There are many clubs out there that add the terms "Professional Coaching Staff" and "Player Development" to their advertising campaigns during try out seasons. Some even add them to their overall club ideology. My comment to this is that many are full of garbage when it comes to these concepts. I recently met with parents who were curious about moving their players from a rec environment to one of many clubs around us - where these questions were raised. Instead of being negative I decided to make my case and then support myself with a snapshot of where many of these clubs land in terms of where their teams are playing in various leagues - what tourneys they perform in and how well they are doing. We took a look at coaches and past records - have teams that have been with a club and under a coach for more then two seasons progressed and if so, how far? What were the opportunities for players where progression was made? At the end it seemed as though most of these smaller clubs who use these terms are still just putting together teams based on what is needed through try outs - and not focusing on development. Moreover many teams are hiring young, in-experienced coaches for their lowest age groups which from my experience, is where you need some of your most seasoned coaches. They are always refered to as "Professionals" My question is why? Is it because they have a E or D license? I've seen some coaches with no coaching experience at all - just kicked a ball around at the local community college, be refered to as a "Professional" "Come to XXXX Club where your player will experience individual development from a Professional coach....." $1500.00 out the door and the kid ends up on a C team at the bottom of the division. This is going on at many clubs. It's a cash cow taking $$$ from parents who for the most part, know very little of the game or youth soccer at this level. Which brings me to my overall question... Should there be a mandate which stipulates when a coach can be called a Professional and when a club can be considered as a true Development entity?
Funny coincidence -- I was just about to start a thread asking if it's overkill to have "professional" coaches at U9 and U10. My club uses "professional" coaches (former high-level players with A, B or C licenses and considerable experience) to run the training sessions for multiple teams through the week but lets parents coach the games. I maintain that it SHOULD work, but some disagree. But you raise a more fundamental question of what a "professional" coach really is. I'm a parent coach, but I have five years of experience and an E license. My E license course included a couple of former players who were just starting their coaching career. So would I have more of a claim to be "professional" than they do? (To answer my own question -- I think their playing experience will outweigh my coaching experience in the long run. But this example shows how tricky your question really is.)
I have an "E" license as well and have coached Rec for 12 years and on off Travel/Dev for 6 - mainly in u6-u8. I would not consider myself a Professional at all. The reason is (IMO) there are mulitple facets to coaching which cover more then just team and individual abilities as a trainer. For example have you ran multiple practices more then three times a week for a span of 6 hours? Have you ran a tournament? Have you coached boys and girls and understand the differences in play. Are you managing individual development in a team environment? Can you manuvour through a multitude of drills and small sided games that progress but on different days focus on different fundementals of the game. I can do some of these but others I have not even tried. That is what I am getting at. What defines a Professional coach? I think we commonly accept that because a coach has a license and passed a USClub or USYouth training session that he/she is now a professional when in fact they have zero experience. As to professionals at the younger ages... I strongly think this is where you need some of your strongest and seasoned coaches. This is where kids who want to have fun learn to become passionate about the sport and where kids who already have that passion become leaders - not just on the field but in life. It takes many years of coaching and experience in general to be able to push those foundations which are dissimilar on the field to kids who will progress at different rates. During the game it also takes a level of maturity to know how to deal with players in order to get the best of them. I don't see many coaches who can and are even trying to do this.
My son's club coaches have all been college coaches or assistant coaches with one exception. The exception was a former professional player, who has been my son's favorite coach. Some of the college coaches are former pro players as well. I consider them all professional coaches. I would have a hard time paying club fees for someone with just a D or E license.
And you hit at the heart of the problem. For example I have 3 great u8 players who are looking at a community based club in the area. I provided my two cents on the coach - mid twenties, played travel, high school then at a very small community college. First job was with this comm club and had it for 2 years. That's it. I then gave the link to the teams this coach is training which are B,C,D and they are at the bottom of the divisions. Getting blown away at not even Copper tourneys by other clubs 2nd and third teams. And there is even a consistancy of this over the past 2 seasons. But this is considered "Professional Training" As to your comment on a coach with a "D" license... I know some very good coaches who just have a D but they have a good deal of experience on their resumes to support that license. So I am not sure just saying that you have to have a "C" is good enough. I think you can have a "D" but you have to have more.
You keep using that work ... I don't think it means what you think it means! Does the coach get paid? Then the coach is a "professional", as opposed to a volunteer/amateur. That's all that's necessary as far as truth in advertising is concerned. Is the coach "qualified"? That's a more meaningful question, and goes to all sort of factors, none of which on their own necessarily tells the whole store. Licensed? Playing experience? Coaching experience? Intelligence? Patience? Demeanor? Don't count on the Club to evaluate all of those properly - they are just trying to fill the coaching position so they can charge player tuition to another 14-18 kids, and often seek the cheapest coach they can get with the most marketing ability (i.e. - a young, good looking kid from England who can sweet-talk the soccer moms and get their money).
Not sure what you mean by "work".... But yes I am getting at qualification and the only label which is associated with whether a coach is qualified is if he is a paid professional. Unfortunately that can mean many things. Thusly my point is how can that be defined? Maybe you are right - it is as simple as whether the coach gets a pay check. I would argue differently. frankly I think there should be an easier way for parents to understand the process, evaluate the coaches and make a decision with more information. I realize that it is on the shoulders of the parents to evaluate and do research. But I would also argue that this blind push of kids into travel soccer - because a club in in the same town and/or a players "friends" are there, does nothing to educate the majority of parents and servers to continue to pump out players who can run fast and kick the ball far. But that's it.
Typo - meant "word" But there's no easy way to decide whether the lawyer/doctor/plumber/etc. that you hired is really good or just a hack either, other than your own personal evaluation of their work, or trusting the recommendation of a friend, etc. Why should coaches be any different? Caveat emptor.
Not a coach, but rather a parent who is constantly told by my child's coaches / club officials that "it's not about winning", so I find it interesting that another coach would use that at minimum, as a part of the evaluative process, particularly at the U-Little age groups. That said, just to play "devil's advocate" for a second, how do we know how the team formation process works at said club. For instance, at my child's club they have 2 teams for that age/gender. Some clubs would make true A and B teams where the best kids are on team A and the rest are on team B. My kid's club though tries to make the teams even and you will lose to some teams that if we just had 1 or 2 kids from the other team we could have won and possibly even won easily. Just throwing that out there. Also, as coaches, what are your thoughts on the whole A/B teams vs multiple evenly split teams. Is one better than the other? All training takes place as a combined group as well.
of there is a joke among horse people...."everyone is a horse trainer." it is true, everyone that rides a horse teaches it something. could be something good, could be something bad. the same concept can be applied to "professionals" in youth soccer. "Come to XXXX Club where your player will experience individual development from a Professional coach....." $1500.00 out the door and the kid ends up on a C team at the bottom of the division. This is going on at many clubs. It's a cash cow taking $$$ from parents who for the most part, know very little of the game or youth soccer at this level. are you sure you are not in Jersey? I don't think its not that parent don't have soccer knowledge. I don't but I trust that the people I pay do have that knowledge. sometimes you put your trust in the wrong people. unfortunately you don't know until after you have paid them. it's been awhile but isn't the E license still given out to whomever shows up and completes the course? the only licenses that count in my book are the ones that people can FAIL. you can't get a drivers license until you show you know the rules and pass the test right? of course the pass/fail line should be higher on this one. maybe the same thing holds true for YS?
This is very interesting -- how do you evaluate a coach if "its not about winning?" So the coach can lose every game (like our U-little coaches often lose 0-9, 1-7, 0-5 etc) and then tell the parents that winning doesn't matter they are "developing the kids." Our club coaches at U-little definitely do this, because most parents will complain eventually if their kid is losing at margins like 0-9, 0-7 etc. So if it isn't winning, the parent has to be an expert in development to see whether the coach is truly developing the kids or not. I also think the team break-apart issue is very interesting. Our club has some younger age groups that break even, and others that do "A" and "B" teams. I suppose even teams are fine, as long as you put them in the appropriate bracket of play so they aren't losing every game. Of course, they may have to play each other if they are truly even teams. What I don't believe in is training as a combined group. How can a coach do any individual development when there are 36 kids on the field at once? Even if there are 2-3 coaches present during training, the dynamic of having that many kids on the field together at once makes it incredibly difficult to focus on the individual. To me, this is just the club trying to save money on coaching and field usage, which is money also, by having large groups of kids at once with fewer coaches. Ultimately, the individual player suffers.
When my son first made the leap to a club environment I was a soccer novice and had somewhat of a hard time with the initial meeting with the club based on the development vs. winning perspective. In my mind, given the amount of money we were paying, wins were the only way to quantify success. One or two games into that first season I was talking to another parent that had been through the club soccer landscape before and sat on the board of our club. He explained the club philosophy that playing at an appropriate level was key to the development discussion and that the club's philosophy, at the U little ages, was that in a 10 game season a record of 3-3-3 going into the final game was success. The kids got to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat but with an even record it showed they were appropriately challenged and had the opportunity to demonstrate the training in live scenarios with fear of "losing the game" or being so overmatched that they could not try new things. Over time I have come to embrace this philosophy and think it is really the best way to approach development. My son has friends on clubs that always push to play in the highest levels and advertise that they play in the highest divisions. These clubs routinely finish near the bottom of those divisions. Now that he plays high scholl and plays alongside many of these friends you can see the differences in their games. Those players are either ultra agressive ball hogs or very timid in their play. Those players have fallen into the roles of either having to carry a team on their back or get the ball away from me quick so I don't screw up as opposed to the much more well rounded players that have come out of my son's club.
I don't think A/B teams should be set until u11. Even after that the A/B teams should have the same practices with the same coaches so as to keep in mind any players who may be developing slower.
Not in Jersey - last time I checked Yes the E license is basically handed out to anyone with a pulse. I mean you have to pass a course but it's not at all difficult.
I think when you have a coach with multiple seasons - 2-3, multiple teams of which all are losing badly, then it's up to the DOC to re-evaluate the effectiveness of that coach. In this case I know of one who has been lingering in the lowest division of the league for 3 years now. And to address a comment made in an earlier post about parents, it is about them because if they had any sense of what they were doing, they would not be putting their player with that club. Of course the sneaky way around this is to have the DOC run the try outs - bless the good players with praise. Parents pay and WHOA! They quickly realize that the well-experienced DOC is not actually the "professional coach" who is training the team but the young kid who has multiple years with multiple teams lingering at the bottom divisions. Happens all the time. This is not a problem with multiple coaches running a progressive circuit that know what they are doing. We have 40+ kids at the u8/u9 practices.
The best part of the E license these days -- you have to watch and then pass a quiz on concussion awareness.
I think A/B/etc teams is a much better system, as then each team can play in a division appropriate to their skills (ideally).
For people who don't know the sport they're probably not going to be able to tell, unless they definitely see improvement over the long haul. My son is on a team that basically says "It's not about winning" (which isn't to say they don't value it), and the difference can be seen in the fact that they're more focused on teaching individual skills in the younger years and tactics as they get older, and really don't focus on some of the more cynical tactics from an early age that a lot of teams do. For me the difference is apparent in comparing coaching styles to those of some of their opponents. Some coaches don't do much more than yell and scream, micromanaging the kids' movements in order to win, or just shouting things like "Run! Go hard! Win!" One of the more cynical things I've seen was a team that used a corner kick technique where they fake like they're going to change the kick taker, then the first one nonchalantly passes to that kid and they try to score while our team didn't even realize play had restarted (fortunately the ref fell for it too and it was retaken). I mean who drills that crap at the U13 level, and what benefit is that to the kids as players? That said, teams shouldn't be consistently losing by scores like you mention unless there's so little competition in an area that they're forced to play teams way above their level. We often have that happen in the spring, where our region will be pared down to two divisions instead of the usual four, so there end up being some major mismatches.
"Professional" may legally mean that the coach is somehow paid for his or her services. To a soccer family, I think it mans a coach with a 1) clear vision of a 2) clear goal and a 3) clear path to reach it with 4) clearly sufficient, if not superior, interpersonal skills. Of course, that's what "Professional" actually means anywhere. My experience has been that as you go from 1 to 4, the number of "professionals" remaining declines very sharply. It's also why, IMHO, professionals who excel at all four facets are so bloody expensive. How about a subscription service (Like Zoom Reports) that logs coaches' performances based on the basic team stats (GF/GA ratios, win/loss ratio, win/tie ratio, etc.) and can also compare them to other coaches in their division/area/team gender, etc. Then throw in some optional filters (Like how the ratios change from beginning to end of the season, how scores and or ratios differ between tournaments and regular season, etc.) and, lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, we have baselines. I would agree that, for developing players, winning isn't everything. But stats make a great yardstick, the units are understood literally everywhere, and, let's face it, nothing boosts morale like a good, solid win.
I am one of these 'professional coaches' who does 50 hours of CPA work a week in order to get some spending money and supplment my huge coaching salary. E License (discussed going for a D, but have been told its really not worth the time investment for the level I coach-U-12), been coaching since 2001 as a volunteer, oversee a rec league season twice a year (and where most of our parents meet me first). Coaching travel for the past 7 years. I am not young, nor do I have a hypnotizing foreign accent. I am just dedicated to the local club and am likely more reliable than a young coach who is in and out in one or two years. I do not even claim to be a 'premier team coach.' This is the first year I've been paid. The difference this year, I am no longer (volunteer parent) coaching my own child's team. So, unlike many local teams, I am an unbiased, experienced 'coach.' Am I the best coach? No chance. Am I a better coach than most of our team's opponents? Yeah I think so.
Here is another thread about what seems to be a DEV program for u8/u9 that cuts players? Since when does Dev do that??? Another lousy club tossing the term around with no clue to it's meaning? http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/coping-with-a-not-so-good-tryout-day.2004574/
Professional would infer coaching is their "day" job, or that they played professionally. Our son has had instruction from two coaches with an A license, one a Dutch A license (who played) and the other an American A license. To say there is a vast difference of every aspect between these two "A" certifications is an understatement. That being said, few are going to be able to realistically put away enough to retire from teaching soccer in America. It's time for our two American "Train the Trainer" licensing organasations to become a more integral part of our soccer education. If they improved their model and changed some emulations to model better parts of FIFA's Euro scheme we could make substantial inroads. A society with a corrupt police force struggles..... At least here in our state, refereeing has educational and recruitment issues far exceeding those experienced by academies. A fraction of US World Cups television revenue stream could easily pay for development programs in those two areas.
Hello from Hawaii! Interesting thread you guys have going here, I would like to weigh in with my own opinion. Here on Oahu there are several different models of club soccer. Some have solely parents coaching, some have parents coaching with influence from club employees, some have "professional" coaches diagram a practice plan for their parent coaches, and others have solely professional coaches coaching their teams. Each model has its merits and flaws. We have an academy here in partnership with a private school and with Chelsea FC. As a result of our partnership with Chelsea we are expected to uphold relatively high standards in terms of coaching; meaning we are expected to more or less have professional staff coaching all of our teams. What makes a coach professional? I myself am relatively young and played up to the college level. I am licensed and have four years coaching experience, this is my full time job. Coaching is a tough gig, you wont find a full time job right away in it unless you are supremely experienced our have played at an extremely high level. For me it is a full time job, I give myself the time to develop correct practice plans, evaluate the development of players, and study the game to educate myself further (this is the same for all of our coaches here as well).
As we've seen with a few incidents in recent weeks, FIFA does not require this for the coaches at the World Cup....