grassroots what would you do

If I think of it as a "do over" question, I would buy two small goals and some futsal balls for my kids (30 years ago). Then let them play. There were plenty of spaces around the neighborhood: drive ways, cul-de-sacs, tennis courts, basketball courts, parking lots.... So I think what some people are doing today (promoting futsal for the younger kids) is a great idea.

I also disagree with USSF's approach to coaching the younger kids which was to dumb down the training for youth coaches (eliminating team tactics for instance) in comparison to what was covered in the 1980's. Apparently their approach was to train masses of parents in just enough knowlege to teach ball skills. I would have preferred a more centralized system with fewer but higher quality coaches. In other words a real coach planning and supervising training, rather than a parent coach planning (hopefully) and supervising training for small groups of kids (i.e., teams). What happened was too many parent coaches training soccer like American football (emphasis on discipline at the expense of creativity) and trying to manage the on- field play like an American football coach (at the expense of creativity and mobility). I saw the same coaching mistakes to a lesser extent in some of the travel soccer coaches too. I want to be clear I am not simply bashing rec coaches. Its just what I saw in two different states that I lived in.

 

Actually I'm hoping to do just that this summer with my son, who's about to turn 4. I've got a couple of small pop-up goals that I'm going to set-up in the backyard and invite neighborhood kids to come play as often as possible. Just free play, backyard fun.

IMHO it's not about focusing kids into a professional path early, over-training them to the point that they hate the sport by 12. That is happening across the country in just about all sports. Kids want and should have the opportunity to play for free with the only purpose to have fun. Soccer is about one of the cheapest sports to play, you just need space and a group of people. From there, any pick-up fun can go.

This may not end up doing anything and I may not have enough kids playing to keep it going. But if it works, it's a great way to get them out of the house, away from the video games and having fun.

I've already been able to start pick-up futsal games for adults this winter, renting a nearby school gym for a couple hours a week. We only have a few weeks left, but those who have come are interested in continuing pickup outdoor games at a local park.

To me the key to enjoying the game is getting out and playing. The more opportunities people have to do just that, the better. I don't know if these efforts will produce better youth players or not, but it at least creates more of a soccer culture here.

 

Good points. I've stated this many times when some suggest that we're on the verge of a 'golden generation' with our up and coming NT stars. We are far from a golden generation here, our soccer culture is still in an adolescent state.

I didn't have exposure to soccer until I was 8 and that was only rec. I was able to help coach the start of travel soccer in my home town while in college, so we had kids at U9 with more competitive options than rec. Now my children are growing up with soccer and playing with me. Their children should have more opportunities to play and develop, and so forth.

The base though is creating a soccer culture similar to what we have for other sports. Having parents coach kids isn't a bad thing, but it will be significantly better as those parents have more experience in soccer.

So IMHO the best why to improve soccer from the grassroots level is work at creating a soccer culture. Invite adults and older kids to play pick-up games. My older sister didn't play soccer until she was about 28 and has loved it. She actually has helped in coaching and running a rec league in a small community just south of Madison. Now I know that it isn't great that she doesn't know much about the sport coming to it so late, but she's been able to provide opportunities for her children and many other kids to play. Her efforts in that community started a youth soccer culture where there was little to none. Even though I continually argue with her about the best approach to coaching the kids, there's no doubt that she's had a positive impact on the sport there.

 

This is a good thread. I have to say there are a few things I would do and have seen done to create some of the best players in the country.

1. Let them play. No micromanagement from coaches or parents.

2. Futsal, Futsal and Futsal. The ball skills and confidence with the ball are essential to building any player.

3. Encourage them to try things and allow them to be free to tryout moves.

4. Encourage attacking soccer. teaching kids a defensive system at 8 or 9 is counterproductive. All them the freedom to play.

5. Save the positional training for later on. No need to lock a player in as a holding defender or center back at 8 or 9. let them run free and learn to think and problem solve on their own. You will be shocked at how smart kids are at figuring out a problem on their own.

6. Don't pigeon hole kids this is one of the most destructive forms of coaching.

7. don't be afraid to put the best kids together. Kids learn from one another more than any other coach.

8. Change the culture. You need soccer stars on TV you need soccer stars in the news. Kids love to emulate their favorite players. I've seen kids do some great stuff on the field and if you ask them where they learned this from many will tell you from a teammate or they saw it on tv. Few will say their coach taught them.

9. Get rid of the old know it all coaches who claim to have an A license but have never played the game. it's great you have learned something by taking a class. It doesn't always translate on the field or with the players. There is nothing worse than a coach who doesn't understand each player learns the game in a different way. some kids thrive in with a intense coach and some kids thrive with a more caring down to earth coach. More than coaching classes many of the coaches today need to take classes on child development or physcolgy. I have seen National team players come in with a know it all ego and ruin the spirit of a team and the passion of the players by over professionlizing things to young. I've also seen National team players who became best friend with players and build the confidence of a player before even giving the kids one bit of advice on how to play a game.

10. Most of all keep the game fun. The kids put enough pressure on each other to perform. Who needs a parent or a coach who can't kick the ball properly screaming at a kid when he mis hits a free kick or whif's on the ball.

11. As a parent always remind the kid your love for them doesn't waiver based on his/her perfomance on the field.

12. We have got to get control over the cost. There is a huge segmant of the population that is not being reached simply because they can't afford to play on a top level team.

13. Diversify your team. a team of all one type of players is useless. Without making this a race issue. It is clear that kids of different backgrounds often play or have been taught the game different. Why not allow young kids to learn all different styles of play. Some of the best teams and best players come from teams with diversity. I'm not sure we need a quota system but coaches have to begin to look a players for the different attributes they bring to a team.

14. The academy is a good idea but you don't start development at 16. You start development a lot younger. If your a strong, fast player and toe kick a ball at 16. you would be hard pressed to change this flaw at 16 or 18.

15. I would also probably remove the odd number age groups below 16. No U9 or U11 but only go with U10, and U12. Go birth year also. The rest of the world is birth year. Why change the rules.

16. Keep the roster sizes small. in a 8 V 8 game max the roster at 12. in 11 v 11 game cap the roster at 15 prior to U16. teams are hoarding players to sit on the bench all season. What good does that do?

17. Stop the "this is what they do in .......... this is the USA things are different dynamics are different. just because something works in ....... doesn't mean it will work here. The academy system works in England (depending on who you ask, I haven't seen them in a WC final in my lifetime and the top players in the EPL rarely come from an english academy).

 

No organized youth soccer before U12. Let the kids come to the fields, throw some goals out and just let them play. We'll never be able to completely replicate the street soccer of urban settings in Brazil or Argentina. But the less 'organization' at the younger levels, the better. The current setup produces technically competent robots devoid of any creativity.

 

An art professor wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal today that include his assessment that artists cannnot break the rules until they have learned them.

It is interesting to consider this statement in the context of soccer.

 

The metaphor works fine for an artist compared to a developed soccer player. At under 12, kids are still learning to mix paint metaphorically speaking.

The academy system is not modelled after England's and England is studying academies on continent to try and figure out how to get their youth program back on track. England's biggest problem is that they have not spent any money on their public fields for 20 years. The USSF system is consistent with the academy system on the continent in that there is only rec soccer for pre-teens. No competitive soccer for them at all. What they are trying to do is grow the academies from the competitive teams on down to the pre-teens in non-competitive play. AYSO has advocated non-competitive youth soccer for decades.

 

Re: I'd stay out of jail.......

Everything what Tamale said specialy bout the coaches who cant play.

If we can import more European "A" licenced coaches our country would fare a lot better. Bettering our own coaching referendums on education seems as likely as our efforts at improving student achievement in all our schools.

I have no idea how to raise the bar of expectations from our current coaching efforts.

It takes a decent salary for a coach. In Europe that coach has trained and sweated and apprenticed and been examined over and over through a very difficult four year program akin to a college degree to earn his A license credentials. All while staying in the same shape as a SEAL or Special Forces. Here licencing is a "complete the workshops deal" .

Most coaches are dads who have had zero training who have a "Real Job" . We start paying 28k to 35k to start like we do teachers then we are stepping up to the plate. We start requiring licencing (like Europe) thins are bound to get better,

Any great coach will tell you the ones who should be getting this smartest training from our best coaches are our littlest ones. Start out not developing bad habits that need to be broken later.

It is extra hard for our best kids cause there still expected to do very well at a difficult level at school. I think the kids at foreign academies have to not study quite so hard. Or pay for their futbal lessons neither.

Those kids all watch several matches a week on the telly. Never miss a MOTD. Many go to real games and see real superstars. The communities are smaller.

In the true spirit of what makes our nation great every club must sponsor a certain number of kids. This beautiful game can't become a sport for only the elite. Which is what it totally isn't in England or Spain. There your parents don't need to mortgage there home for a soccer academy. Their best get chosen young, regardless of their mom and dads wealth or lack of.
That certainly makes for a big pool of players to draw off.

I saw some remarkably great teams that play footsal in gyms during the winter, but adequate indoor facilities are important.

A relatively small geographical area can support an indoor soccer venue. Besides your club getting to play inside all winter local rec teams will sign up for time. What with lacrosse baseball golf clinics, field hockey, ultimate Frisbee, dog Frisbee, tennis, and "old dog" corporate teams, these buildings can be a goldmine for a developer or a large group of interested parties. Night events in the summer.

The numbers can work. These indoor fields fit well with health clubs. Schools even rent time, just like rink time. Clubs from adjacent areas will come to practice there. Finding the right building .... not needing that two-year ROI....marketing analysis will show. Buildings light heat turf it's a lot of kibby but what it can do for yours and surrounding communities ids well worth it.

Some how we need to create more scholastic demand for players. What ever year it was when your small community joined with four or five other communities for a new large union high school was the year at least fifteen or twenty teams completely ceased to exist. The meaningful benefits of varsity level sports unavailable to millions of kids across our country. These kids all got to pass around something other then a ball. We wonder why our prisons are so damned full....

I petitioned our principles to think about it (head banging smiley here) Big schools field more varsity teams. What would that do for our futbol eh?

It's not just about kicking British ass. We can invest in recreation now and start doing something about our bloated prison system costing 75K a head every year. We can start growing and developing more role models if the opportunities are there.

 

'An art professor wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal today that include his assessment that artists cannnot break the rules until they have learned them.'

The statement doesn't even translate for the best artist. True Artist are natural and create their own rules. We often refer to artist as Renaissance men because they think outside the box.


I once saw a kid make a beautiful pass around a defender by using the outside of his foot. The coach who had little experience playing the game stopped the practice to tell the kid. "you cannot make a pass with the outside of your foot" The kid replied "I just did, what are you talking about" After leaving the team the kid went on to get a full ride to UVA. Still making beautiful passes with the outside of his foot when he needs to. ​

 

Not going to work - we have to compete against other sports in this country.

We also have to deal with competitive forces - U10 and below in OK is partially done with an Academy format - kids are not supposed to be placed on teams. And what happens is that the best X all play on the same team each weekend. Sometimes a handful of them also get significant playing time on the next level of team.

I've seen an English coach try the approach where the kids come out and basically scrimmage the entire practice. His expectation was that the kids were at home practicing on their technical skills. They weren't and the team suffered.

I.e., the European "A" licensed coaches work well in Europe - they may not work as well wholesale in the US.

 

And realize that not all kids enjoy the offensive aspect of soccer. Allow the ones who enjoy defense to play defense.

But don't lose it when an attacker gets past them and score a goal.

In other words, teach them 1v1 defensive moves, teach them angles, etc.

 

The biggest example of this is the on field placement of players for dead ball situations in U5/U6, and also to some extent in U7/U8.

Also, while I agree that kids playing goalie at those ages is a waste (kid is idle and easily blamed by other parents), I would actually prefer one over the inevitable sweeper that guards the goal. I see too many coaches who over emphasize the role of the sweeper. I heard one say:

Either I would want a ref or a goalie. The ref would only keep time from being wasted on dead balls and keep the sweeper up with his team mates.

 

Actually another solution to the problem is to create a shooting circle or line the players must cross near the goal. Shots behind the line or out of the circle don't count. It prevents players from taking those half field shots without a keeper or sweeper.

Note: this is obviously only a solution for U6 and under. By U7 or so, kids can rotate through as keeper. Don't pigeon hole a player as a keeper that young though!

 

I've found most kids play keeper once and refuse to play it again. It looks neat until they "let" the goals in. Either you force them in or you rotate it through the kids willing to play keeper.

I like the 3v3 rules at places like http://www.kickit3v3.com/

Kids can still hang back, but they can get penalized if touched by the ball in the crease.

 

All three major websites (MLS, US Soccer, US Youth Soccer) should have a big link in the upper right corner to a page devoted to core individual skills/competencies (by age) and drills that can be done individually to improve, starting at U3(!) -- see Byer, Tom.

On the upper left corner should be a similar link called "START HERE". This page should concentrate on fan/parent education on how to really watch soccer and what to look for (switching fields, play to space, triangle passing, link play, the role of a "10", overlapping, etc.). It should be full of illustrations & video examples. I liken it to me watching ice hockey -- I can't enjoy it because there is no suspense for me because I have no idea what I'm looking at unless there's a goal or a fight.

And whenever there's a National Team (men/women) broadcast or MLS game, point out these links. And both links should have Spanish versions.

Why?

Because the casual viewer might take the time to click a quick link if it's convenient, but they will never take the time to seek out education materials. It needs to be very simple.

Instead of complaining about lack of soccer culture & grassroots soccer, we should be working on improving those areas. And the things we devote time/money/resources to need to be scaleable (like these suggestions) in order to take advantage of our country's vast size & diversity (instead of viewing them as disadvantages).

I see lots of folks here arguing over things that are nearly impossible to change/implement (pro/rel, fix college soccer, solidarity payments, etc.) or are simply cost-prohibitive (start an new competing A league to compete against the MLS). My two suggestions are simple and (relatively) cheap.

[Note]: I realize I'm resurrecting a very old thread...

 

"I would live for today" joke song from the grassroots.

Start with better coaches not with new coaches. Besides skill work pass on your love of the game to them. Then no matter what they will never quit the game because they love it at any level.

Miket ehen when you coach you should be showing the kids and their parents what good football is all about as well.

They have to learn how to set up the keeper not just shoot. You have to do something to get them to move then shoot where they left.

Teach them to attack space and not be locked into a position.

 

I like this post...

One thing that I would add however is to have the current stars better promote the game at u12-down.