Sami, It's rare that we get a poster that can give us a different perspective of youth football. Do you mind sharing what you know? What are youth players taught and at what ages? Problems? Overall, I know very little about Finland. Jari Litmanen, Kimi Raikonnen, great/fantastic/best school systems and teachers.
I can say a little bit about Norway... Not Finland, but not far away. Kid soccer in Norway is mostly parent run. You have parent team managers and parent coaches. In my club a few teams have paid coaches because there are no parents available to do the job. These paid coaches are typically junior players. Teams are formed from social groups. In our club each school has a boy team. There are fewer girls playing so there is only one girl team per age group in our club. The Norwegian football association forbids creating teams based on skill level. Kids of all levels are supposed to play in the same team. This has been the subject of intense debate the past few years, and a few parent run teams are said to violate this rule. But mostly this is respected. The quality of coaching for parent run teams vary a lot. One team can have a parent coach that is a former elite player, or even elite coach, the next may have one with little soccer background or little teaching experience. Parent coaches who takes a child coaching course are taught to have practices with many ball touches and little queues. Some clubs have a soccer academy where kids can go after school. Here they get coaching by qualified coaches. These academies do not have teams, only practices. The players will usually be member of a parent run team as well, and play matches with this team. At age 13 there are is a change. Now players can be selected for first team and second team. More clubs have paid coaches. The game gets more serious. As everywhere there is a lot of players quitting soccer at age 13 to 16... Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Had a friend move from England to the US recently and echoed same sentiments. Most youth teams are parent-coached and coaches are volunteers. I think the vast majority (it has to be right?) is the same here in the US (volunteer vs paid). If the player is good enough to be picked up by a pro academy then the academy picks up the tab. The main difference seems to be that in-between stage in the US. Rec/travel > Club > Pro Academy. Club is where you have coaches paid by the parents. Interesting how they keep all skill levels together.
More interesting is the respect for the 'local custom.' I suppose our capitalistic search for better/the best we go from local leagues, to regional leagues, USYSA-affiliated or US Club Soccer, the new better alternative, etc. Really, it sounds mostly the same. That and there seems to be more grass-root local knowledge for coaching than in many parts of the US. I started as a volunteer coach who is technically a paid coach (Though I feel more volunteer, the pay is nice, but is by no means earth-shattering).
I think with the spread of information so easy nowadays, there's going to be more homogeneity in what is taught globally. My English friend did say that he was impressed by what he saw here. Kids were better technically and he praised the coaching—this coming from a guy who was a former pro (lower levels) and whose kid was in Man City's academy as a GK (pre teen). He's out in the west coast.
Wow... Most of our soccer is guided by clubs and behind that we have Finland soccer union (or how do you say it in English?) witch give guidelines to all clubs, how to practice in age that and that... We try to create good players here And solid way to coach kids so our national team have learn same way to play from the day one. Well known clubs have few pay coach on their list and lots of old players coaching (parents). Soccer union educate coaches. First level is free, then is cost some money. Usually clubs are paying these educations to all coaches. Most of our coach in Finland are parents, educated, who have also played soccer for many years. Many times adults coach even their own child is adult, they just love to coach (some love to use power or humiliate players). Some coach suck and some live on soccer.. I think one bottom reason is to do something. Many men in Finland can´t stay still, so they got to do something. Some want to be next Mourinho, some just like to be close to loved hobby. Like everywhere in world, we want to have respect and some fun thing to do. Link to our union aducation: http://www.palloliitto.fi/palloliitto/koulutus-0/valmentajakoulutus Can´t find that paper on web, where our union tell what should do on different ages, when is the best time to learn different things. I don´t think that is so different that your, what I have read here or coaches have told me. I coach only mental side, and I don´t want to do coach like normal coaches do Have done that with 6 year old, that was only playing with the ball, enjoying the "game". (dodgeball and other fun stuff). Sometimes branch from ground and that was a gun for shooting some other players. Sometimes they talk a bout penis or other "dirty" stuff Short version... ok to you? Want to know something else? -Sami
I think fun is loosing from our soccer in Finland. Clubs take things so seriously and want to win win and win. Professional coaches try to make teams better and better and try to beat other clubs so seriously, that they forget to have fun.. Other problem is the money. Clubs collect lots of money from parents to buy fancy clothes, not having fun with the ball.. Not every kid in Finland have opportunity to play on team, it is so expensive to some of us. Hockey is more expensive, lot more ! On big picture there is some problems on our mental side, we cant win games. Our self-esteem is bad. We don´t know how to have fun on field. We don´t have to play for living, so we just have one hobby, soccer. We have half of our year snow on the ground so kids can´t play soccer year thru, as much they would like to. Lots of kids play hockey here. One big problem is players lost.. When teenagers reach age 15 to 17 they stop playing. They have too many practices on top of "high school" and girls... Our kids teens want earn money and there is so few in Finland who can live playing soccer or sports over all.
In the past the US generally did likewise. Kids were not divided by skill level until after U10. Over the last 20 years this changed as the "pay to play" clubs and U-little tournaments became an industry. Essentially they took the teen model and applied it to U-Little soccer. IMO player development suffered because of the change. More emphasis on winning and teams, less emphasis on teaching players fundamentals and a love of sports. One of the worst developments is tryouts for U-Littles. Before, travel coaches watched U10 games and selected players on that basis.
Union is a correct translation but we usually refer to it as a national association or federation. In the US union is more commonly used to refer to employee collective bargaining organizations. Examples: Our national federation is the USSF. The MLS players have a union.
There is huge soccer tournament coming this summer, over 1000 teams playing there, from many countries. You can watch some games live in internet, so you may see how we play here.. I think like last year they will show games from different ages. http://www.helsinkicup.fi/en/home/
Such an interesting question that i had to register to answer in this thread. For a foreigner, the main thing to know about is the fact that in Finland, as opposed to most European countries, football is NOT the sport number one. Not even close. Maybe number two, but by a margin comparable to football's status in US or Canada. In Finland, icehockey is the only way to go, if you are talented in sports and dream of professionality. Ok, you can name Litmanen and Hyypiä, but the amount of money circulating in icehockey is maybe tenfold, probably even more, compared to football. There are many reasons for this, climate, historical success and money and time invested after successes, but this is the situation, there is no way to deny it. And it's a bit of a feedback loop. So the football culture is very thin and for example most Finnish people dont understand anything about football tactics, when watching international games. They understand about hockey. Finnish football union tries to do things, but it is financially constrained and player material is also limited, because icehockey is the default choice. Also a random parent that would like to coach his kid's age group locally is probably better informed about icehockey than football. Even in Finnish League, the highest level, not all players are professional. Some of them have "real jobs". I think this indicates the situation.
But to answer the original question: -Football coaching in Finland is such amateurish and behind from the big countries, that i don't think there is much to learn, at least for adults or young players. -Football union published its new coaching guidelines two weeks ago (9.5.2016). If I have understood their spirit right, it is one of kid's ownership of his learning, individualized training and homework, differentiation and developing the individual. "Ownership of learning" happens to be a buzzword in education around the world right now and seems to gain ground in many sports too. The underlying idea in this choice, in my interpretation, is that we don't have too many talents and team levels are often low, so every individual has to be developed to his potential with individual timetable and individual requirements. Then hopefully they form better teams or (more likely) have a chance to play abroad. Ownership of learning -methods have been very effective in school classrooms and icehockey junior coaching. (Finland won both U18 and U20 World Champs this year and lost the mens final to Canada.) This does not mean early specialization in a sport or in a role in the game, but differentiation of practice depending on the individual -Generally, I think Horst Wein's Developing Youth Football Players has the same philosophy as Finnish school. (Keeping in mind the developmental phase of the kid, giving only problems when they are ready for them, only "preschooling" before the age of 7, creativity and problem solving valued.)
It is a shame that the athletic movements are so different in skating and soccer. Hockey's fast pace and fluid style of play is great experience. I grew up in Michigan at a time when hockey was the only team sport before age 8. My friends were almost skating before they were walking. As a teenager, I used to skate laps at the outdoor rinks instead of run in the winter. Thanks for reminding me. Good times.
by second grade, hockey players playing soccer know how to switch the field without being taught (in soccer). Its natural with the boards and defensive partners. Just gotta teach them to avoid the square defensive zone pass.
Yeah, hockey and and also floorball, which competes with football about the honor of "the team game number two in Finland", make it possible to learn many things earlier than in football. Tactics, gameplay, moves to beat a defender, 1v1, almost everything... There are good things to get earlier than would be possible in playing only football. Controlling the ball with a hand and a stick is so much easier than with a foot, there are boards and only 5 field players, and you can even lessen that to small sided games. The ball/puck is light and therefore easy to change direction in feint moves. Floorball especially is easy to learn, there is no skating. Video, if the sport is new: I have no statistics, but my gut feeling is that floorball has even more kids playing it than football, but it is much more unprofessional than football. Litmanen played icehockey until 14 years old and I support having multiple sports. But the situation is such that talents striving for professional career mostly choose icehockey. All other sports have problems in fighting for the multitalents.
Growing up in NY, we called it street hockey (no boards) and we'd play it every day December-April. Loved street hockey. Still have the shaft of my 1st stick 40 years later in my garage.