I'm not being difficult here, are you familiar with open and closed systems? If not that's where I have to begin, General Systems Theory. It's the base line of processes. As to your 8 year old and 2nd law, I would address him or her with that in the background. It is the difference between the two systems above. Example I would avoid definitive terms like this does do that, hardened cause and effect. IMO it's what lies under guided discovery, a level of uncertainty and experimentation. Bottom line is decision making. That involves what your 8 year old observes, how they orientate to it, what decision they arrive at and what action they take. This has a lot of feed back loops. Each of these elements have their own supporting and contradictory theories and models. Thats what makes this interesing to me. The argument that they have to create a certain set of building blocks before going on, what I'll call the instutuonalized developmental model for the moment, has some real problems.
You've stated a lot of things, but you've not once yet said what you would show or tell 8yo players about this.
I am lost. What relevance does learning theory have to a coaches' decision between teaching a team a "playmaking" style of play versus a "counterattacking" style of play? (For the record I believe the question presented by the original poster is a false delimma.) At most it influences how you teach a subject, not the choice of subject to teach. I say "at most" because the situation as it pertains to youth player development is actually very complex. We are developing individuals now who will be part of a yet unidentified group to be developed years in the future. And the trainers of individuals now will not be the future group trainers. The situation is far too complicated to be represented by a single model, even for academic purposes. There is the question of viewpoint and what process are you are modeling. Match play, training, players actions, individual behavior, group behavior, coaches actions? I actually think the area is interesting academically, but I think it has little practical value to a youth coach devising a training plan. Especially when you consider that expert players cannot really pass on their expertise verbally. Often expert players are not even conscious of what they are doing or why during a match. Add to that the creative aspect of the game and it is more akin to developing an artist than a scientist. Who is going to verbalize the expertise we are trying to impart? So much of the expertise is subjective opinion. Competency is demonstrated by actual performance.
Here you go, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Under-8s-Complete-Course/dp/159164061X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299542318&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: Coaching Under 8s: A Complete Coaching Course (9781591640615): Tino Stoop, Paul Driesen, Jan de Koning, Dave Brandt: Books[/ame] Looks like I'm out of my depth here so I'll just say goodbye and, "Thanks for all the fish."
After the link to the book, I am even more confused. It appears to be a rather conventional introductory guide, discussing coaching methods and age appropriate training. It is a translation of course so I wonder how much is lost in the translation. Example: "A soccer coach must try to introduce his players to as many soccer drills as possible." The context was the use of circuit training. While I have no doubt that the translation is literal, I doubt that the translation reflects the author's message. From what I could see there was no discussion of learning theory or team tactics. The examples of training objectives that I could see all dealt with skill development or small group tactics (which I think of as individual vice team tactics). I can't even decide if the link was meant sarcastically or not. His text certainly was sarcastic. Part of the confusion may be due to differences in terms of art between fields. Team tactics in soccer is a term of art. In social psycology "group" is a term of art. A social psychologist could think of "team" as equivilent to "group," and then not recogonize the distinction between small group tactics and team tactics as we use the terms in coaching soccer. For instance my preference for the old term "individual tactics" reflects bias from my early training in sociology in how I see the game played. General work in the field in team sports is going to focus on small sides to simplify the problem. Then we have a problem with age differences. I attended university 40 years ago. Psychology as a science has really not had much credibility until very recently.
So, I've got to buy a book to understand what you're talking about? Goodness, I hope you're not the same BAC guy from the youtube videos and BSMF website. He seemed to at least know how to explain himself.
If I understand DutchViz - and maybe I don't, my head hurts - I think what he's trying to talk about is the difference between on the one hand coaching the game as a mechanistic series of decision-action loops e.g. "If the back closes down on your left, look for the outlet on your right, if both left and right are closed, look for the back pass" etc. and on the other hand coaching the game to see it and respond to it as an organic flow of space and pressure. It seems to me that the first is more readily teachable, both for teacher and student, but that the second is where true greatness comes from. That would fit with his whole Douglas Hofstadter Goedel-Escher-Bach groove. Still not too sure where he was going with the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
I could agree with that - except it doesn't explain why he thinks you should teach kids counterattacking and possession styles at age 8. It also doesn't explain why he disagrees with Ranova's opinion. You can teach principles of play that lend themselves to the application and future understanding of larger concepts. Sure. But, you're not teaching those larger concepts. There's a difference.
I could not resist commenting (because you really stated the difference well) that this difference is why there is such a problem in bringing in parent volunteers to coach, who are not trained soccer coaches. In the military for instance the mechanistic approach is exactly how they teach military skills (for good reason), not just clearing a jammed weapon, but tactical things like how to react to an ambush. The volunteers are bringing what works for American football or the military and using what they know best. In my experience I have met far more coaches with military and American football backgrounds than coaches with K-8 teaching backgrounds (which in my mind would be outstanding). (I am not saying all military members or former football players are bad soccer coaches--I have seen some outstanding ones.)
Don't know about all the developmental psychology, but here's my two cents on the original post. I'm not an expert, but I am a huge student of the Dutch system and training for Total Futbol. And I think rca2 was on the right line of thinking that position-less training is best to develop players. The whole system of playmaking vs. counter attacking soccer I think does come later and it's based on the abilities of the players at your disposal. But the development of youth players I think has to come from SSG's that are position-less. I will admit that I don't have a ton of real-world experience teaching this to ULittles, but at least with the U15 and up players I work with we even focus heavily on SSG's and teaching players to make decisions based on where they are in relation to the ball more than their position in the line. The foundation of the Dutch system is 4v4, and of Ajax (just went to a coaching seminar where an assistant from the Ajax system came over and talked about this). Teaching players what to do in relation to where they are to the ball has major "real game" value to the big game. The game is fluid, or it's supposed to be, and if we train players more about their responsibilities when they are the person providing width, rather than I'm a left midfielder, they are better prepared to play the big game. We teach our players the four primary roles a player has in relation to the ball (provide penetration, width, support, or connecting the two sides of the field) because at any given moment in a game they could find themselves in any one of these four scenarios.