rca2

hey RCA, I've been reading your posts on the forum and finding them quite useful. Love to interview you for my blog. Why don't you email me if you're interested? gab.goldenberg ..... google's mail service

It is not my opinion. It is my understanding. The short answer as I understand it: All team sports are considered late specialization sports. Now specifically talking about soccer, the thinking is that the first years (until say age 9) are spent developing general athletic skills, so it doesn't matter if you specialize in soccer or not. Experience has shown no advantage gained from specialization in soccer for kids at that time. Experience has shown disadvantages from specialization in soccer for kids at that time. Specialization too early gains short term performance gains in one sport at age that age, but sacrifices performance later if the player were to continue to be an elite player as an adult. In other words early specialization gives you a hot nine year old, but playing multiple sports during the same time will give you a better nineteen year old player. IMO soccer more than any other sport requires a large mix of athletic abilities to excell at an elite level.

Hello brother,

I'm reading the pdf you linked for long-term athlete development:trainability in childhood and adolescence. I'm curious to know why you view soccer as a late specialization sport? I can see that their are aspects one can develop more easily the older the player is, physical and tactical/mental.

Hello rca2, do you have any more info on training the brain approach? I read Horst Wein's book a while back and agreed with this idea of making smarter, better footballers. Also, I have an engineering background so the problem solving approach has always interested me.

Thanks.