GCam's article: spot on. To any kids reading this, play futsal until you're 11. Big fields do crap for development. (going off the above discussion of why some americans aren't viewed favorably by euro teams due to the "Zardes" touch)
A number of US players, from JOB to Berhalter to Reyna and more recently guys like CP and Zelalem have been well-praised for their touch and technical abilities - but there is no doubt there's an incredible amount of room for improvement. Touch and "soccer nous" are two things that could improve a lot in the margins for many US players. But until the two major impediments to movement level off somewhat, you're not going to see a mass migration of US and/or MLS players to Euro leagues, even if every American players touch becomes soft as a velvet purse.
I don't know if control can really be taught. I grew up in Italy and played soccer constantly as a small child. Whenever we had a spare moment, us kids would play soccer, constantly trying to one up each other. It was ruthless competition trying to get picked first and showing off. There were no adults involved except to scold us when we got too rowdy. That is how ball control is learned, from an early love of the game to the exclusion of everything else. For us soccer was virtually free. All you needed was a ball of some kind and a little open space. It was important to control the ball so you wouldn't lose it under a car or kick it over a wall. No organized teams and no coaches until age 12 or so.
futsal is criminally overlooked in this country. Playing in the street is also. When those two things start to flourish, look out. Baseball, basketball and football, both kinds, are learned on the street with nobody's dad yelling instructions. If they did that in the park when I was a kid, I would have started drinking sooner.
I posted this elsewhere, yesterday I think, but I don't believe most of our current prime generation had true love for the game as a kid. True love usually means watching the stars on tv and then going out and spending hours upon hours emulating them in the street or backyard. It's spending countless hours with the ball for no other reason than that's what you love to do as a kid. That's where touch and personality is developed. I compare it to basketball players. It's extremely common to see kids spending hours alone working on shooting or dribbling. No coach taught Iverson his 1v1 skill. It was developed on the streets as a kid. The basketball version of Neymar. I was a fairly decent basketball player growing up, regularly playing in inner cities. Many I played with would skip class just to play. Skip class just to find a hoop. Play from the min school got out until the last ray of sunlight forced them home. Every. Single. Day. All day on the weekends. Good thing is all the high level soccer all over tv should start changing that. Pulisic would wake up and watch Figo, then go out back alone and practice, practice, practice. Too many kids have thought team practices alone are where you develop. Team practices are simply where you apply the skills you've developed on your own time. Much of our player pool looks like suburban, soft practice products. Robots who showed up to practice, then went home and did something else. In reality when you got home is when the real work starts. Alone with the ball. The next Steph Curry isn't showing up to HS practice and then going and playing video games. He's taking 1000 jumpers every day alone on some hoop, somewhere. A couple years ago Zardes said to work on his touch in the off season he used this machine in LA, one hour per day, three days a week. That says it all. That's probably how he approached it when young. True love would dictate the ball is attached to his foot for hours every single day. Meanwhile NBA players regularly put in 4-6 hours with the ball every day of the off season. Hours of dribbling, hours of shooting, then play pickup in the evening. It's the culture they come from. That's why Besler's remarks about being out of shape for cupcake spoke to a major issue with the mindset of our players. He looked at the off season as vacation time to sit on his couch. NBA players are practicing and playing all summer. They remain in shape. Durant and Lebron aren't sitting on their couches, they're practicing every morning then going at each other in scrimmages in the evening down in LA.
I just don't buy it. I know enough about international soccer to know that MLS is not particularly hard in making transfers difficult: plenty of other leagues do it, too. From Turkey to Brazil, the lawyers have been involved with players breaking contracts, clubs going back on their word, and even breaking contracts. There's nothing particularly American that makes "sending" our players riskier or more difficult than it is in many other countries. The lack of passport and the high price of our players are more realistic problems, but they are also a result of a lack of real interest, and that comes from the fact that scouts are just not too impressed with people who can't trap a pass properly.
You got it. It's not enough to like soccer or to like seeing yourself as a soccer player. You have to be obsessed. That's what you see in South America: kids completely obsessed with fútbol, thinking of ways to improve themselves every day, practicing alone against a wall, shooting low between two bricks, dribbling a ball high-low-high among the parked cars. Heck, most of the things you do as a kid over there to improve as a soccer player would get you in trouble with the law here.
If obsession is key I bet pro Halo or Street Fighter will be bigger than soccer in the U.S. in another generation or two.
Good post. As a lacrosse coach, who played D1 lax at a good school, parents often ask me if their kid is good enough to play in college. I always tell them yes, their kid has the potential to play in college since all the kids have that potential. The question is whether the kid has the passion to play and excel. And like you stated, it’s obvious when the kid has the passion. It can’t be taught. Then if they have the talent and coordination and willingness to work hard, anything is possible
Geoff never gets any love here, but he starts in a must take points game. Stoke up at the half against Leicester. Geoff was shaky at the start and seemed to settle in a bit. A win here and they are probably out of the drop zone if any results go their way. Game is rather ho hum, lots of effort and commitment to defend on SCFC's part. Shaq with a goal just before half. For me, it is tense since the stakes are really high for SCFC, and I don't want to see a yank relegated. Lots of defensive effort from Stoke, but only real offensive chance was Shaq's goal form the top of the box. It looks more like a street fight than a boxing match. Not much quality in the offensive third for either side. Hope stoke can take all 3.
Butland with a howler Stoke get a point. Geoff was typical Cameron with some good plays and some WTH moments. I think he is past it, perhaps he can regain some form, but he showed his real value today. He was moved around some and he gives a manager a lot of tactical flexibility.
Hopefully he hits 200 PL appearances before he leaves the club or the league. I was reading he was on some pretty good wages considering it's Stoke.
Yep, agree with Y Lee C. Helped support the back 4 well, clogged the area and didn’t give Vardy much of a presence. Did his normal hard working 90 shift, and the flexibility to move into the CB when Adams came in....strange sub by the way as BMI was removed. Didn’t win many of the 50/50 challenges and seemed timid in battling in the middle. Wasn’t a destroyer today. With the ball. Uggh. Really wasteful with the ball, forced long balls or really heavy forward passes that were turnovers. Has the one nice 1 touch to break Diouf but that was about it. Horrible game to watch by the way.
Think of Adam's as a Scottish fetish. Plus Lambert probably has fifties with Adam's business manager on a new contract signing.
Starts: 📝 Paul Lambert names an unchanged starting XI for this afternoon's @premierleague game against @SouthamptonFC.Just four changes on the bench at St Mary's as follows:↪️ Haugaard, Shawcross, Crouch and Fletcher↩️ Grant, Adam, Ramadan and Campbell#SCFC 🔴⚪️ pic.twitter.com/B1ODkxMzgv— Stoke City FC (@stokecity) March 3, 2018
Played DM. Clean sheet is my definition of a 'good match from your DM.' Point on the road against a team better than their record. Nice Kits!
He’s kinda frustrating to watch now, I am a huge fan of his BUT. With his ability own the ball, in the tackle, as well as his size and speed, he should be impacting these games more but he seems tired or uninterested these days.
Just watched, and have to fully agree with @justinpaul10 . As Geoff’s #1 fan for a long time, he was not good at all and even worse was his effort. Looked totally uninterested the entire game. With the ball he was atrocious. Please watch the opening kickoff, I was mortified....normal back pass from the center circle to him, takes a very strange heavy touch and scrambles to get back to it, then boots it out of bounds.. and it really didn’t get much better for him with the ball. Got a yellow card later after dribbling aimlessly at the top of his own box only to lose it and hack the guy down. Ok, defensively in the DM #6 position, he was very pedestrian. Can’t recall any tackles won and several times players just spinning around him. No physical presence. And so frustrating was his effort in defensive transitions, half running back on the break and just watching the ball, not getting goal side, just floating in space. Again, having watched almost every game he’s ever played for Stoke, this is the worst spell I’ve seen him. Looks old, tired, and zero confidence on the ball. Frustrating.
I said when he got that bad concussion in training that I thought he was done, and nothing since then has changed that opinion.