How a Soccer Star is Made

moha · Jun 3, 2010

Long, in-depth article about how Ajax youth academy works.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine

Just a few quotes.

One Sunday in March, I was on the sideline of a game — Ajax’s 15-year-olds matched up against the youth academy of another Dutch professional club — when I noticed Riekerink behind me. He was by himself, bundled into his parka and writing in a small notebook. With the Ajax boys up two goals and dominating the action, I told him I was impressed by their skill. (I was always impressed by the quality of play at De Toekomst.) “Really?” he responded. “To me this is a disaster. They are playing with the wrong tempo, too slow.”
Click to expand...

Americans place a higher value on competition than on practice, so the balance between games and practice in the U.S. is skewed when compared with the rest of the world. It’s not unusual for a teenager in the U.S. to play 100 or more games in a season, for two or three different teams, leaving little time for training and little energy for it in the infrequent moments it occurs. A result is that the development of our best players is stunted. They tend to be fast and passionate but underskilled and lacking in savvy compared with players elsewhere. “As soon as a kid here starts playing, he’s got referees on the field and parents watching in lawn chairs,” John Hackworth, the former coach of the U.S. under-17 national team and now the youth-development coordinator for the Philadelphia franchise in Major League Soccer, told me. “As he gets older, the game count just keeps increasing. It’s counterproductive to learning and the No. 1 worst thing we do.”
Click to expand...

Versloot, with his spiky hair, longish sideburns and black-framed glasses, has a sort of hipster-geek look. In November, I observed him putting boys through some of their regular fitness tests. In one, a training group of 16-year-olds ran 30-meter sprints as sensors registered their times in five-meter increments. Versloot was most interested in their performances in the first 5 and 10 meters. “That’s football distance,” he said. “It’s an acceleration that occurs multiple times a game.”
Click to expand...

When I came back in March, I watched several groups participate in a grueling shuttle run, similar to what basketball players refer to as “suicides” — a series of back-and-forth sprints, with short rest, in which participants dropped out in exhaustion until only one was left. They wore monitors to measure their heart rates. Versloot explained why: “If they say, ‘I’m tired, I’m done,’ we can look later and say to them: ‘That’s not what the heart monitor showed. It said you were only at 75 percent of maximum. So you have to do it again in a week.’ They understand that it’s not a punishment; it’s an opportunity to do better.”
Click to expand...

De Toekomst is not where you come to hear a romantic view of sport. No one pretends that its business is other than what it is. “We sold Wesley Sneijder for a ridiculous amount of money,” Versloot said. “We can go on for years based on what he was sold for.”
Click to expand...

AOUSMNTjjchurchill · Jun 3, 2010

as sad as it is Americans need to start relying more on the european style of academies. There are a few good examples of good academies/youth systems in this country.

Mr. DeLano · Jun 3, 2010

AOUSMNTjjchurchill said: ↑

as sad as it is Americans need to start relying more on the european style of academies. ...
Click to expand...

Why is it sad to model something that works?
We don't have to copy European Academies 100%, but they, pretty obviously, have the right idea.

But my opinion on creating a soccer star is practice and love of the game. The US' first world superstar will most likely be from an immigrant family because he will have the love of the game his whole life.
Along with this love, the kids have to practice. One of the Ajax quotes was about how American players play too many games and don't have time to develop by practicing. The players need to practice more than they play, not the other way around. But, the youth coaches here are pressured to win, so the little practice they do conduct is about winning the next game and not developing his players skills.

We need MLS to have youth academies like other established countries with coaches who are hired to prepare the players to be professionals and not to win youth tournaments. IMO, only then will we, americans, produce a soccer star.

feyenoordsoccerfan · Dec 4, 2017

Luis Suarez explains why he went to low flying Dutch club FC Groningen
Use Google translate:
https://www.telegraaf.nl/sport/1390039/suarez-daarom-ging-ik-naar-fc-groningen
Suarez: daarom ging ik naar FC Groningen
Door Van onze Telesportredactie

Updated 35 min geleden
1 uur geleden in SPORT
Luis Suarez maakte in 2006 de overstap van Nacional naar FC Groningen. In gesprek met Marca vertelt de huidige spits van FC Barcelona hoe belangrijk die transfer is geweest voor zijn persoonlijke ontwikkeling.

Luis Suarez in het shirt van FC Groningen.

Ⓒ ANP

"Dat was een heel grote verandering in mijn leven. Dat heb ik altijd gezegd", aldus de aanvaller uit Uruguay. Dat zijn vriendin (nu zijn vrouw) in Barcelona woonde speelde een grote rol bij zijn overgang naar Groningen. "Het hielp op het veld en erbuiten. Ze heeft mij altijd begeleid. Ik prijs me gelukkig met de tijd die we samen doorbrengen", aldus Suarez.

"Toen mij werd verteld dat ik naar Groningen kon, was het eerste wat ik deed opzoeken op de PlayStation waar die club speelt en welk shirt ze hebben", vervolgde de Zuid-Amerikaan. "Het was een grote stap dichter bij haar, omdat zij op dat moment in Barcelona woonde."

Suarez heeft het goed naar zin in Catalonië.

Ⓒ EPA

Anno 2017 wonen Suarez en zijn vrouw samen in Catalonië. De goaltjesdief speelt sinds 2014 voor Barcelona. Na een jaar Groningen, vier jaar Ajax en drie jaar Liverpool belandde hij na het WK van 2014 zijn zijn droomclub.

It's a condensed version of his interview with Spanish paper Marca. If you can get that article, it will translate better as Google understands Spanish better than Dutch.