My impression (based upon an admitedly small sample of U10 players) is that the kids that are really passionate about the game find a way to play away from structured practices. Sometimes it is with a friend or sibling after school, sometimes during recess at school, sometimes just fooling around with the ball if no one else is around to play with. It is also my impression that this is more common now than five or ten years ago.
There's no point in trying to separate the importance of winning from youth development. This is competition and competitors are trying to win, that's what they are there for. To me, the question is, are the coaches teaching them to win via shortcuts, or how to be winners? You can see a team emphasize everything to do with physical superiority and not teach technique, and gain some success through this. But this string will run out at some point. If you teach proper technique and tactics, well that team has a chance to win AND to keep winning. I think that's where some of our coaches have fallen short over time, but I think there is a definite improvement taking place in this area. It takes time to root out some old ostriches, but things are definitely getting better. So we don't need to feel guilty aboout being interested in youth championships, etc... - but we can look at that as a largely separate arena from the development of individual players. To me, as a fan, they're both worth following.
The US is still ahead of Europe in basketball, but the gap is closing. Having said that, if the US sent its best team to the World Championship, we would have cleaned up. No one in the world can stop Shaq, for example. On a similar note, the US team only had a few practices before this tournament. Not enough to really be ready. Brazil is 5 times World Champion. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they are doing something right.
Brazil's Secrets Yes, but what? One answer is that Brazil plays more street ball than anybody else, and so therefore has better skills and so therefore it wins. Well, that theory could be right ... I did think that Brazil's team had the best first touch in the World Cup. On the other hand ... per capita, is Brazil really better than Holland, Ireland, or Sweden? I don't have the exact numbers, but Brazil has something like 10 x the population of Holland, 40 x the population of Ireland, and 20 x the population of Sweden. Ten Hollands or 20 Swedens ... man, that would be some kind of team! So perhaps a better answer is that despite its street ball Brazil isn't really churning out more talent per capita than Holland or Sweden. Rather, it's simply the largest soccer-crazy country in the world. Or maybe there's even another answer. I mean, let's think about that decisive first goal in the World Cup final. Rivaldo shoots, Kahn drops, Ronaldo pounces. Required no footskills whatsoever ... all about being in the right place. So why was Ronaldo mysteriously in the right place when all these other highly paid professionals were ball watching? You got me. I've watched the tape several times, and I'm still puzzled. But it's not clear to me that "street ball" is the answer. It doesn't take a genius to figure that Brazil is doing a lot right. It might take a genius, however, to determine exactly which lessons we should extract from Brazil's success.
Love of the Game My 9-year-old didn't come from a soccer family. And he didn't grow up in Brazil. So except for idly kicking a ball around the house on occasion he never really encountered the game until age 5, in the stereotypical rec league program. Where they learned to trap and kick a ball. He loved the program. So did most of the other kids ... at least the ones that had some hope of being players. (The nonathletic kids were less enthusiastic, as is usually the case with team sports.) I give this kind of program -- the very program that takes so many bad raps -- full credit for turning my son onto the game. Had there been no rec league, he'd be playing a different sport. Now, I will admit, if that rec league had been not only the starting point but the ending point, I'd be singing a different tune. Rec league is very limiting for good athletes who want to become strong players. But happily, there are many levels of youth soccer up from rec league ... levels that have given my son the opportunity not only to get better training but (at least as important) to meet other soccer-crazy kids with whom he can play. Yes, I do think that his development is hampered by the fact that no kids in the immediate neighborhood are especially interested -- or proficient -- in the sport. So yes, I do think that culturally, the U.S. has a ways to go before it can offer the same "street development" opportunity than one can get in Europe or Brazil. But I don't blame the rec leagues. On the contrary, without the rec leagues the pool of potential players would be greatly diminished. Sample size of 1, and I'm sure some rec league experiences are awful. But since the rec leagues get insulted a lot, I thought somebody should pipe up and tell the other side of the story.
Re: Brazil's Secrets Brazil has been champion 5 times, yes, but that success has to be understood in an historical context. In the 60s and 70s, Brazil were far and away TECHNICALLY superior to other nations. Pound for pound, they were better on the ball than anybody else. That gap has now closed -- and closed significantly. Is Ronaldhino THAT much better technically than, say, Totti or Zidane? Doubtful. For Brazil, the last three World Cups also have to be understood in context. In 94, the victory was by the slimmest of margins. In 98, a quarterfinal or semi-final exit was a distinct possibility. In '02, the draw was their friend, and allowed them to gell as a team --something they had a VERY hard time doing in qualifying. Even then, Germany took the game to the Selecao in the first 20 minutes. Five world cups, yes, no taking away this extraordinary accomplishment. But does that reflect consistent superiority over the decades spawned from some outstanding formula for development? Or a lot of superiority early on, and then a narrowing of the gap, while still eeking out victories? The international game has changed. Big Phil knew it, and acted on it. He knew the beautiful flowing football of the 70s and 80s was over. Instead, he opted for high pressure defense all over the field, especially in the midfield, and forwards who were expected to be EQUALLY aggressive on defense. Rivaldo and Ronaldo were expected to play balls out 90 minutes, getting on top of defenders and scrumming REALLY hard. That Big Phil asked two of the world's most skillful players to operate that way speaks volumes. Here is the headline that COULD have accompanied the Brazil win: Ronaldo seals victory with 2nd goal after his aggressive defense forces turnover Not a lot of drama in that headline, and hardly a reflection of the "beautiful" game, but get used to THAT style of play in the international game in the forseeable future, where work rate, aggressiveness, and physicality trump style and skill. Because EVERYONE is skillful today.
This post actually makes one of the best points. In the US, girls and boys are trained virtually identically in the sport by coaches who have similar credentials. How is it then that US women's teams are consistently the best in the world while US men's teams are not? The answer is football (American that is). If Ronaldo had grown up in the US, he'd have most likely been a tailback or wide receiver, as American football is significantly the more economically rewarding sport for the best athletes. The late Walter Payton's son, now a linebacker at the University of Miami, was an outstanding youth soccer player and athlete out of Chicago before switching to football. There is no similar competition for athletes in the women's game, which explains the realtive success of the US on the world stage.
Football vs. Football The Chicago Tribune had an article this weekend about a Notre Dame football player (I think the school was Norte Deam, might have been another major power) who was a key player for a national championship youth team -- the Nomads, out of San Diego. Basically, the kid was itching to ditch soccer for the prestige sport of football, but his mama wouldn't let him do that until he turned 15 or so. At which point he did, and instantly became a star. So yeah, this happens a lot.
Re: Brazil's Secrets A high football talent per capita rating is not required for football (soccer) success. You just need 20 great players and forget the rest. Naturally, having a lot of good players to choose from helps. As far as Brazil, there were 4 basic components to their success: 1) Their players are very skilled and creative. Street ball is one road to that destination. There are others. 2) Their players are very good athletes, on the whole. 3) Their players got good experience playing in Europe, hence, they developed tactically. 4) Their coach installed a strong, defensive oriented system, just like in 1994. The first two points guarantee continued success. The last two points added to the first two make for championships.
Re: Re: Brazil's Secrets Ronaldo is a phenomenonal athlete with unbelievable acceleration. That accounts for a lot of his success. Of course he is very skilled. But the acceleration separates him from Totti. Ronaldo is at a higher skill level than Totti, IMHO, and Zidane is of a similar level, but they are very different types of players. Zidane is probably the most complete player on the planet. And Ronaldo is the most effective because of his athleticism.
So Karl, Brazil wins 2 of the past 3 cups, reaches the finals in the other, and their domination is slipping? I have no problems agreeing with your premise that the International Game has changed. But the point of this thread, if I understood it correctly, was that people who feel our kids cannot compete with other countries because they are overcoached and don't play enough pickup soccer are wrong. IMO, that point of view is not entirely wrong. Our kids DO need to play more street-soccer away from the all-seeing eyes of youth coaching, and Brazil is the perfect example of what can happen when you have more kids who play pickup soccer. That said, you still need to have coaches who can select the best players and drill fundamentals into their collective head to build a winner. It's a balance, and youth soccer in the US will struggle to compete with the Brazil's, Argentina's, and any UEFA country you want until our kids play more non-organized soccer.
Agree totally on the notion of balance between unstructured play and a coached environment. Of course, there are issues of the right kind of balance. My view has always been that up until age 12 or 13, kids should spend a vast majority of the time working on technical skills, and games, in contrast, are the arena to experiment -- ideally with zero psycholgical pressure -- on executing those skills. Pick up games, or unstructured scrimmages, are the ideal place to do this. It has always disturbed me, for example, that some states have State Cups for U11s and U12s. Silly, really. However, by a time a top level kid is 14 or 15, no matter what country he is in, he should be getting some fairly intense professional level coaching in a very structured environment. It would be arbitrary to put some percentage on it, but if it were, say 80% coaching/20% unstructured -- that might not be too far off the mark. As for Brazil, if you define "dominating" as getting to the finals in the last three cups, well, I guess, ipso facto, they are dominating. Yet if you define "dominating" as being SO far superior tactically or technically than your opponents -- as though you were playing a different game -- well that sort of Brazilian domination ended sometime in the 80s. That's not to begrudge their success, especially in '02, where it was well-earned.
i think its less about the type of soccer played and more about the amount of soccer played. as little kids, we americans go out and do our hour and a half practices twice a week. substantially that's all the time the kids spend with a ball on their foot. brazilian kids go play on the streets until the sun goes down. in the early years when kids can really develop touch and become comfortable on the ball, brazilian kids are playing for hours on end while American kids are getting 3 hours of practice and then doing whatever else they do. you want to improve the skill level, increase time on the ball.
I guess we pretty much agree on the rest, so what the hell, I'll nitpick a bit here. Brazil hasn't been "dominating" in World Cup play in the sense you present here since the 1960s. Even then their record was no more impressive than it has been in the last 3 cups. In the Jules Rimet era, Brazil set the soccer world on fire in 1958, capping an impressive tournament with a 5:2 drumming of Sweden. Again they won in 62, then failed to even advance from group play in 66. In perhaps the most impressive showing ever, Brazil launched the World Cup era by ripping the competition apart in Mexico in 1970. They were so dominating it is almost inexplicable, and if there is one tournament you should get old tapes of to watch "the beautiful game," this would be it. Having said this, West Germany and England were VERY good teams during these times, with especially the talented English squads being disappointments outside of their 66 title. In the 70s, Germany, Argentina, Italy, and Holland stepped into prominence and Brazil faded somewhat for a couple of decades until 1994. With so many more countries participating in the WC in recent years, and so many more countries playing very good soccer year after year, I would say that Brazil's runs have only been MORE impressive in the last three competitions. Perhaps their most impressive performance since 1970 was this year, when almost nobody pegged them for the finals. Brazil's ability to adapt their style while still incorporating their creativity and flair has a lot to do with recent success, and much of that creativity and flair is a derivative of millions of little Brazilian kid playing street soccer from the time they can walk.
Re: Re: Correction Yes, and I'd argue that more than any other sport basketball begs for parity because just five guys are on the court. Look no further than college sports as a great example. A small school like Wake Forest can have a great basketball program. All they need is a couple of really good recruits and some good role players around them and they can knock off the likes of UNC even if UNC has four or five future pros on their roster. By contrast Wake isn't about to knock off Miami in football. You need too many good athletes to compete. Soccer I suppose lies somewhere between the two extremes.
I agree that the Selecao's championships are impressive, and like you, I thought this year's was particularly noteworthy. But again, I think their recent success does not stem from them being THAT much technically superior to their opponents -- whether such technical virtuosity stems from street play or organized coaching, or some combination. Thirty years ago, you could say that; now, I don't think you can. There's a story I have heard that Garrincha once walked out to center circle with a ball at the beginning of a match, held it up to his opponents, and said, "Take a close look at this, because it's the last time you will see it." Those days are gone. Of course, they remain very technically adept, and apply that technique shrewdly, as you note. However, it was striking this year what Big Phil did. He was skewered by the press and public for abandoning, they thought, the "aesthetic" approach to play that typified Brazilian teams of the past. One Brazilian friend of mine told me the writers were apoplectic when he junked the traditional 4-4-2, and it's free flowing total football approach, in exchange for a high pressure, turnover-creating, 3-5-2, with a defensive oriented midfield and high-work rate forward play. In other words, Phil wasn't imposing the Brazilian system on the world's stage; he was, instead, adapating his play to the way OTHER nations are playing the game. It was a reactive approach. When you think about '94 and '98, their success came from the slimmest of margins. In '94, they were a Baggio mis-hit penalty kick from a second place medal. In '98, they could have just as easily lost to the Dutch. And in '02, had Phil not changed (and had the Selecao not had the excellent draw that they did), things could have turned out much different. Yes, they have had a remarkable run, but there is a very fine line between success and coming up short. It's my statistical bent (I am sure sure you are not surprised at that), but I believe that in closed-systems -- and international soccer is very much a closed-system -- regression towards the mean becomes the prevailing trend. This is especially true as player selection becomes more objective, training methods become more scientific, and videotape analysis of opponents become standard fare in preparation. The future of international soccer is one where individual player matchup opportunties, coupled with a defensive orientation based on high work-rate, trumps technique and aesthetics. This is a trend, by the way, that bodes well for the United States.
Something to Consider Yes and no. Let's take the evolution of the NBA as an example. (The analogy works for me, but feel free to disagree.) 1970 - The beautiful (NBA) game. No weightlifting, lower-pressure defenses, high aethestic value (unless you like dunks). 2002 - The athletes' game. Strength, toughness, fitness, the ability to play wall-to-wall in-your-face defense almost a mandatory. Endless coaching decisions about individual match-ups. Yet, at the end, who wins? Shaq and Kobe. Before them, Scottie and Michael. OK, it's a 5-man game instead of an 11-man game and that makes a difference. But I think the principle holds. The modern game demands fitness, high work rate, tactic discipline, etc. If you don't have those things, you don't win. But eventually, everybody realizes that and everybody gets those things. Then what decides who wins? The superstars, that's who ... the guys who turn their particular highly organized and professional team into the team that happens to be the best. Maybe we're saying the same thing ... I see the artist with great technique being a differentiator in the modern game. As long as that technique is coupled with equally good athleticism and discipline, that is.
Re: Something to Consider A 5-man game in a much more CONFINED space, I would add. Meanwhile, Shaq and Kobe BARELY made it to the finals, largely because the Kings had a player (Divac) who could actually match up halfway decently with Shaq. Had the Kings had all their weapons -- and some consistent officiating -- well, the issue of a Lakers' dynasty would be in doubt. In very high level international soccer, I think it is VERY difficult for one or two players to carry an ENTIRE team -- consistently -- over a series of games, or the course of a season. Maradona may be the last one to have done it -- even though Zidane arguably did it in ONE game, the big one, in '98. Not to take away Michael Jordan's supreme accomplishments, but basketball may be the only team sport where such a player COULD be that kind of difference maker consistently over the long term. In basketball, one player can sometimes control the "clutch" events -- in soccer, with its huge field and all those players, it's a lot lot harder. In soccer, one or two supreme talents are not enough -- and it's going to be REALLY hard to get 11 such guys. The superstars of course can be marked out, or avoided. Meanwhile, you can have that one great superstar, but if your left back has weaknesses, your opponents can exploit that ruthlessly. In basketball, it's much easier to hide weaknesses.
Karl, I think the world took notice long before 2002 that times were changing. Carlos Alberto Parreira, the 1994 Brazil coach, was blistered in the Brazilian press for his method of play, particularly in the midfield where Dunga and Silva were duel DMids. Although Romario and Bebeto were never going to defend, everyone else did, and gone was the free-flowing style of Brazilian past. The criticism of Parreira only intensified after the ugly final. Brazil will always long for the glory days, and who knows - maybe the game will take a shift for the offensive in the future. For now, the game's major advances have been made defensively and athletically. On the whole, I do not believe that the best players of today are any more skilled than the best of yesteryear. But they are more athletic. They are stronger. And they are more analytic in their approach to the game - as they will continue to be as more and more technology is applied to breaking down soccer events for a deeper analysis. Still, I believe that US players have to raise their level of skill to match their athleticism and workrate. When that happens, the US will be a world soccer power. The good thing is, you CAN teach skill. Take a country like Spain, where gifted and skilled players abound, but as a whole lack great athletes. That lack of athleticism, I believe, is the primary reason why Spain will continue to falter when the Cup comes around.
OK. I'll chime in here. Yes, the "gap" is closing in both basketball and footie. But (rhetorical flourish coming), did you guys actually watch the Cup this summer? Brazil was far and away the best team. Period. Cupcake draw? Sure. But you can't fault them for that. Man for man, they had the most skill and physicality of any team. My brother and I had a little game of what non-Brazilian would start for Brazil, based upon performance in the Cup. Try it. At best you'll get two or three without contest. Ronaldo -- eh, no one. Rivaldo -- eh, no one. Ronaldinho -- Ballack perhaps Roberto Carlos -- eh, no one. Cafu -- eh, Danny Mills (kidding)? Gilberto Silva -- Wenger got the steal of the decade Lucio -- no one. Edmilson -- ok, here we got Alpay or Ferdinand. Kleberson -- a couple here, but the guy is young. Denilson -- a better left winger at the Cup? No. Marcos -- Kahn, etc. Roque Junior -- a couple here In sum, Brazil had the most talent by a long stretch. Let's not down play their superiority in 2002.
Actually, I'd take Ronaldahino over Ballack. I don't think anyone would dispute, generally, what you say here -- thought I think Roque Junior was a weakness for this team, and was actually attacked quite effectively by the Germans in the first 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile, I think Kleberson and Edmilson are pretty much interchangeable parts. But don't you think it's telling, that once he installed these guys, the team really started to click? How is it that the two "non-marquee" players were so instrumental in the success of the Selecao? Again, the talent there was substantial, but it's really a matter of degree and context. The Selecao was awfully good, and position by position, more or less, they had better players. But were they THAT much better? Moreover, and even more important, I would argue that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts, as good a those individual parts may be. Give some credit here to the coach, and his scheme, his ability to adjust to the situation, to get these stars to play a certain way, and to fend off the barrage of criticism and second guessing from press and public alike. In the end, superior players in today's international game are not enough. Individual talent and technical ability alone won't win medals anymore. Even if you had the best 11 in the world, it can be screwed up -- or deployed to ultimate effect, as it was in J/K for Brazil.
The idea of two stars being enough to win a championship in the NBA is relatively new. Even going back just to the 80's, the Celtics, Lakers and Pistons were MUCH more complete teams than any of the teams in the 90's. Look at the 86 Celtics team, there are going to be 4 hall of famers and one who will just miss out. For some reason, those type of complete teams are not needed any more. I could not disagree with this more. This myth has to stop, as it keeps getting spread to easily on Big Soccer. More people attend soccer games in the US than attend basketball games ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD (excluding the US). MLS is also MUCH closer in skill level to a European soccer league than ANY european basketball league could ever be to the NBA. And to compare economics is even more out of whack (especially with european soccer facing an enormous financial crisis). Andy
I'm not disagreeing with you, but do you have any stats that support your view? Obviously, there are no stats for skill level, but how about relative attendance levels and player salaries?
We run threads like this all the time on the B&M board. You can do a search if you like. Most of the best European Basketball leagues all average less than half of what MLS averages. Someone posted recently that Italy (I think they highest attended basketball league in Europe) does not have a single arena larger than 12k. I am not even going to touch the player salaries. It is way too obvious that the spread between NBA players and european players is MILES wider than MLS to any of the big European Leagues, all of whom salaries are now dropping due to the financial armeggedon that is hitting the sport in Europe. Andy
I have to disagree with you just a bit here. Skill-wise (and I'm talking about dribbling, passing, shooting and positioning) European hoops is very close to the nba, but they are FAR behind in athleticism. To me, MLS is farther behind the Euro leagues skill-wise (1st touch, dribbling, shooting, positioning, etc) than the Euro hoops is to US hoops. MLS is also behind in athleticism, but I do think (and hope) that is changing.