Thanks a lot for posting this. Have not watched it all, but I am in just about total agreement with what is being put forth in the video.
Okay, I posted that last one before the magic wand of Brazil was waved as the solution to all of our problems. I'm going to pick apart some of the presentation: 1) Coaches shouting at our players is a problem, it inhibits creative play. In the scenes where the girls are playing Futsal, it is said it is just coaches and players present (audience is other teams and it is the middle of the work day). I could clearly hear an adult yelling at the players. So, that has to be a coach, right? 2) The only organized soccer they play until U10 is Futsal. Then we are watching u9/u10 beach soccer. Looks like 6v6. Less coaching, but the style of play does not match the controlled games taught with Futsal. 3) Also school soccer is called out as a 3rd option. While I like the point of there being variety of options available in Brazil (throw in street soccer to the ones above), it doesn't mix well with the upfront message that Brazil has a simple formula. And wait, Brazil has soccer schools for kids not good enough to make the youth teams of the pro clubs. All started by ex-players. How is this different from our model of soccer where the middle-class pays for training? Having said all of that, I do like the message of be quiet and let the kids play the game themselves. Parents need to be passive spectators and not part of the game. And at the end, they do admit you can't just copy Brazil - you have to analyze what is going on. 35 minutes long and I don't think it was a waste of my time.
For a counterargument on Brazil, read the article in June 2007's copy of FourFourTwo. Writes FourFourTwo, "Those who believe that playful football on the beaches explains why Brazil has exported 3,087 professional players in the last four years might like to reconsider. In fact, it is the result of hard work and a military discipline that cannot be found anywhere else in the world." The magazine then goes on to quote the "chief recruiter" for Flemengo's youth system, who says, "Take any player in the national team. Everyone has started in a football academy. As eight year olds. They are professional even before they become teenagers." The article then describes the rigors of the training, and the worries of the annual tryout process, at which time the existing players sweat over whether they will be cut. Including, yes, members of the recently graduated 8 year old class, who might be removed for better 9 year olds who have tried out. In response to that reality, the recruiter said, "If you don't have what it takes, then you're out. That's life." The journalist responded, for 8 year olds? The answer was, "What can I say? Life begins earlier in Brazil."
What I found interesting was the footage on the Zico Academy. You always hear about street soccer and Futsal. The kids live and breath soccer. They get it by osmosis. The 8 year olds in the Zico Academy (supposed to be equivalent of our rec leagues, at $50 a month) are very well regulated and in nice uniforms. They said there were 600 kids in the Zico Academy. That is big money out here and must really be so when compared to the slums. Don't kid yourself that soccer isn't a big business over there.
Flamengo has 50 academies for U8s throughout Brazil. Apparently, Flamengo is still kicking itself for cutting a 13 year old Ronaldo at a tryout (!) and is casting a very, very wide net. The magazine discusses a bidding war for an 8 year old between three major clubs. One club offered the father more than the minimum annual wage as payment if the boy would go to its academy. Another offered free health and dental care. According to the magazine, salaries for 10 year olds can be twice as high, more than a nurse makes in Brazil. Naturally, the pressure on these kids is huge. My friend's kid said it was palpable when he played Argentinian teenagers while on an ODP tour. Our kids are so innocent in comparison. They are playing for fun. The Argentinian boys were playing for life. In many cases, if they got cut, their families would lose health care benefits.
I am reminded of the old Spanish Inquisition skit by Monty Python. "Our weapon is fear. ... And surprise. Make that, Our two chief weapons are fear and surprise. And a fanatical devotion to the pope. OK, our THREE weapons are ..." Brazil does it all by street soccer. Just one thing. OK, then there is beach soccer; make it TWO things. And school soccer. OK, their THREE secrets are ... Oh, and well-organized futsal teams and leagues. OK, their FOUR secrets are ... And then there are the professional academies. And, soccer schools to help you break into the academies. OK, the SIX secrets to success in Brazil are .... Yet, we can safely predict that ten years from now, someone will post here that street soccer explains everything about Brazilian youth development.
Isn't the point, Brazil has many parts that we lack? So how do we start to add the other pieces of the puzzle? What can we do personally?
FourFourTwo's thesis is that you can't be Brazil if you are a first-world country. Because being Brazil means demanding that 10s of 1000s of young childen bet everything they have on being a professional soccer player, with the downside being zero preparation for any other existence and abject poverty for the 90%+ of children who fail in this dream. Not saying the magazine is right, saying that is the argument. The magazine basically says, give up, England or the U.K. can't be Brazil, and it's a darn good thing, too. I mean, we can't put out divers the way that Communist China can identify potential divers at the age of 6, remove them from their familes, and train them in a spartan existence for a decade ... but should we complain about that? Do we really wish to embrace the alternative?
I see what you're getting at, but it's pretty different in that the pre-professional football/basketball path in the U.S. leads directly through college. Such that disadvantaged athletic hopefuls are much likelier to attend college than are equally disadvantaged nonathletes.
I believe we have that problem to some degree. Many impoverished kids chase the dream of sports to the exclusion of academic focus, etc. Many finish high school and do not get a college scholarship and find that they earned a high school diploma that is not worth what a grammar school diploma was worth a century ago. The problem is mitigated somewhat by the minority who do play in college, but it seems obvious that it truly is a minority of high school athletes who play in college. So, for the majority, sports last until age 18 and there is no future in them beyond that, just like in Brazil.
To a degree. But it would stretch reality to make too strong a comparison. Our 9 or 12 year old basketball hopefuls aren't training (almost) daily in academies, they're not identified by public and thorough talent searches, their families are not receiving cash payments or health care benefits, and they're not attached to school sports programs that require a certain grade point average, and which pay at least lip service to to the notion of college preparation.
But my post was in reference to Clark's that there is more than street soccer explaining Brazilian success. Professional clubs are only 1 part, no doubt an important part, but regardless of the age kids enter, the other parts contribute to the availability of 10 year olds capable of entering the professional clubs at that age (although Goncalves indicates they can enter at 12 and most later than that). Certainly we can do more to replicate the other parts. As far as children being sent from their families its not exactly a foreign idea even in the US. I had acquaintances, English South Africans who had imigrated to the US, who sent all their 4 children abroad to boarding schools to get a "proper" education at the age of 10. (Never could figure out why they couldn't receive a proper education here in the US AND still live at home, but that's beside the point.) Sending a kid away at 10 for that kind of education is culturally acceptable to them (but not to me). Serious female gymnast are sent away for residential training when they are quite young and their parents pay for it. I know you'll say the gymnast will still receive an education, but are you saying the Brazilian kids don't? Are they giving up the opportunity for an education to go to the clubs? Somehow I doubt many of those poor kids are giving up much in terms of education. I also think it may be a falacy to assume that all kids that enter the Brazilian club system are motivated by poverty. Kaka would obviously be an example of one that was not.
The magazine acknowledges that, but says that he is the only high-level exception in the past 20 years (since Socrates). Actually, my take from reading the article is that we're already taking from Brazil what we can. Small-sided games at a young age to develop skills, and a nasty, competitive edge from a young age as delivered by the more ambitious of the youth clubs ... player cuts, benching kids, etc. Teach them to be tough from a young age. How to confront failure, and overcome it.
Dexter Manley. Graduated from college and couldn't read. Bryant Reeves. Graduated from college and could read. Or am I just exposing my bias against OSU? I'll throw out some countering names: Lee Roy Selmon. Had a successful career after Pro football. Dave Sieger. Had a successful academic career after college. Or am I just exposing my bias for OU? And if you look, my argument is not based on race.
Yes, I understand. There are some enablers out there among the academic institutions. I do hold out hope that they are the minority, but there is a point to what you write.
And Rai and Leonardo in 1994 according to a Guardian article on Kaka. That tells us how many have come through to the top international level, but not how many enter or end up at a lower level. Geesh John. Let's replicate the positive not the negative. We're still missing the technical creativity and that hard edge you describe comes too early thus hindering our ability to develop it. We're putting the cart before the horse, because we don't have street soccer, beach soccer, futsal, or quality school soccer in which to develop it outside of our ridgid soccer club system.