I posted an article in the Dutch thread that might be of interest for this "debate". It is about a young Feyenoord player that has rocketed to being seen as one of the future stars of Dutch football. But as a kid it didnot see like that at all. Clasie (169 cm) gives the smaller soccer player hope. How Feyenoord delivered tailor made work with the education of the half-pint in the Youth Academy. Clasie (169 cm) gives all small soccer players in the Netherlands hope. Professional soccer is attainable too with a shorter length. But in his case it took a radical turn around in thinking. In Feyenoord’s Youth Academy Clasie (now 20) for years purposely practiced less than the rest of his team mates. The 2006/2007 season is a few months on its way and a pattern becomes clear. At the Feyenoord B1 Jordy Clasie has a lot of problems to play the full stretch of the matches. In the course of the second half he slowly fades away and in the last 15 minutes the little fellow gets cramp in his calfs. The reactions are easily predictable. So young and than already tired of a little match? Exercise harder little lad, or else you are done with quickly. The head of the Academy, Henk van Stee, a few years before already honestly advised Clasie to look for a nice club in the vicinity of Alkmaar, close at home. And a lot of youth coaches think that way. But when he isnot tired, Clasie shows on the ball things that make him the talent that as a first year B-junior is allowed to practice with the batch of the under-17. So Raymond Verheijen, than just started as an exercise physiologist at Varkenoord (the Youth Academy Grounds), turns his attention to the question if it still is possible to design a plan for Clasie. In consultation with the B-youth coaches Cor Adriaanse and Jan Gösgens a tailor made exercise scheme is made. Clasie is not going to exercise more, but actually less. A lot less.. Football conditional exercises of his team from then on he literally only participates for half the time. Little matches of 11 versus 11, the thing soccer players love the most to do, for him are restricted to a maximum of two times 8 minutes, after that the rest often continues for a while. ( See the training scheme). “With Jordy all conditions were in place to being stretched to his limits as a kid”, Verheijen says when he picks up the exercise schemes of those days. “He was of small stature and traveled very early in the morning all the way from Haarlem to Rotterdam to go to school and exercise. That all costs a lot of force. Cramp is a logical signal from the body that it cannot cope with the full load. By letting him exercise literally half less Jordy kept enough energy to execute better what he was doing. Now he did not have to deplete his reserves, with the result he started every exercise fresh. The purpose of exercising is to attempt every time again to act one percent faster than the time before that. Only by turning 100% time after time into 101% a youth player develops himself. But when you start the exercise already at 95%, you never will get to that 101%. Part 2 From that moment on also at the matches, a settled protocol was established. Clasie is regularly substituted on purpose about twenty minutes before the final whistle, also to keep him fit and fresh. “Because that way he never got injured, ultimately he made on balance on a year’s basis more exercise hours, “according to Verheijen. “When in 2008 he had to promote to the A1, we took the same approach. Giving him ample time to get used to the higher level and after settling in slowly increasing the load. But he always kept doing less than his team mates. That way we kept him injury free all those years and could he develop as a football player. Thanks to the current Academy head Stanley Brard at Varkenoord now “The survival of Football talent” rules and not “The survival of the Fittest”. Verheijen calls Clasie the example of how we should deal with all small youth footballers in the Netherlands. If you have the little ones do the same as the rest than you drain them in such a way that you create structural tiredness. As a result their speed of acting is not going up, but only downwards. They cannot follow on and that way a lot of unknown Clasies did not make it. Verheijen in hind sight puts a lot of credits with Cor Adriaanse and with Jean Paul van Gastel. The current assistant coach of Ronald Koeman was Clasies’A1 coach. “Adriaanse and Van Gastel took the trouble to deliver coaching made to measure. And not only with Clasie. At first they had to go against the current as football is a very conservative sport. Van Gastel to me is the example of a new generation of coaches that arenot only well versed technically and tactically, but also have the knowledge to gear exercises to one another. Because of that this generation can do fitness exercises of a team themselves. For years I say that clubs shouldnot put that in the hands of athletic coaches. That’s the origin of accidents, because football in the load and in the patterns of movement call for a different approach than athletics.” Van Gastel at Feyenoord 1 now is in control of the “periodization”, the exercise build up during the season. As a A1 coach he has mastered that. Verheijen: “See the results, all season long there are hardly any injuries, and because of that Feyenoord can exercise and play a lot with it’s strongest team. The contrast with Ajax is enormous. Alex Pastoor is also such an example of that new generation.” With Jordy Clasie everything turned out well. Before he last year under Alex Pastoor warmed up his engine at professional level with Excelsior, he ended up as a regular basis player in Van Gastels’A1 team. That team ended as 2009 and 2010 champions of the Netherlands. “To me the winning of the 2009 title was the finest moment in the 3 years I was involved with the Academy”Verheijen says. “In that A1, besides Clasie, there were more little ones. And it also was a team that became champions with almost only first years A juniors.” Clasie: “I was not so much aware of how they were handling my exercise load,” Clasie says. When you are that young you just think the coaches have the best intentions with you. I also was in a batch with a lot of talent, so always playing everything was not obvious. I indeed did not have any or hardly any injuries in the B1 and A1. That will not have been a coincidence.” Week scheme of Feyenoord B1 and Clasie: Monday 12th of March 2007: Recovery/Tactical exercise (75 minutes) Team: - positional play 8 vs. 8+2 neutral players (4 x 3 minutes/2 minutes rest) - match 10 vs. 10 (2 x 8 minutes/2 minutes rest) Jordy Clasie: - positional play 8 vs. 8+2 neutral players (4 x 3 minutes/2 minutes rest) - no 10 vs. 10 match practice Tuesday 13th of March 2007: Football fitness exercise (90 minutes) Team: - football sprints with sparse resting time (2 x 8 sprints 15 meter/10 seconds rest) - Football fitness match 6 vs. 6 (4 x 6 minutes / 2 minutes rest) Jordy Clasie: - football sprints with sparse resting time (at 50% = 1 x 8 sprints 15 meter/10 seconds rest) - Football fitness match 6 vs. 6 (at 50%= 2 x 6 minutes / 2 minutes rest) Wednesday: day off. Thursday 15th of March 2007: Tactical exercise (75 minutes) Team: - Positional play 6 vs. 6 + 6 bouncers (6 x 2 minutes/ 1 minute rest) - Match 11 vs. 11 (3 x 8 minutes/ 2 minutes rest) - Match 4 vs. 4 ( 4 x 1 minute/ 1 minute rest) Jordy Clasie: - Positional play 6 vs. 6 + 6 bouncers (6 x 2 minutes/ 1 minute rest) - Match 11 vs. 11 (max 2 x 8 minutes/ 2 minutes rest) - No match 4 vs. 4 Fryday 16th of March 2007: Match directed exercise (60 minutes) Team: - Positional play 6 vs. 3 (6 x 1 minute/ 1 minute rest) - Match form 11 vs. 11 (2 x 8 minutes / 2 minutes rest) Jordy Clasie: - Positional play 6 vs. 3 (6 x 1 minute/ 1 minute rest) - Match form 11 vs. 11 (2 x 8 minutes / 2 minutes rest) Saturday 17th of March: Team: Match (80 minutes) Jordy Clasie: Match ( Max 60 minutes)
If I'm reading this correctly then Verheijen (one of the greats in football fitness) is managing his work to rest ratios (work loads). I started delving into it this season and it's useful tool in training sessions albeit very complicated (just another thing to remember). I actually use a stop watch to keep it all straight. But obviously they are doing more than what I'm doing, I'm just monitoring in a general way. Here they've constructed a system for his needs specifically. The whole premise is getting that max effort out of that player which in turn develops his playing ability and develops his physical base. It's like killing two birds with one stone. As you can see from the program above the durations aren't long (10 seconds, 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes) so the players are capable of giving that 100% effort that is necessary. Then in a complementary way the recovery times are planned out depending on if the work is aerobic (endurance) or anaerobic (power and explosiveness). This confuses my players because we'll go for a short period then I give instruction for a minute or two (or longer) but it's really their recovery period and it feels a lot longer than it should be for them and they're itching to get back into it. BUT if they're working at the correct intensity, they are looking forward to this break.
Dempsey scored 17 goals this EPL season. That is not that much. He could've scored the same amount if he was youth product of say Man United, for example. Why does it have to be the youth teams of Zimbru Chrisinau or Sport Boys?
Based on these comments, we're so far apart that it doesn't even make sense to continue this conversation. For the record, my comments on this were specific to soccer.
This sounds reasonable to me, but I've already admitted a limited understanding of basketball. This reflects a limited knowledge of football. Let's look at the responsibilities of an offensive lineman as an example. For a given play, his responsibility will depend on how the defense lines up. Unfortunately for him, the defense isn't static as they often shift alignments or even formations multiple times before the snap. At the snap, the assignment could change based on a defensive line stunt and/or a blitzing linebacker and/or a lineman dropping into coverage. The lineman will need to use the proper footwork to get to his assignment and the proper footwork and hand technique to effect the block. Couldn't it also be argued that soccer isn't as complex because it is so often performed in a state of oxygen deprivation, or because it's played under constant motion, or because it must be played with the feet? If chess had to be played with the feet under 3 second move limits after running a marathon, would the game become more complex or less? I'm not saying these are compelling arguments. I'm just pointing out that biased arguments can cut both ways. I'm also not trying to offend anyone or say that any other sport is more complex than soccer. My point is that competition will drive any sport toward increased complexity at its highest level. The more you know about a sport, the more complex it will seem compared to sports you don't know as well.
I played football in high school (cornerback). Despite not being the biggest guy, coaches loved me (not bragging, just illustrating) because they said I was smart. Starting at freshman year I could already diagnose plays and blow plays up . I attribute all this to playing soccer. To me, it was relatively obvious what was going to happen as they're nice enough to "set" for you before action starts. All pointy football is is pattern recognition. Stunts, blitzes, drop offs, are not so difficult if you just see it enough. That and that you're not as dense as a bag of rocks. I'm not saying football is easy. The difficulty, not complexity, lies in fast, powerful men doing their best to destroy you. Even QB play is kinda rudimentary. He can make all the pre-snap reads he wants but then the coverage is plain to see once the ball is snapped and the fact that the receivers routes are pre-scripted, to me, make it even less complex. Again, difficult not complex. On both sides, situations are defined for you so it's relatively easy to make an educated guess on what the opponent will do
I have to disagree with you on two levels. First complexity from a training viewpoint is the coaches view of the sport, not the player's viewpoint during play. And the answer to the topic of this thread has to involve primarily the coaches viewpoint not the players. Second even from a player's viewpoint an offensive lineman's decision making is simple compared to soccer. His actions are dictated by the play. They have to be due to the nature of the game which demands perfect execution of pre-planned movements. He only needs to remember his blocking priority for the particular play. Ignoring pulling guards and split ends, generally speaking he only has to learn about 5 alternative movements which essentially use the same technical skills and apply the priority for that play. Compare that to a fullback in soccer. He has to be concerned about action accross the entire field, not just a five yard corridor to his front like the offensive lineman. The fullback needs to understand not only how to attack and defend (on the ball and off the ball play) in the full back position, but he also needs to be able to play the other wide positions (wide midfielder and winger) for when he advances his relative position in the formation and interchanges positions. All field players need to master the same skills. What actual position a field player plays in a match is determined by the coach based on what players he has available for the match. Training plans for soccer field players are primarily determined by the player's abilities and at higher levels to a much lesser extent by the expected position during matches.
At the same time my son was playing high-level travel soccer he played mid-level travel football. Due to his limited exposure to football, he was only successful when given a limited responsibility. For example, put him at DE and say, your job is to get to this point and not let anyone outside of you. He played that way his first year and was very successful. In his second year, the coaches were determined to make more use of his athleticism and tackling ability, so they put him at linebacker. He was unable to read the game and was completely lost. I'm not sure soccer translates as easily as you think, and I'm fairly certain that high school football is not the pinnacle of football complexity. So an open receiver is easy to see, but an open soccer player is hard to see? And receiver routes aren't pre-scripted beyond youth football. Even high school receivers, at least when I played, had options. As you go beyond HS they have more options and reads.
You don't see any bias at all in your portrayals here? I realize I'm fighting an unwinnable battle here, but I at least expected some fair discussion. Like I said before, go to a forum for any other sport and I guarantee you'll find the same thing. They'll be able to explain in great detail why their sport is complex and soccer is just kicking a ball. They'll be certain that soccer isn't complex because of their vast high school soccer experience. And they'll be unable to see their own biases.
Probably pointless to continue discussing this point as it comes down to individual experiences. So an open receiver is easy to see, but an open soccer player is hard to see? And receiver routes aren't pre-scripted beyond youth football. Even high school receivers, at least when I played, had options. As you go beyond HS they have more options and reads.[/quote] In a way yes. Action can be happening 360 degrees to you. At higher levels the amount of time you have to make a decision is less than the 3 seconds an NFL QB gets. Plus, it's a continuous cycle. Passer becomes receiver, receiver becomes passer (ball carrier). Once the QB gets rid of the ball, 90% of the time he's done with his responsibilities. C'mon what's a "play" then? Other than pre-scripted. You can run option routes but you don't have 15 option routes to choose from. In pointy, the QB directs the action for the most part. In soccer, the receiver can sets the agenda as well. I can make coordinated movements between several other players on the fly, whereas in pointy the coordinated movements are set by the coach. I love watching football. I like the cat and mouse aspect of it. I still study it. Some books on page 1 of my Amazon wish list: The Bunch Attack: Using Compressed Formations in the Passing Game (Art & Science of Coaching) (Jerry Gordon) Coaching the Under Front Defense (Coverdale) Finding the Winning Edge (Bill Walsh) Football's Eagle and Stack Defenses by Ron Vanderlinden (Paperback) Arnsparger's Coaching Defensive Football by Bill Arnsparger (Hardcover) Concept Passing: Teaching the Modern Passing Game by Dan Gonzalez (Paperback) I'm not just a soccer player/coach. I love football. And I don't say this lightly but football concepts are relatively easy. They are 1 or 2 "level" reads and if philosophically if you understand what the defense/offense is trying to do then you can easily come up with the correct response. The difficulty is in the execution. Thinking it, not hard. Doing it much harder.
We're in luck! ESPN has the definitive answer... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills?sort=analyticAptitude#grid Soccer, Ice Hockey, and Auto Racing rank first in requiring analytic aptitude, closely followed by basketball and football. This validates my assertion that football and soccer are similarly complex (5% different) as well as my suspicion that basketball is more complex than it looks. It casts doubt on my assertion that competition will drive all of the major sports to similar levels of complexity, as baseball doesn't show up until #15, with a score 20% less than soccer. In terms of overall difficulty, the top five are boxing, ice hockey, football, basketball, and wrestling. Baseball is 9 and Soccer is 10. Here are the components of overall difficulty, with the top sport for each... Endurance - Distance Cycling, Track Distance Strength - Weight Lifting Power - Weight Lifting Speed - Track Sprints Agility - Soccer Flexibility - Gymnastics (the only 10 on the board) Nerve - Auto Racing Durability - Boxing, Football Hand-Eye Coordination - Baseball/Softball Analytic Aptitude - Ice Hockey, Soccer, Auto Racing Unfortunately, the link to reader comments doesn't work.
ESPN=invalid source of anything. Sorry, that quasi-journalistic media outlet is a bad enough source for journalism and it's even worse for "academic" research. Basically they conducted a poll.
No, not on my part. You are the one that picked offensive lineman as a comparison, which in my mind was the worst possible point of comparison to support your position. I understand American football. Played high school football (defensive end and split end so I understand blocking assignments and pass plays and defenses) for a coach who is still a legend in my state. I was a lousy player but not because he didn't teach us the game. I grew up in American football country, which is why I had no opportunity to play organized soccer until I moved to the East Coast in my 30's. If you want to draw comparisons: The principles and tactics of pass defense in American football is very similar to the principles and tactics of defense in soccer. Except for stunts there is not scripted plays on defense. The comparison was better 30 years ago when modified zone defenses were popular in soccer. There was a straight correlation. Now everybody is using pure zones in soccer so the comparison is less apt. Individual zones, man marking and sweepers are typically not used anymore.
The last three coaching books I bought were general, not soccer specific (mental skills, strength and conditioning, speed and agility). The last three non-fiction books I bought were books about three famous US coaches including Bear Bryant (also John Wooden and Bobby Knight). My favorite non-fiction book is a biography of Vince Lombardi I bought about 10 years ago (and that says a lot because I have read an average of 3-4 books a week for the last 50 years). But I am not a sports fan any more. It just became meaningless to me as I grew older. The last football game I watched was when I was probably your age Elessar78, which was in the 1980's. I do watch soccer matches, but that relates to my interest in playing and coaching.
People have different opinions, observations and experiences. That is exactly why it is interesting to discuss and argue. But if that is too much for you, I can understand. So you claim that there is more soccer specialization in US? On the contrary, IMO there isn't enough or as much as there should be.
This ESPN analysis doesn't prove much. It doesn't prove that football and soccer are similarly complex sports. Soccer is more dynamic sport, football is more set plays sport. Soccer is more of equal combination of technical, tactical, physical and mental elements, whereas football is more on the physical side. In soccer, players are required to make decisions on the fly while they control the ball with their feet and various body parts. There are patterns and principals, but there is also a lot of room left for creative and intuitive plays. Don't get me wrong, this is not about which sport is more difficult per se. It is more about understanding what soccer requires in terms of developing players over the course of many years into a star player.
My reference to the ESPN study was mostly tongue-in-cheeck, as evidenced by my . That said, I'm not sure how a survey of experts (of admittedly varying levels of expertise) should carry less weight than random posters on a web forum, most of whom are as committed to their own ideas as any religious zealot or political hack I've ever met.
I wasn't trying to show a similarity to soccer, but rather a high level of complexity. I picked OL because it's more complex than most people, even devoted fans, realize. I played football through high school and college, and I learned enough to know that the pro game is far more complex than anything I ever experienced.
It isn't interesting if there's no opportunity to improve understanding, find middle ground, etc. You think you can learn sports like football on the playground. I think that "everyone go out" playground ball teaches you nothing about blocking, tackling, the running game, or even route running or coverage. You think parents can coach the simple sports like football and baseball, but not soccer. I don't think parents can reliably coach anything. You think that any sport that costs money to play is a business. I see a huge difference between paying for uniforms and field time and paying for professional coaches and a full time administrative staff. You think that limiting the ways someone can interact with the ball increases complexity. I think that although it increases difficult, it must limit complexity as in my chess example. We're 180 degrees apart on every single point and the number of ancillary points were discussing is growing daily. I'm sorry, but pointless discussions don't hold my interest very long. Your statement doesn't actually contradict mine, and I have no argument with your assertion. Can we leave it at that?
Their panel believes that football and soccer require similar analytic aptitude, which they appear to define as a dynamic activity (i.e., not related to play design, play calling, etc., that fall under the coach's purview). Obviously this doesn't prove that they're right. It's just their opinion.
This is why we come to different conclusions. In soccer the coach does not design or call plays. In soccer the clock doesn't stop and there are no huddles. In soccer the "plays" are created during the run of play by the players. That adds a layer of complexity. That extra layer of complexity is not unique to soccer, but it is not found in American football.
Most discussions and arguments I've had on these forums haven't reached middle ground, but there are still interesting nevertheless. I get the feeling that you do not like anyone who disagrees and has a different opinion, because you have to prove your side of the argument. When you can't, you call people "biased" or say that the opinions are too far apart and there is not point continuing discussion. I said one can learn a lot about any sport while playing on the playground unsupervised. But obviously there comes a time in every sport where more specific coaching is needed to further learn about a sport. I've learned a lot about soccer from just doing things on my own or playing with my friends on the playground. It's a concept known as "self discovery". Sadly, I suspect that most kids in US are incapable of such thing due to the fact that they rely on adults to teach them everything. In general, most US parents know more about football and baseball than they do about soccer. That is because most of these parents have most likely played either football or baseball, but not soccer. You don't think it's a business to sell uniforms and field time? Newsflash: that's business too. No, I do not think that. Bad interpretation on your part. If you knew soccer, you would know why it is more complex game than football. It looks like you are 180 degrees apart from other posters too......
I asked this before. Does chess become more complex when playing "speed chess," or is the game more complex when the players have time to evaluate potential moves and think farther ahead? You can say that it's harder to play fast, but your opponent is playing under the same limitation. Speed chess would certainly favor the player who can think faster, and I think this is true of soccer as well, but I just can't see how speeding up a game can make it more complex.
I understand it is just their opinion. But when you post it here, as tongue-in-cheek or not, I will comment on it. Because articles like that is what mislead people like you into thinking that soccer and football are similarly complex, which they aren't.