I would like to focus a few threads on one key idea each, rather than have a discussion that is all over the map. So, here is one observation (and suggestion) that I have from watching and coaching youth soccer. A lot of coaches give up on skill development at much too young an age, and start focusing entirely on tactics, fitness, aggressiveness, etc. The attitude seems to be that the players that a U-15 coach has are pretty much of fixed individual ability, and now his job is to make them a good team. I think there is a huge difference between these two statements: 1) You can pretty much tell by age 12 which players are ever going to have good touch and which players will not. 2) Skill development is pretty much over by age 12. A lot of youth coaches seem to confuse these two statements. Even a very skillful 12 year old probably has a lot of progress still to make at heading, crossing, playing with his back to goal. defending against an attacker who has his back to goal, making a long pass precisely, chipping the ball effectively, swerving the ball precisely (e.g. around a wall on a free kick), bringing down long balls on the run, offensive and defensive heading, and plenty of other advanced skills. Yes, the basic touch and moves and dribbling and passing and receiving ability had better be instilled at an early age, but we need to develop these advanced skills continually over the teen years. Unfortunately, most coaches like to coach their team by having everyone on the team doing the same thing at once, in one big group. That means small sided games and scrimmages. If you divide players up into pairs, trios, or even as individuals, you have to circulate around and observe quickly and precisely before deciding to correct something or move on to the next group, OR you have to have at least 1-2 good assistants available, OR you have to have players in lines, which is the worst choice. The easy thing to do is to have everyone doing some small-sided game or scrimmage in one big group. This brings me to an idea that I considered placing in a separate thread, but which is so strongly related that I will include it here. The pendulum has swung too far in favor of small sided games. They should be part of every practice, particularly in a country with little street soccer. But, consider how well players will learn the advanced skills I listed above in a small sided game. Heading? Crossing? Bending around a wall? etc. It won't happen. The fad in American education is to criticize drills. Modern educators shudder at the thought of kids drilling on their multiplication tables, or spelling lists, or handwriting practice, or anything similar. Why, the little darlings will not think school is fun if we do that! This fad has invaded soccer in a big way. A coach must NEVER drill. Everything must be a game, and let the game be the teacher, etc. Great. Tell me how these advanced skills are taught without individual drills, correction from a trained observer, and repetition. Tell me how a 4v4 game produces players proficient at heading the ball, chipping it, etc. The irony is that we are not producing the skill set that you should be able to produce even if your country is woefully deficient in street soccer. In countries like Brazil, they don't dream that this skill set will be learned by street and beach soccer alone. They get great benefits from those activities, then they supplement them with professional academy training that includes advanced skill drills, among other things. We might have disadvantages in our soccer culture in the USA, but there is no excuse for allowing misguided educational fads to keep us from developing player skills.
Interesting thread. I think the most important aspect for very young players is learning to love the ball. Keep the ball, improve your technique and ball skills. It is this aspect that is most difficult to learn. Athleticism and tactical awareness can be drilled at an earlier age but good technique needs instilling at as early an age as possible. Also for youngsters there should not be so much emphasis on playing games to win. Games should be played to improve as a player. If you focus solely on winning you will play more percentage football whereas the most important thing in playing at this level is to improve. One of the problems that England have had in the past is that too much emphasis was placed on youngsters winning games. This led to the long ball being more popular and this favoured those who were physically the strongest and biggest at a young age. There was less emphasis on ball skills and tricks and so this aspect of the players would be worse when compared to Italians or Spanish players as adults etc. This has been corrected however and the youth academies with English clubs are beginning to bear fruit. Small sided games are extremely important as they encourage close ball control, short accurate passing and the ability to work the ball when marked. Skills such as heading and crossing are learnt by specialist drills for these skills. Anyway I am not sure that the US should model themselves on South American models like Brazil. The US is more similar to Europe in terms of lifestyle and infrastructure. Brazil and Argentina have loads of poverty striken kids kicking a ball around as they have no TV, Xbox etc. American kids have a more similar upbringing to Europeans- so it might be better to look to see what the best youth development systems in Europe are doing. Look to Clairefontaine. Look to Holland and Ajax. Look to England and the Academies. See what emphasis and training drills are performed in these places and see how these can be transferred to US kids. Getting a decent youth development program in place is key to any success in this sport for the USA.
Check out this informative article detailing how contemporary thinking on coaching youth in Europe. http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...e+emphasis+technique&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=7
Wow. Great article. It is stuff like this that we need but will sadly never have any time soon with the US Club Soccer system the way it is. Unfortunately, most of the clubs are there to make money, and to make money they need more and more players to picke their club. To convince players to pick the club, they want to show how many trophies they have and how great the club is. This puts a tremendous emphasis on winning, as more championships, more tournaments won, more kids will come, more money. But we as coaches need to be brave enough to buck this trend and stand up to the pressure and teach skill first, winning second for the youth. This is difficult because even teaching tactics over skill will get you wins at the youth level. We need to not put the fast kid up front just because he will beat people to the long ball and score goals for us, but put him in the back or in the middle to develop his footwork and technique with the ball.
Like most people my time is very limited so I don't get to travel from club to club and watch teams practice. But from watching teams I've seen practice and watching warm-ups of many others, I doubt very many top local teams stop skills training at U12. Instead I see a lot of players working 1, 2, 3 to a ball. Even at the National team level you'll see work on individual skills. Maybe things are different in your area. But if so, I doubt the level of play is very good. No heading and crossing in short-sided games? Very easy to make this happen. Just put a short, wide field with 5 yard channels from either side that can't be defended to a big goal where headers from crosses count 3x. You want bending balls, play a game were the first team to bend x # ball's around a flag into a section of fence in the air from a designated square wins. You'll get lots of kids bending the ball under time pressure. Games add game like pressure and intensity. You spend time working on individual technique, then add games or drills that add time pressure, then play competitive games that add game like intensity and pressure. Each are needed and each serve a different purpose. The reason is that until recently we have very few adults with the knowledge of how to teach. The fact is that most kids on top select teams were taught by their parents at a very young age. This is changing. So is average skill level you see in youth games.
My direct observations of the U.S. approach - As a 13 year old, Henry experienced very little physical work The coaches at Region 2 ODP would be horrified Most club coaches, too. However, some club coaches in the U.S. do train only on technique & tactics So I'd say this is a partial match with the U.S. as the emphasis was on skill work, practicing over and over again until that particular skill was learned. Some of the clubs are more skill oriented than ODP, but even the most skill oriented of the local clubs are nowhere near so perfectionist. Overall, I'd say that this sounds VERY different than in the U.S. Up until they are 16, the French work only on individual technique. The relationship is just the ball and the player to improve control touch, and passing. Players need complete control over the ball before moving on to tactics and strategies, when to pass and when not to. I must be honest, I flat-out don't believe this. I've seen a Clairefontaine documentary, where 13/14 year olds were playing a scrimmage and passing the ball. However, to the extent that this is even remotely true, nobody in the U.S. is like this. This has been the long-standing criticism on English (and American) soccer, where there has been too much emphasis on a youngster’s physique, not enough on technique. True across the board in U.S. soccer, that physique gets a lot of play in the early teens, for the obvious reason that it wins matches. The absolute, number one requirement in France is good technique. The players must spend two hours a day, five days a week on their skills. Of course, if this occurs in the U.S., it is primarily because the player is doing this work on his own, not in the club situation. The U.S. clubs do not have 10 hours per week of training, nor is the training solely skill related for the teenage players, in fact in most cases perhaps not even predominantly. From the Germans - Here all the technical aspects, especially passing the ball are worked on all day. Can't say that I've ever seen passing of the ball made a priority in training sessions. The players should work on both the left and right feet in “unbroken repetitions. Don't often see coaches working equally on both feet, and again this whole idea of repetition after repitition is different.
Just some random thoughts based on what has been said so far..... It seems to me that most experienced coaches have a theme for their training sessions, and start their sessions with individual skills and progressing in numbers and the amount of pressure applied in gamelike situations to finally an actual game, usually short sided, by the end of the session. The fact that time is limited makes it necessary to include as many facets of training as possible (technical, tactical, fitness, etc.). In simple terms they are teaching the skill then progressing to situations in which the players learn not only how to execute the skill, but when to put it to use. I'm not disagreeing, but having just finished The Principles of Brazilian Soccer it is interesting to note that the author makes the point that the excessive use of SSG can limit how players visualize the game. In the opinion of the author, one of the things that can occur is the development of players who look exclusively for the short passing option. From my experience, this is fairly common with many girls teams who are taught a possession style of soccer. I also just finished Gianluca Vialli's The Italian Job which compares English and Italian soccer (12 hours in a planes gives you an opportunity to get some reading in) and in reminicing his own experience as a youth player, he mentions entering a semi-professional soccer club at age 13 where his coach very much concentrated on technique. Vialli says his coach epitomized the saying "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game" and says that had he a different coach who didn't encourage technique and good football, but instead put results above all else, he might have turned out a different player or perhaps turned off to the game all together. Vialli quotes Sir Alex Ferguson and Fabio Capello saying much the same, in fact Capello goes as far as using the F word - FUN.
Couple of things. One, is I wonder if people appreciate how much of "skills" isn't learned, it's just natural. We all think of speed as being uncoachable, but I think touch is more innate than most people might realize. Maybe I say this because it's a weakness of mine that I've worked on a lot and I'm still behind guys who had great touch at 9. Without working at it, they just had it. About size: man, there's a lot of prejudice out there for big players. I have it, too, sometimes. Everything else being equal and all that. But this past weekend, watching Surf Cup games, I was really impressed with how often you could find the smaller guys on the field, and they'd be the best players. Maybe they have to be twice as good to get half the attention. So now I come to what I've seen lately, working with coaches at tryouts last spring, and add-ons this summer. And I think they almost all make the same mistakes: First, and most common, is they audition kids, they hold tryouts, in small sided games. They ALL do this. They're watching kids play what is almost an indoor game, TO PICK KIDS FOR AN OUTDOOR TEAM. This is really bad, but they ALL do it. I know, they want to see a lot of touches, and they want to focus on a few kids at a time, but still. I watched and helped at tryouts for 6 CSL Premier, Gold or SE teams, and not one coach put the kids onto a full field game. They ran sprints to test for speed, and they did drills to test for skills, and played small games, but I'd test for the real thing, too. What could be more basic than that? This is more true for HS and, if I was scouting for college, for that. Because they play on bigger fields, and speed and vision become so much more important. Too often they end up with quick kids instead of fast ones, without realizing that there's a difference. I had one coach tell me, of a quick kid, a blazing feet type kid, that he wanted him up top for his speed. I was watching that same kid and noticed that, as fast as his feet were moving, he wasn't passing anyone. He was SLOW, and this coach thought he was FAST. I think you could put him up top on an 80 yard field, but he'd be worthless on a 120. It doesn't matter how good you are with the ball if you can't get to it. Watching the Surf Cup, I realized for the first time how small the fields are that almost all youth tourneys are held at, and how differently you'd pick a team for a full-sized game. Once, playing in the Nomads tourney in San Diego, all our bracket play was on full sized fields, 120 yards long (football fields plus endzones). Then, in the semis, we were back to 80 yard fields. It was a whole different ball game, but my coach didn't even adjust the lineup (although he's a good coach, he just missed this one.) Then the second biggest mistake they made, and they all made this one, too, was how much they loved flash. They'd rather have a kid who lost the ball trying to dribble by someone (I guess they like the cockiness, or assume that the kid must be successful at it sometimes or he wouldn't be trying), or blasted a wild shot over the crossbar, than a kid who make a simple but smart pass, or tried to just slip a shot by a keeper, rather than blast it by him. I mean, these are pretty good coaches, too, really. They just can't help but be attracted to flash. And then the third biggest mistake was being afraid to go with little guys, although only some coaches I thought were making this mistake. One told me the opposite: everything else being equal, go with the smaller kids. He said, partly it was because they'd play with more heart and brains, because they'd have to, and partly because they were more likely to improve, and even just plain catch up in size, among the younger kids. He said don't pick a team based on who's gone through puberty so far, because they all end up doing that.
Truth. On my son's team, the two kids who are regarded by the coaches as having the most technical skill -- and the two kids who typically finish #1 and #2 in the juggling contests -- are not soccer junkies. They go to practices, play sometimes at home, but unlike so many of their teammates are not guys who always have the ball at their feet, who are breaking down garage doors playing wall ball, etc. Interesting. I hadn't noticed that, but since your other comments seem to be on track, this one probably is too. I'll think about it. Oh, yeah. Although I'd say not just flash, they also have a love for the hard-nosed intimidating ball winner who immediately gives the ball back to the other team after making the tackle.
Agree 100% with that coach's observation. As I've watched our team progress through the years and now we're in BU-16P, you can see the ones who were the bigger, superstar players being surpassed by some of the others who two years ago were smaller in size. Luckily we have a club/coach who recognizes this phenomenon, and holds onto the smaller players with skill knowing that at 16/17/18, they all even out.
PokerJoe, very insightful post. The only thing I might add on the issue of quick and fast is that you probably need both kinds of players on a team for that team to be successful.
I think the problem with US Youth Soccer is that the only time that young players really play a lot is at practice or training. The Youth Soccer System is too organized. More kids need to just go out and play all day long if they want to be good. They have to learn to be one with the ball and this comes by playing games in the playground or at the park or whatever. I really do feel that that will improve youth soccer in the US.
I agree........ At the region 1 ID camp I watched the 93's play and while there are some very good players they all appeared to be cut from the same mold. Interestingly this is what Manfred Schellscheidt had to say when he got all the 93's at the National camp; “Usually you have some players on the top who are a little better than the others, and maybe some at the bottom, then a group in the middle. This year there are a lot more players in the middle and not so many who really jump out at you,” Schellscheidt said. “There has to be a reason for it, and I would say it has to do with the programs going on at the clubs that are more for the group. Everything that happened here is still good. It’s still a positive experience for them, but it concerns me.” Schellscheidt went on to talk about how one issue to address in developing top-level players is to provide more free or “open” playing opportunities for the most promising players, rather than having everything structured at younger ages.
Manny got the players his State/Regional coaches wanted. If he seeks different attributes, then he needs to work with those guys so that they share his vision.
As you know ODP is merely a selection process. The kids are developed by the clubs not regional coaches at an ID camp. The top clubs or most clubs for that matter put too much emphasis on teams winning. The PDA eclipse thing being a perfect example. But when supposedly 100 of the best kids in the country get together and not one stands out above all the rest you can justly put the blame on just about everyone.
I'm not sure I understand your point. For example, if we had better coaches throughout the country, would you expect only one or two kids to stand out? If so, why? I'm willing to listen, but it seems to me that better coaching throughout the U.S. would lead to better players throughout the U.S., meaning there would be less divergence between the best and worst players, not more. Does this make sense to anyone else?
What John is saying is that the players he wants are out there, They only select the ones he is complaining about. Even within the system the players exist, living dual soccer lifestyles. Players like Luis Medina (Waukegan) are all throughout the system. This is a Latino player who plays the Suburban way... when in the suburbs. But on Sunday morning in the Hispanic leagues OMG! a totally different player shows up. IMO that is a testament to the talent of the player. So, in short, Mr. Schellsheidt gets what he asks for.
ClarkC, Both of your “idea” posts are good and deserve praise for being well conceived and presented. I agree completely with both concepts you present in this one: that skill development is an on going and in truth never ending aspect of the game; and, that the SSG and use of the “game as the exclusive teacher” are way over emphasized. I agree with scoachd1 that the top clubs do continue skills training throughout their programs. However, there is a problem with lower levels of the game where skill training is often dropped in favor of only tactical play if it were ever taught at all. Bird is right about how SSG’s can impede the development of vision. (Are you changing some of your ideas on SSG’s?) By the way Bird, The Principles of Brazilian Soccer, is one of the better books you will find on soccer, please do not quote it back to me, however; also, do not let geneseo know you like it Implicit in what Bird writes and in the second half of your post Clark, is the failure of coaches to analyze their players. This properly deserves to be expanded on in your other topic, but it is the root problem of coaching everywhere. Too often people see the coach as a teacher and ignore the more pivotal role of being a selector. In fact, posts that contrast development with recruiting seem to tar the “recruiter” as a bad coach. Too many coaches cannot analyze the talent before them and as a consequence pick the wrong players, pick the wrong things to work on with the players they chose and pick the wrong tactics to use with the players they have. John laments in many posts the selection of early maturing (in some case I suspect he really wants to write "mutating") players. In doing this he recognizes that pattern of selecting players based on factors that maturation influences – size, strength and speed. These are important, but they are not the most important factors. Far more significant is speed of play which is dependent on speed of thought, vision, and technical skill. Many coaches do not possess the knowledge or ability to recognize the factors that influence speed of play. Size, strength and speed stand out as do those with the technical skill to dribble. It takes more to see that the dribbler is not penetrating, is not looking up to see options. It takes more to see the player who has vision. Until we develop better coaches, coaches with the analytical tools needed and with the philosophical underpinnings necessary to understand the game we will not develop the players with these skills. This in turn brings me to bytheshore8 and ODP. (By the way Headerdunce you point is logically correct – if we do get better coaching we will get more uniform, quality players, but that was not the direction bytheshore8 was directed, though that was a logical conclusion given what he wrote.) I have supported ODP and continue to do so, but at many levels the process is flawed. The coaches are often substandard and suffer from the lack of analytical skills I note above. More fundamentally, the very philosophy of the program – of picking the “best” players is flawed. Too often the notion of “best” assumes that the players are totally interchangeable. The idea that you may have a best defender, a best forward is lost. Even more fundamentally the idea that you have a “best” within a particular tactical scheme and team is absent. The result is we have a system that will by pass or wrongly slot the most essential players we need – the play makers. These players with the potential to be great mids are lost at the initial State selection level most often. We reward the player who holds the ball and demonstrates skill in 1v1 situations rather the player who makes the killer pass or who moves with intelligence without the ball. For years we lacked great 1v1 artists. Now we have some, but they often lack the ability to create space. We need players with the ability to be complete in the position they are to fill in the scheme we use tactically. to achieve this we need are coaches who recognize that the latest fad is rarely valid, that we need players with diverse talents and are then coaches with the ability to select such players and blend them on to a team. Once we get coaches like this in club and ODP then and only then will John’s observation be positive. Even at the national level our coaches often lack the ability to recognize talent. If you wish a simple test watch the coach's head while a game is going on. Too often you will see the coach focused intently on the ball and oblivious to movement off the ball. If they do not see movement off the ball they cannot teach it and cannot encourage the development of tactics that are based on movement. And, of course they cannot select players that move well off the ball. The result is
See, here's the issue. The ODP brass talks the right talk. Free flowing. Street. More #10s. (It is not only PERFDBDAN who says that, it is sldo the national ODP and Region 2 staffers.) But for my son, ODP has been the epitome of anti-street soccer. Regimented. Formulaic. Told that he scores goals in the wrong way. Told that he creates goals in the wrong way. Told where to run. Told where not to run. Dreadful stuff. You can survive it for a camp, but who would ever want to play soccer like that on an ongoing basis?
I think people underestimate both the differences in relative ability and the amount of practice it takes to become extremely skilled. When I was involved with recreational soccer most people felt that age grouping roughly grouped kids by ability. They felt just moving a kid up a few months to the next cut-off was a big jump. However, I often point out there is about a 5 year or more difference in ability among many U10 rec. leagues (meaning the best are better than average U12’s and the least capable are not as good as averageU8’s). For example I once watched a true U7 player put in 5 goals in a 9 v 9 U10 game. That said practice and repetition are critical to virtually all skills in soccer including running. While it is certainly true we are getting better athletes playing soccer, the huge difference in skill is primarily to do most getting much better coaching at a young age. So while some kids may never be able to juggle the ball practicing day and night while others will naturally learn how to juggle the ball with many fewer repetitions than most, no kid is just going lift a ball in the air and keep it up a hundred times by innate ability.
To add to what JR and others are saying about good kids are out there but are not being selected, I know of two coaches with teams ranked in the top 25 (NSR) who told me their best 93's were not selected for the state team, but lesser players on their teams were. One was shocked his Captain and center mid was not even selected to the pool, while several kids that didn't even start were. Now maybe these coaches don't know how to evaluate talent and the ODP selectors do, but I highly doubt it. People talk about club coaches being focused on wins. But clubs I see are focused on developing players because that is how you win over an extended period. On the other hand there is no development at ODP and I've heard many at ODP say they are judged on winning games period.
I think Bill James (of baseball statistical fame) made much the same argument. The greater the level of variation, the lower the level of average performance. If a few players have access to better coaching and training methods they will be able to stand out. But of optimal training methods and coaching are widely known and used, few will stand out. A good example would be Hank Luisetti becoming a Hall of Fame player by introducing a one handed shot in an era of two handed set shooters.
This is why you see flashy dribblers and big, fast, athletic kids. Kids who make good decisions, have vision to make killer passes and know how to find or create space are ignored because very few are able to recognize these skills. Yet as the level of play becomes higher and faster, it is precisely mental skills that the separate the average players from the great ones.
I think this is a great post. From what I have witnessed I'm somewhat afraid the ODP system is picking the future Frankie Hejduks, Landon Donovans and Beasleys and passing on the future Zidanes, Riquelmes. Not that there is anything wrong with the U.S. players mentioned but obviously we need something different as well.
Well to be fair - players of the ability levels of Donovan and Beasley are about 1000 times more numerous than players with the ability of Zidane. Coaching the coaches is essential. Improve the coaching quality and the players average playing level will rise.