USSF has appointed April Hendricks Women's Technical Director and Jill Ellis Women's Development Director last January. This year two more full time USSF WNT technical positions are being filled (U17 coach Albertin Montoya and U20 coach Steve Swanson). Here is a link to the story: http://www.ussoccer.com/News/U-20-W...il-Gulati-Jill-Ellis-and-April-Heinrichs.aspx April Hendricks is well known as a former WNT player and coach as well as U Va women's coach. Jill Ellis has been a WNT team coach at every level and well known college coach for many years. She immigrated to the US at age 15, with her family including her father Coach John Ellis. Carin Gabbara is a member of the USSF technical committee along with Kevin Payne, the WNT and MNT coaches and Tab Ramos. I don't think the timing of this press release is coincidence. The folding of the women's professional league is a set back for development for women at the senior level. USSF recognizes that the level of play internationally is above college level. They recognize that the USSF needs to take aggressive action to raise the level of play from the bottom up in order to maintain the USA's dominance in the women's international competitions. The article discusses how their immediate focus is going to be on tactical and technical training for pre-teens at the club level-- "Jill and I actually talk about our model 20 years ago, which was physical, psychological, tactical and technical. Our goal in our communications has been to flip the model completely and put a greater focus on technique, tactics, the physical piece we will never ignore because the physical piece is where the gap has been closed the last five to 10 years, and the psychological piece we think we’re great at and we will also never ignore. But we really need to spend grassroots time and effort in skill acquisition years and developing young players and most importantly resetting the button on our coaches’ focus. Coaches are focused on teams, and we want them to be focused on individual development.”
Great post. But if I read correctly they state that where the world has closed the gap in the last 5-10 years is on the physical side?? Not true at all. France and Japan may have improved in that area, but where they improved the most (and, frankly, passed our women) is on the technical and tactical sides. Maybe I'm misreading that statement because the rest of their comments do seem to acknowledge what I say above. At least someone is finally starting to get it. But will all things US Soccer, it will have to find its way to the lowest levels and the grassroots, otherwise it's all hollow talk. Good timing for the post, rca2.
I usually comment on stuff like this, but not sure what else there is to say. Another positive step, but one of undiscernible impact. Again, the main implementation is at the grass roots and these higher ups have no way effective way of influencing those that really need to hear the gospel (inexperienced, never played soccer before coaches).
Elessar78, I know that you are focused on skill acquisition during the early years, but think of the clubs and coaches you face. How many are focused on developing winning teams for U8, U10, and U12 levels? I don't think we can fairly blame the problem solely on ignorant volunteer coaches. I can think of one very effective step in the right direction: Withhold USSF sanction of all tournament play for ages below U14. If I was actually executing the change, I would phase it in gradually. An immediate stop to all tournament play below U10, following by eliminating U10 play next year and U12 play two years after that. I would also change current USSF regulations so that players below U14 were required to be registered to clubs rather than teams. I would also not allow "festivals" for the same age groups that were based on matches played by organized teams, whether results were recorded or not. There are alternatives. The festivals could be run on a SSG basis using unorganized teams with players competing on an individual basis for recognition. That would have clubs competing with each other for bragging rights based on individual player ability and hopefully encourage clubs to develop their player talent rather than acquire them through "tryouts." The current team/league system is fine for U14 and above. I see it as a setback for U-Littles.
I think you are reading something into the statement that isn't there. If April Hendricks and Jill Ellis say the world has closed the gap on the physical side (in the women's game), I have to believe them. Who is better positioned in the world to know? What you are incorrectly reading into this is that they don't see that certain countries have made great strides recently in improving the technical and tactical aspects as well. They are concerned about all aspects of the game. Japan's improvement in particular is an indicator that a systematic emphasis on improving U-Little training can have a significant impact at the senior level. What you need to remember is that when you talk about the desire to make a big impact on technical and tactical, you have to talk about U-Littles which is the stage when the fundamentals are learned which is the basis of all further development. That is why they shifted from the mental and physical aspects to talking about the technical and tactical in the context of U-Littles without further commenting on the physical and metal aspects. I am sure they have improvement plans to address those areas, but not at the U-Little level. The other thing I find significant is that this U-Little focus is not on "elite" players. The focus on elite players comes later. This strategy presumes that current mechanisms (ODP, college and club soccer) will identify the elite players at U14 and above. At the elite level you select players with with superior mentality and give them physical training appropriate for their age. One thing for us to remember is that U14 is more important for the women's game as they mature faster. You want to be able to identify and promote appropriate players to the full WNT pool as early as 15 or 16. To a certain extent this can be done by playing up, but that will only work so far.
I was thinking about the "evil empires" (god I sound like Pete Bond) and for all the negative impact they have on youth soccer, I think they know what they're supposed to do but just choose not to do it. Their incentives are in other places and for the most part they know how to teach skill acquisition. Witholding USSF sanctions I don't think will work. The top teams around me don't play in any USSF affiliated league anyway.
I think it will have an impact for three reasons. 1st, its aimed at tournaments including state cups, not leagues so it shouldn't hurt USSF registrations. This will have an important pyschological impact in eliminating state cup competitions for U-Littles. 2nd, its giving the commercial promoters something to sell instead of the tournaments--festivals based on individual competition. Again its an important pyschological impact. 3rd, sanctioned events have priority for USSF referee assignments. An important point for tournament matches. One festival concept would be to have the events award prizes (blue, red, yellow badges for instance) recognizing levels of achievement idealing sorting the participants into quarter segments, but avoiding a zero sum game (consider martial arts belts for example). Maybe the "top" club in town had all its players earn blue or red badges. And so on. Being able to wear festival badges on uniforms would be an incentive.
Montoya may be the most interesting part of the "realignment". He coached the FC Gold Pride for two years and they played probably the best club soccer I've seen in the women's game, which is admittedly very little.