.).

    So while this thread and this article are an interesting footnote in history, I am not sure if the US would have fundamentally been different if Byer plied his trade here. But you never know, maybe his approach and influence would have worked wonders. As of right now, both the US and Japan are incomplete teams--Amazing teams on the cusp of being genuine WC contenders but without all the right ingredients. And both the US and Japan seem to be addressing different problems to reach the same goals.
     
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  24. Eleven Bravo

    Eleven Bravo Member+

    Atlanta United
    United States
    Jul 3, 2004
    SC
    Club:
    Atlanta Silverbacks
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    To me, the problem is bigger and more challenging...

    The issue is the logistics of being able to get a group of talented players at one time and also the complete neglect of scouting in less urbanized areas...

    For the first part, the "school" development... Most kids are not going to go to a soccer specific school. You are pretty much limited to where your parents can find jobs... That said, it's maybe typical for each school to have a couple of gifted or just dedicated talent. The rest of the team is made up of a group of perhaps still talented but nonetheless not kids that eat, breathe, sleep soccer. And the opportunity for those kids who could take it to the next level to play with and against others just as dedicated and gifted for hours on end is often limited.

    Secondly, where do we recruit? We tend to only scout in the major urban areas for that reason... Well, we just effectively cut our selection pool in half if not more. Seriously, who is scouting out Asheville, NC or Des Moines, Iowa? Do we honestly think that none of these towns are capable of producing a star athlete?

    It probably won't create a soccer revolution and make us greater than Brazil, but I guarantee you that we would find a few more Clint Dempsey's.

    That said, with the increase in MLS and even USL/NASL teams... We will be more able to have "grassroots" organizations that can implement these said designs.
     
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  25. TabLalas

    TabLalas Member+

    Mar 29, 2007
    Jersey
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's some great info there Wessoman.
    I played semi-pro in Japan when I was stationed there in the mid-90's and the people were pretty stoked that the World Cup was coming in 2002.
    Am I surprised by the interest in the sport there? No, absolutely not, because if you know the culture and how the Japanese people work you know that whatever the Japanese put their mind and effort towards, they'll have success in.
    It was funny, I was looking to get into something over there in my off-time and just assumed that it would be one of the semi-pro baseball leagues that were all over the place which there were a TON of, baseball is enormous there.
    Long story short, found out from some of my Japanese teammates that soccer was slowly becoming more popular and that there was a league there so I started playing in a 12 team league.
    Some of the players were damn good too and would not be at all surprised if some of the guys went on to play in the J-League.
    It also never surprised me that they have produced more offensive minded players than defensive.
    Some of the guys on defense would drive me crazy because they would show too much respect to opposing players when man-marking and hated clutching and grabbing and all of the little things that you can use to keep tabs on your man, it was almost to the point that they would bump or crash into another player and have that instinct to immedietly get up and start bowing, lol.
    The great part about our league was that it was as much an exchange of ideas, techniques and philosophies as it was a physical competition.
    I also played football in high-school (defensive-back) so I taught alot of the defenders on my team some of the cornerback techniques that I had learned as far as foot placement, closing your hips and how to swing your hips open quicker when playing man-coverage, basically ways to play so that you werent wasting any kind of motion.
    We basically took everything from american football, baseball, basketball and karate and used the same principles.
    At some point man-marking and zone-marking is the same damn thing, I don't care what sport your playing.
    The Japanese people are soft-clay and LOVE to learn, they're simply thee perfect student, and I became a student as well.
    They also love following their own people when they go abroad, just look at how loved Ichiro was when he went to the Seattle Mariners.
    I ALWAYS root for Japan when watching the World Cup, I don't believe in having "2nd teams" but the Japanese MNT is very much my 2nd team.
     
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