Identifying Talent - How and When?

Discussion in 'Youth & HS Soccer' started by UglyParent, Oct 4, 2012.

  1. BP9175

    BP9175 Member

    Aug 2, 2011
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    I was about to say the exact same thing. My boy played rec b-ball and flag football when he was 7 years old but now he just messes around with the basketball with his friends.

    I understand that he has spent a lot of his childhood training with the soccer ball so I let him have his friend time whenever he wants. He plays basketball, he rides his bike and still plays hide and go seek with the neighborhood kids. And I also let him play his x-box. The only difference between him and his friends is that he does "coerver" training 4-5 hours a week plus his 4 hour practice a week with his club team.

    Also, I limit his games severly. He only played 25 soccer games last year. Thats a drop in the bucket for many 10-11 year olds down here who play up to 150-200 games when you count leagues, tourneys, etc. but I do arrange scrimmages with his friends with no parental involvement or coaching when the scrimmages are going on.
     
  2. dcole

    dcole Member+

    May 27, 2005
    I never suggested that you need to be on an official team or some kind of roster to receive the benefits of playing multiple sports. But all play is not created equal. I don't think a kid who goes out and shoots baskets by himself in his driveway once per week for 5 minutes at a time is going to get anything near the same kind of benefit that a kid who plays on a basketball team for a winter season is going to get, assuming he gets some decent coaching. Not suggesting that's your situation, just clarifying.

    My eldest turns 13 in two weeks. He's played soccer every spring, fall and winter since he was four years old, averaging about 150 hours per year of soccer. He also does swim team in the summers and winters (about 100 hours per year) and plays organized lacrosse in the spring (about 50 hours per year). His school has an excellent PE program that meets five days per week during the school year, for a total of about 150 hours per year of diverse athletic activity. Add to that another 30 minutes per day (180 hours per year) of varied indoor and outdoor athletic activities in his free time. That comes out to about 660 hours of athletic activity per year, with about 300 of those hours being organized sports and only 150 hours of that total being soccer. Broken down by day, that comes out to 1.8 hours of athletic activity per day, with 0.4 hours per day of soccer on average.

    To me, that makes for a well-rounded athlete. If he were to choose tomorrow to drop his other activities and start playing exclusively soccer, flipping his daily routine from 0.4 hours per day to, say, 1.5 hours per day of soccer, I think he'd end up a better overall soccer player by age 18 than he would have been if he had played 1.5 hours of soccer per day from age 4-18, and with significantly less risk of repetitive use injury or burnout. There's also a much greater likelihood that, having made a decision to specialize at age 13 years old rather than at 4 years old, the decision was his decision rather than mine.
     
  3. dcole

    dcole Member+

    May 27, 2005
    Just to be clear, does the 8-9 hours of soccer training per week you are talking about go all year, such that we are talking about 400-450 hours of formal soccer training per year for a pre-teen kid? Plus 25 games and semi-organized scrimmages? Not trying to get judgmental on you, but that's a LOT of soccer for a little kid, even one who really wants to do it, isn't it?
     
  4. BP9175

    BP9175 Member

    Aug 2, 2011
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Yes, pretty much year round. It might be too much, I dont know but I dont practice with him anymore like I used to when he was 7-9 years old. He practices by himself in the living room for the most part. The thing is is that he is an extremely competetive kid who doesnt like to lose at anything and he loves soccer. He started practicing by himself ever since I told him a couple years ago that the only way he will be a top soccer player will be by having superior technical skills because hes not going to be very big or extremely fast.

    I started working the evening shift and that cut my practice time with him but my wife says that he still did it by himself. Its pretty much up to him from now on in my opinion.

    Also, one detail thats very important. We have a living room that is not being used, so he uses it as a practice room. And he doesnt pick up the ball and practices for a straight hour. He will do 15-20 minutes., stop play x box, come back and put in another 15-20 minutes and then go ride his bike, etc. It just adds up to about about 45 minutes on school days and about 3-4 hours on a weekends.

    One last thing, the more moves he makes during games, the more confidence he gets and the more he wants to pick up the ball. Hes done elasticos, zidane roulettes, croquetas, ronaldo chops, etc.. He is starting to see the results of his hard work and he gets motivated.
     
  5. dcole

    dcole Member+

    May 27, 2005
    The attributes you are describing in your son are pretty much what it takes to devote those kinds of hours to perfecting a craft. The kid's skills are top notch, so if the ends justify the means then I suppose you have your justification.

    I'll quibble with some parts of this though. You say it's pretty much up to him from now on, but you said above that you let him hang out with his friends and play Xbox when he wants because he's putting in his hours practicing soccer, so it sounds like what he does is not totally up to him. I'm also not sure he's even of the age of consent to make decisions about how best to spend his time, and certainly not to evaluate whatever risk of repetitive stress injury he's exposing himself to (which may be minimal if he's just doing Coerver stuff).

    Overall, I'm not sure I agree that how a kid spends his time is up to him. I stop my kids from engaging in activities that I don't deem healthy, either physically or mentally, and I put limits on their engagement in activities even when I think they are healthy in moderation. My eldest literally would surf all day in the summer, but I cut him off after a few hours because I just think it's too much. There's a safety issue with that related to possible drowning and shark attacks that probably don't apply in your living room though. ;)

    I think there are drastically decreasing marginal returns on the amount of Coerver work your kid is doing and think he'd be better off cutting back or taking some time off. Just my thoughts.
     
  6. BP9175

    BP9175 Member

    Aug 2, 2011
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Well, I didnt mean literally letting him do "whatever" he wants to do. Everything in moderation. Im not going to let him play x box for 3 hours straight. School comes first and foremost. And hes a solid A/B student. My oldest son was valedictorian of his high school class and now is about to graduate from The University of Texas at Austin with a pre-med degree. I used the same approach that i sm doing with Nicholas.. Which is push them hard until their early teen years and then let them pursue their passion. The only difference was that my oldests passion was academics.
     
  7. BP9175

    BP9175 Member

    Aug 2, 2011
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Also, I totally 100% disagree with you on Coerver.. His skills are because of Coerver. Coerver in my opinion is the substitute for street soccer when street soccer is not available for the kid.
     
  8. dcole

    dcole Member+

    May 27, 2005
    Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-Coerver. I think it's great. I just think that if you are doing it for like 60 minutes a day every day that you run headlong into the law of diminishing marginal returns. First hour per week, big benefits. Seventh hour per week, not so much.
     
  9. dcole

    dcole Member+

    May 27, 2005
    You know, what's funny about this is that, starting at age 11, I've tried several different ways to get my eldest son (who is turning 13 next week) to put in work on soccer on his own, and none of them have worked. I thought age 10 and under was too young to even encourage this kind of work on his own, and I haven't even broached the subject with my 10 and 7 year old sons yet.

    My idea was to have him do Coerver work and/or juggling on his own for ~15 minutes per day, three times per week. I made him incentive charts to track his progress and offered a reward of $1/day like a "soccer allowance". He loves soccer and is very good at it, but had ZERO interest in putting in any work on his own, no matter what incentive system I used. I wasn't going to force him to do it, so I just dropped it. I bring it back up periodically to see if he has any interest in it, but he does not.

    I actually showed him the video of Nick last night, and he was impressed, but this is what he said: "That kid is an awesome dribbler, but I see kids like that in games all the time. They are really good at taking people on 1v1 and that's what they like about playing soccer. But they don't necessarily have a big impact on the game in 11v11 soccer and I get the feeling that most of them would rather play small-sided games than full-sided and that they don't even really like full-sided soccer games because they don't get to do their tricks often enough."

    To put this in perspective, my son turns 13 next week and he's 5'8" and 115 pounds of solid muscle, with size 11 feet. I often hear him described as a "giant" by opposing team fans. He's a center forward who averages two goals per game in 11v11 games and used to average more than that in small-sided games and in indoor soccer. He moves really well off the ball, combines well with his teammates and has great close control dribbling and the ability to receive the ball and create a shot on goal out of whole cloth. He is capable of doing pretty much any Coerver skills, but thinks that stuff is for the midfield dribbling wizards to do so that they can feed him the ball. :)
     
  10. Well, kids love to do things, provided it is with mates..not on their own. So adjust the practices for your younger kids as a do it together one vs one thing. Brothers like to beat each other. Dribbles can be construed to be a match of who is the first to reach the end etc.
     
  11. AJSW

    AJSW Member

    Jun 18, 2013
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    From Stan Baker's Our Competition is the World

    Training to Game Ratio

    Ajax U9-U14 3 sessions (5hrs) per week 22 games
    u15-16 4 sessions 6.5/hours per week 22 games per season
    u17-18 6 sessions 9 26

    barc u10-14 3 sessions 4.5 30-36
    u15-18 4 sessions 6 30

    parma u10-14 3 sessions 4.5 18-22
    u15-19 4 sessions 8 30-36

    inter u12-18 5-8 hours 26-38

    sao pa u12-14 5 sessions 15 28
    u15-18 5 sessions 20 36-40

    This is clearly only the time the players have formal practice as compared to what they do on their own.
    FYI, Baker's point here was that the US typically practices too little and plays games too frequently -- the US needs to correct the practice/game ratio.

    How much should an American youth practice soccer. For 10 years old probably 4-6 hours of formal practice per week. No need to play lots of tournaments -- try to get a good game each weekend.

    I'll try to find the amount of practice time that includes practice outside of formal practice.
     
  12. AJSW

    AJSW Member

    Jun 18, 2013
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
  13. ncsoccerdad

    ncsoccerdad Member

    Apr 16, 2012
    Central NC
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    While I wouldn't say he is necessarily right about Nick, he brings up an excellent point about where we are in our "soccer maturity."

    My sons both love the YouTube videos of soccer stars. You know the ones - set to music, decent editing, a few dozen 4-second clips of Neymar making guys look dysfunctional. There are tens of thousands of them, and there are millions of kids watching them.

    So now we have a ton of kids, especially here in America, who think that's what soccer is about (and BP9175, please understand I am not saying Nick is this way). I don't necessarily think this is a horrible thing, because the U.S. is still at an "any enthusiasm is good enthusiasm" stage where soccer is concerned. But we (coaches, parents) need to be ready to show a video of Ozil dominating entire matches without doing a single rainbow or Maradona, to combat the YouTube understanding of the game.
     
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  14. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    My son’s U13 team does 3 sessions for training for 4.5 hours a week and plays ~32-40 games* per season/year (the 40 is theoretical max if we make to every final game).

    If I am working the numbers correctly, based on just the 12 week in-season routine**, they practice twice as much as the play…our numbers seem to fall right in line with Barc U10-14 levels, but assume a 2-1 ratio is still not considered high enough?

    *State/President Cup, League, and 2-3 standalone Tournaments per season (fall and spring).

    ** They/many also do formal winter training and more informal summer training, but many also do various small sided and futsal stuff during those times as well, so the math gets fuzzy pretty quickly.
     
  15. BP9175

    BP9175 Member

    Aug 2, 2011
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    #365 BP9175, Apr 27, 2016
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2016
    Well, I never said or implied that soccer is only about "doing tricks or moves". Obviously, theres a lot more to the game. Just because you see a highlight video on youtube doesnt mean that thats the only thing that kid can do. Our coach who is from Mexico and has been affiliated with the Atlas academy from guadalajara for over 25 years compliments my son on his techinical skills but also is teaching him the time and place to make the moves. And my son understands that 100%. Also, the coach calls my son "la garrapata". I knew it translated to "The tick". I asked him why he called him that. He said because he loves his defense. He said that once he latches on to a player with the ball he just he doesnt let go and does everything in his power to get the ball back. I am proud of what he said just as much as any move. My boy hustles and he leaves 100% out on the field. That and his practice habits is all a dad can ask for.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  16. For your information I copy a post about the way the 5 times in a row with the Rinus Michels Award for the best Dutch Academy, only last season beaten by Earnest Stewart's AZ. (So stop mentioning Ajax academy as they were the target of J. Cruijff's critique for years and werenot the best Dutch academy for about a decade).
    This post shows how for a single player the development is finetuned to maximize results.

    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)

    feyenoordsoccerfan, May 31, 2012 Report
     
  17. Jacob Camacho

    Jacob Camacho New Member

    Apr 27, 2016
    Club:
    Manchester City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Hi Guys. Speaking about identifying talent. I am a 14 year old from Trinidad and Tobago. I am a huge Manchester City fan and I am a goalkeeper for my school soccer team here in Trinidad. I think I have potential and as luck would have it, our local cellular provider has a national competition trying to identify talent in the 14 - 16 year old category where the top five selected get to go to Manchester City and actually see the Ethiad and train with City coaches. I of course tried out among hundreds of others and got selected as a wild card entry to go through to the next round. the catch is that I need people to like my Youtube video. So I am reaching out to all of you to help me reach my dream and view and like my video!!! Pleaseeeeee! So please look at it and give a thumbs up! I really think this initiative is great and I thank you for your help!!


     
  18. nicklaino

    nicklaino Member+

    Feb 14, 2012
    Brooklyn, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    They was not much to your video.
     
  19. Jacob Camacho

    Jacob Camacho New Member

    Apr 27, 2016
    Club:
    Manchester City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Had a limited time for video. But I appreciate you looking at it and commenting.
     
  20. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You need 5 to 7 minutes of nothing but highlights. It takes awhile--you'll have to get someone to film several games and probably a training session or two.
     
  21. ncsoccerdad

    ncsoccerdad Member

    Apr 16, 2012
    Central NC
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Guys, look at the videos for the other wildcard candidates. They are all about 30 seconds of nothing much. It was obviously filmed by the people running the camp. Not something Jacob could control.
     
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  22. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Fair enough.

    I wasn't criticizing--I think it's an excellent introduction video. I was merely saying "here's what you should do next" but I should have spelled that out.
     
  23. nicklaino

    nicklaino Member+

    Feb 14, 2012
    Brooklyn, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    To say the boy has talent you have to see talent. People running the camp are amatures to give these kids a video like that.

    On videos best videos are those showing players playing two of their best game and not a highlight video.
     
  24. soccermom79

    soccermom79 Member

    Mar 6, 2012
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    My son attended the MIC Cup this year. Though I was not able to go I was lucky enough to receive a lot of video from other parents, and put together a highlight video.
     
  25. nicklaino

    nicklaino Member+

    Feb 14, 2012
    Brooklyn, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Soccer mom 79 your son is a dangerous player on the left flank.

    He does not play in Brooklyn, NY does he?
     
    ncsoccerdad repped this.

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