Viva le Revolution

I think you misunderstand what the 3:1 ratio is about. It's not about hours of practice vs hours of games, but rather about 3 practices to 1 game.

In my area there are 3 DAs - Chicago Magic, Sockers FC and Chicago Fire. If you look at their schedules, each of them has some weeks with two games, some weeks with just one game and some weeks with no games at all. Each of them practices 4 times a week, sometimes even more. From September until now in June (10 month period), they have played around 27 games. How many practices do you think they have had in that 10 month period? If we use the 3:1 ratio, they should've had at least 81 practices for that period. Considering that 10 months = roughly 40 weeks or more, even with average of 3 (at least) practices per week that equals to 120 practices over 10 months. Which in turn gives us 4.44:1 ratio! Tell me which HS program can match that? I don't think one exists. In my area, most HS teams play 2-3 games a week and have 2-3 practices a week.

You are correct in saying that at club level at the younger age groups, before the DAs, teams are nowhere near the 3:1 ratio, because in most cases U-little teams practice 2 times a week and often have to play 2 games per week. This is why the DA program is being extended to U13s and perhaps in due time it will spread down to even younger ages. Also, the problem with bad practice to game ratio for the younger ages is due to the various leagues that set the rules. This is especially a problem in my area during the Spring season. The Winter season is also a problem because there is limited availability for indoor practices, so many teams often have 1 practice and 1 game per week. Many parents are reluctant to have their children, between 7 and 12 years old, practice more than twice a week due to other scheduled sports activities during the week. In summary, there are many reasons why the younger ages do not adhere to the 3:1 ratio, which of course is no excuse, but it's the reality, sadly. Hopefully that will change one day.

However, the DOCs at Magic, Sockers and Fire really try to keep a 3:1 ratio at the younger ages, like they have for their DA teams.

 

The ratio is time in every metric I've seen, not # of practices per # of games. It's especially important to at least consider time here in the Northeast where both weather and traffic require longer training sessions

This article mentions training sessions per game, but then goes on to convert to hours per year.

http://soccerthought.com/training-v...g-professional-and-collegiate-soccer-players/


Average practice time would be 90 minutes, as would a game for older players. In football, there are kids practicing 5 hours per day at least five days per week for one game that is an hour. In swimming, practices by HS age are often 3 hours per day for five days per week, and non-HS swimming doesn't have a meet every weekend. Colleges are allowed (but usually get away with more) 20 hours per week total of games and practices. Assuming 2 games per week, that's 3 hours of games, and up to 17 hours of practices. That's 17:3 = 5.7:1. Converting back to practices per game, you'd have 4 practices per 2 games, a 2:1 ratio, but is that a realistic assessment compared to the youth case? Pros are the same as college, they are practicing many hours and playing fewer games.

But either way, we can agree that 95% of our youth players are nowhere near the 3:1 ratio. And those other 5% have weeks where they aren't 3:1. This is out of line with other sports, where the 5% who are dedicated are getting many hours of practice for each game.

 

I don't know what you've seen but the ratio is number of practices vs number of games.

I'm not concerned what is the ratio in football or swimming. Colleges? Are you talking about college soccer? How does that relate to HS vs DA?

 

Most DA players are going to end up in college soccer at best. I think hours of practice and games in DA vs. college is a fair comparison therefore.

The DA is going in the right direction, but it is nowhere near Europe or SA for top-level players.

 

The discussion is about HS vs DA, leave the college level out of it. And again, it's not hours of practice and games, but number of practices and games. The DAs have more practices and games over 10 month period than colleges.

The DA is the right direction, but everyone can agree that it has a long way to go before it's anywhere near Europe or SA level. However, if you search hard enough you might find an interesting report on how much youth players practice at Barca for example - it's less than most people would think. Everywhere the week is 7 days and there are the same hours available to schedule practices for kids, considering their other daily obligations.

 

I wanted to double-check what was meant with the hours in the linked article above to make sure I understood and I had a couple questions, if somebody can share their thoughts.

Per the article, Barcelona academy players on average practice/play 768 hours per ten month period (Ajax 576 and USA Development 350). So each week (assuming 40 week period), a Barcelona player practices/plays 19.2 hours (Ajax 14.4 and USA 8.75 hours). If the players are playing five days per week (six?), then they are playing at Barcelona 3.84 hours per day(Ajax 2.88 and USA Development 1.75) Did I interpret this correctly? If so, there is an incredible/shocking daily practice time difference between Barcelona and USA (3.84 hours per day and 1.75) Can that be correct? If it is correct, practice time alone will be an incredible hurdle for players in the United States to overcome between the ages of 14 to 18.

Does anyone know how many hours Barcelona, Ajax or other European academy players practice at ages 10 and 12? Also, assuming they do not practice nearly as much formally as their older academy players, has anyone seen an estimate or willing to make a guess regarding how much time outside the academy the younger players practice on a weekly basis on their own or with family, etc?

 

I wanted to double-check what was meant with the hours in the linked article above to make sure I understood and I had a couple questions, if somebody can share their thoughts.

Per the article, Barcelona academy players on average practice/play 768 hours per ten month period (Ajax 576 and USA Development 350). So each week (assuming 40 week period), a Barcelona player practices/plays 19.2 hours (Ajax 14.4 and USA 8.75 hours). If the players are playing five days per week (six?), then they are playing at Barcelona 3.84 hours per day(Ajax 2.88 and USA Development 1.75) Did I interpret this correctly? If so, there is an incredible/shocking daily practice time difference between Barcelona and USA (3.84 hours per day and 1.75) Can that be correct? If it is correct, practice time alone will be an incredible hurdle for players in the United States to overcome between the ages of 14 to 18.

Does anyone know how many hours Barcelona, Ajax or other European academy players practice at ages 10 and 12? Also, assuming they do not practice nearly as much formally as their older academy players, has anyone seen an estimate or willing to make a guess regarding how much time outside the academy the younger players practice on a weekly basis on their own or with family, etc?

 

Which article are you talking about? Where does it say that Barca's youth players practice for 768 hours? I don't think they practice for more than 2 hours, 5 times a week.

 

What Lola wants, Lola gets:

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/soccerusa/id/1055?cc=5901

From what I understand, many academies have their players practice in the morning, then take classes, then practice again or have scrimmages, one game on the weekend and one day off.

 

In the Soccer Thought link above there is the link that rhrh was kind enough to provide. That link gives the numbers for Barcelona, Ajax, and Sao Paolo (even greater number of hours).

I think that rhrh is correct regarding the two practices per day. I seem to recall a video in one of the Ben Lederman threads that had a "Daily Life at La Masia" showing the kids at school and playing soccer, etc. I'm fairly sure that they had two practices per day.

To me, the hours are important. If the data is correct, our DA kids, are playing two hours less per day at ages 13-18! That is a surprising difference. In all the DA or youth development threads, posters emphasize the need for better identification and especially better quality coaching and other variables. However, if our youths are receiving far lower numbers of training hours that is something else that should be examined. This also ties in the with all the books/articles (outliers, talent code, etc.) that emphasize that an extreme number of hours of deliberate practice is needed to master a particular skill.

If our youth development programs do not provide enough training, then our kids (or their parents) are going to have find trainers outside of their teams to increase the probability of producing an 18 year old player comparable to a Barcelona 18 year old.

 

Hence the need for residential programs, at least for all MLS academies. Does Shattuck-St. Mary's, for example, have two practices per day? Do they have daily practices at least? Can't imagine they don't, since it is a HS program, and the players are essentially play 3 seasons of varsity HS sports.

One alternative to paying for training is once your son is old enough, he can play in adult leagues that will allow it. I know a 15 year old goalie who was getting paid to play goalie for an adult team. There are several adult soccer leagues in the NYC area that don't check ages at all.

The best we've been able to do is six days with practices, training or games. At one point, my son was at 15 hours of training and games per week, and has done as much as 30 hours in one week due to two days of soccer camp on a weekend plus training during the week (he was happy to have Monday off...). What we would like for his current club, which is not an academy, is to have practices for all teams on the same two days, and have two extra training days available for players who pay extra. More money for them, and only the most dedicated players, of various ages, would attend.

 

Which are these "many academies"?

To my knowledge, at Barca the youth players go to school in the morning, then they have training and study sessions with tutors (if needed). I fail to see how they get their 768 hours. What is Roger Bennett's source for this info?

 

I googled a bit to try to find a study that set forth the data. I did not find such a study. However, per the article, Tony Lepore, seems to be aware of such a study as he remarked that our DA academies are close to Italy's (432 hours):

Lepore eagerly reeled off the numbers. "The average American club used to offer just 12 hours of training a month. With our new emphasis on training, we are aiming for eight hours a week which, over the newly extended 10-month season, computes to 350 hours a year."

This number still lags behind Ajax's 576 hours, Barcelona's 768 hours and Sao Paulo's colossal 1,040 hours, but the coach points out with glee how close it is to Italy's total, where the elite practice 432 hours. "Until we eliminate the gap, our players will be technically deficient as they lack the repetition," Lepore said.

I would love to see such a study and see the raw data. Someone in US soccer probably has the study or else how would Lepore apparently know of it?

I found this youtube link showing daily life at la masia. It shows different Barcelona youth teams practicing in the morning and evening. It does not provide enough detail to confirm whether the youths practicing in the morning also practice in the evening -- maybe they just have one practice in the morning? I don't know.

If the data is correct, the Barcelona kids are probably practicing in the morning and afternoon, since it is hard to imagine a 3.5 hour evening session. The Sao Paolo kids? 1040 hours works out to 5.2 hours per day, assuming 40 weeks/five days per week. If true, would they not be training more than an adult professional team?

The Sao Paolo numbers and Barcelona numbers are so high that I question their accuracy. Possible, but difficult to imagine. The DA (350), Italy (432) and Ajax (576) numbers are reasonably close. Anyone know how to find out the source of the numbers?

 

This is a useful reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Does anyone actually *care* what the body fat percentage is of our elite soccer players?

 

I would love to see the study with the raw data as well, because I'm very skeptical that those in the US Soccer know what they are talking about when it comes to hours of practice for other youth academies.

I have some information about Barcelona and I find it hard to believe that they or anyone else would have their youth players practice for more than 2 hours per session. Sure, they may have a pre-season period at the beginning of the soccer year, where their teams might be practicing for two sessions a day (4 hours max), but that is for no more than a few weeks, maybe a month max.

Let's do a simple math.

40 weeks period, 2 hours practice session, 5 times a week (1 game day and 1 rest day) = 400 hours over 10 month period. That's without any breaks for holidays, etc. I think it's pretty possible that even the youth players at Barca and other top clubs are given breaks of a week or two from time to time. Also, as far as I know Barca's youth players' practice sessions are not 2 hours, but rather 1.5 hours/90 minutes. So considering that and adding a 4 week pre-season period of 2 practice sessions per day, the total I came up with for a 40 weeks season is 330 hours of practice.

If we take the quoted 768 hours of practice for Barca and we divide it by 40 weeks, that comes up to a little more than 19 hours of practice per week. Highly doubtful! Could these hours quoted possibly include also game time? Perhaps.....but even if we add 30 games, each for 90 minutes, that's only 45 more hours. It's still far away from 768 hours.

Even if we count 90 minutes of practice, 7 days a week, for 40 weeks, with 4 weeks of pre-season period (two practice sessions a day), the total still comes up to only 462 hours.

 

Barcelona players have 12 weeks off of soccer each year? My kid is lucky to get 6 weeks off, and academies are around 6 weeks off. Or is it because Europeans have tons more vacation than Americans do?

I would expect that Barcelona does additional training such as fitness and SAQ. I was reading about the European academy players having pulse monitors when they worked out. Players who weren't reaching their target heart rate would be on the crap list.

 

Hours of training varies per Country, that is also based on imposed educational requirenments by the national futbol associations, leagues and countries. For example, in Germany academies programs have to work on a program that allows for talent to progress while still meeting educational goals. For example, my son Christian total practice time at 1899 Hoffenheim was 485 hours, while playing 22 regular season games, 10 friendlies, 6 Cups games, 5 international tounaments and indoor season. They had a total of 7 weeks off spread all around the year. Next year he wil be residing at the academy, because the hours will increase by 10% , to allowed for 2 training sessions a day and pre season camp/ conditioning. Yes they have pulse monitors, they do fitness test quaterly and if marks are not reached, programs are developed for those to increase conditioning, all these is done while ensuring that kids cardio and body is not stressed and daamge is done.

 

Fitness is a huge issue in the US. Not many, if any, clubs recommend training for individual players based on what the coach thinks they need. The best I have heard is one time testing of speed, agility, and quickness. HS soccer, which most think is subpar and physicality over any sense of real soccer, tends to have more metrics, like 2 miles in 12 minutes or less, beep tests, etc. A player will be cut if he doesn't make the grade in terms of fitness, regardless of soccer skills.

485 hours / 45 week is just over 10 hours per week (10% more is 12 hours per week). The only US players who are at that number of hours have parents paying for extra training. My son was often doing 10 hours of training per week: 3 hours of team practice, 1 hour of shooting class, 1 hour of footwork class, 2 hours of soccer basics for the advanced player (German coach), and 3 hours of speed, agility, and quickness training. I had to pay for 7 of those 10 hours. And he was not with his team for 7 of those 10 hours. For any high school sport, it is a minimum of 10 hours of training per week, with the same people.

If my son switches to a USSF academy team (which is new in the US since 2007, before there was nothing except going to the one national academy in Florida), he will get a minimum of 6 hours per week with the same players, and often 8 hours per week. He will still have to do fitness aspects on his own. They are limited to one game per week, which ends up being 25 - 30 games plus playoffs. They are a 10-month program, which ends up being 44 weeks or more.

Most players can do 3 hours of practice 3 times per week and not have a problem with educational goals. As noted above, HS sports in the US are at least 2 hours of practice per day, 5 or 6 days per week, so the hours themselves are not the issue. The cost of soccer programs is a major issue.

Yet when we compare my son's current team, barely top 20 in our state, to an academy team in terms of cost, it is about the same! It is very costly to play soccer in the US, for all but the MLS academies and a very few others, and they can only take so many players.

 

What is included in those 485 hours? Do you included the games or are they in addition to the 485 hours?

How long will this pre-season be? Can you write what a typical week during the season looks like, in terms of practices and games?

 

The 485 hours do not include the league games, friendlies or tournaments, to include travel time. Usually on travel day they will hold a tactical and shoot around section, then travel to the destination for game the next day. The calendar year just finished, they are taking a two week pause to return after the 4th of July for a 3 week camp, first order of business, will be a fitness test, and a physical examination. During the three weeks the new recruits for the year will be integrated into the team. At this time if they are there, they are no longer consider trialist, they are academy members for the new year. A few games will be played during that time. After the 3 weeks period, they get another break of 2 weeks, but they are assigned a fitness plan. When they return they are given another fitness test. The next day they will travel to location most of the times outside the country, German Club tend to go to the Alps area, where the conduct the preseason camp, training sessions varies from two a day to three , to include conditioning, and tactical training To capstone the week they will travel and compete in a preseason tourney. Normally after a tourney or a long period of training they will get a day or two to relax and start training again. During the season they will practice 4 nights a week, two of those days they will be training in the morning and night. Training sessions at night normally last from 2.5 to 3 hrs the morning sessions are 1.5 long. Monday’s are usually for regeneration training days if game were played on Sunday. Mondays are a long day, they do video analyzation after practice. As the season progress and Cup games become a factor, the day that was scheduled as off in the calendar becomes a game day, is only a nuisance for only 4 to seven weeks the season. The regular season is 22 games, there is a long winter pause Dec- Mar, but played do not stop. Indoor tournaments take over, they still train in the even the elements. YES THEY STILL HAVE TIME for School, tutoring and study hall is scheduled from 1330 to 1600 on the days off. Tutoring is provided until 1800 hrs.

 

Lot people are going throw their shoulders out padding themselves on the back while loudly claiming I told you so…even worse, as if they were the only one to see the problem(s)....

 

I found it to be an interesting read. I wasn't following any of this stuff back then (kids too young) and it seems like people were very optimistic about the hiring of Klinsmann and what it meant about the future. That didn't exactly turn out as planned. Maybe there's a better chance for some change this time based on the circumstances. After all, in 2011 the discussion was in context of trying to win a knockout game while the conversation now is taking place after a terrible embarrassment. But I can't say I'm optimistic.