Player Development V

Why Does A Goalscorer Become 

An Outside Back In College?

When players are evaluated on their physical (rather than technical) abilities, a chain of events is set off that is shockingly limiting to the player's future options and extremely difficult to escape.  When a club starts ranking players into "A" and "B" classes at age 8-9-10, a significant oversight occurs.  At this age, technical skill is rudimentary, if extant at all.  So what to evaluate a player on?  Obviously, the biggest, fastest kids make the best soccer players.  Or so one would be tempted to think.  Here's a few guys this thinking would have overlooked: Messi, Donovan, Maradona, Pele, Best, Lahm, Cannavaro, Iniesta...heck, even Rooney is pretty short in the terms of stereotypical athletes.  None of those guys are over 5'9".  OK, they are fast as a group, but Theo Wolcott is faster than any of them, as is Gareth Bale...but I'm not sure those two would be quite in the same pantheon as the group of short kids.  Point?  Iniesta's lack of speed has to be made up with his brain (see study cited below...):

It was the biggest advantage the holders [SPAIN] had over Ireland, who they beat 4-0. Still, Spain’s speed isn’t raw, Usain Bolt-style explosiveness. There are a number of players in this tournament that could beat Andres Iniesta, David Silva, Cesc Fabregas, and Xavi Hernandez is a 100 meter dash. What they can’t do is move full speed with the ball at their feet, and while it’s a slight exaggeration to say Spain’s playmakers can, they sure seem to come close.

http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/18/spain-vs-croatia-preview-euro-2012-european-championships-uefa-group-a-luka-modric-andres-iniesta/ 

The Most Democratic Of Sports

Other than the GK position where 5' 10" is evidently the smallest a world-class GK can be (Higuita 5'9", Casillas 6', Campos 5'8") - Neuer (6'4"), Harte (6'5") and Howard (6'3") are more typical - there really isn't a size limit on world-class athleticism in football.  Center backs tend to be bigger, but they needn't be as shifty or quick...taking up space and creating obstacles is a lot of their job description.  But lots of backs are fairly average-sized guys.  Anyway, if a kid born six months before her teammate has a little earlier growth spurt, she's far more likely to be an "A" player.  Which is fine.  The problem becomes when the "A" team gets a more knowledgeable coach, has higher expectations regarding the amount of training, and plays more matches than the "B" team - to say nothing of the unspoken expectation that being on the "B" team comes with: little Jane just isn't as good.  The odds begin to stack up very quickly against that "B" teamer, and no matter that she'll ultimately grow to be taller and/or faster than her peers (because we all know kids mature in every sense at widely varying rates...though nearly all within normative ranges) the deck is stacked so as to prevent her from reaching her potential.

The concept of the "age bias" made mainstream by Malcom Gladwell, (though Ken Dryden is said to have mentioned it first in his book, Home Game from 1989 about hockey in Canada) may be at work here.  The premise is simple, and applies to any sport where players are grouped by birth date.  An 8 year old born in August of 1994 is likely to be significantly more developed than one born in July 1995 (US Youth Soccer 2011-12 age group info here...same stuff a year later for this season.) but they'll play in the same age group using the USYSA age matrix. Because the soccer year runs from August 1 to July 31 of the following year, we'd expect to see lots of kids born in August through, say, December.  But FIFA uses January 1 as the cut off date.

In some ways, the US may be counteracting (very unintentionally) Gladwell's notion because we're off by about half a year from FIFA.  But if a club is picking "A" teams at 8-9-10-11 years old, well, it's crazy to not acknowledge the significant number of kids who may grow just a little later, gain speed later, or otherwise develop just a few months behind their peers.  One reason we as parents look with such wonderment at our children is that we simply cannot fathom what's going on in their head; we've no idea what sort of person that little bugger is going to turn out to be.  But we fail to exhibit that humility when junior puts on a pair of boots.  If they're "great" at age 9, well, by god they'll be studs when they're 20...er...

What Status Quo Gets You

Regardless, the soccer player who grows up in the US is likely to be brought up playing more than training, particularly if on an "A" team or other highly selective squad.  The slippery slope that player is now on is that the physical gifts which initially make her look like a promising prospect are now her primary weapons.  And in far too many instances she'll simply be asked to use her speed and size to power past players and chase down long "passes."  Mind you, this works.  Speed kills at the youth levels like no other.  It's the first trait to emerge in any young athlete- which makes complete sense; they aren't old enough to have learned how to actually play the game!  What else could a 8-9-10 year-old be judged on?

When the defenders become  more than just launchers of long passes, and there is some organization and cover, the attacker who simply ran by everyone at the youth level will not have the tactical savvy, combination play ability and technical skill to escape pressure.  And, in all likelihood, the speed differential at the senior level will not be sufficient to be dominant - see, Wolcott, T.  Heck, even Ronaldo and Messi, for all their goals, aren't often seen just blasting by defenders.  Things like angles, anticipation, covering/help defenders, goalkeepers and technical breakdowns (yes, even these guys don't have the perfect touch every time!) conspire to make their edge in speed merely necessary, but not sufficient to their success.  Watch this 14 minute Messi video and see how many of his goals are tap-ins, rebounds, 1-touch finishes on crosses, anything but just running by a defender.  An awful lot.

You Can't Coach In What God Left Out

The very sinister problem within this situation occurs when coaches play more games than they train (the currently accepted best practice is 4-5 training sessions per match for youth players) and rely on those physical traits overmuch.  In time, and as players begin to seek opportunities at the college level, and the talent pool becomes populated with players who are actually elite (don't let every other club name fool you...just because they call themselves elite doesn't mean they are: Classics Elite/Westchester Elite/Desert Elite Soccer....on and on) those who rely on physical traits are in trouble.  For one, players have to be smart.  Brains, however, are without much use if the tools to execute the central nervous system's commands are missing:

The Swedish study authors say that footballers appear stupid simply because they 'don't have time' for education.
The process of thinking about a field in 3D and plotting tactics may be more demanding than people think. 
The study's authors, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, were unclear about whether football training enhances people's brain power, or if skilled footballers rise to the top because of their born intellectual brawn.

'The study cannot answer the question whether the difference in executive functions mirrors practice or genes,' say the study authors. 
'There is probably both an inherited component and a component that is trained.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2125422/Wayne-Rooney-intellectual-heavyweight-Study-finds-footballers-cleverer-think.html#ixzz2DduO2wh1 

Here's more of the same info, from Wired Magazine.  If a kid hasn't had an academically advantageous upbringing, the rest of it may be moot.  There's a minimum here, for sure, that isn't crazy high.  Reading, Writing and 'rithmatic will do the trick...though there's a reason so many pros go broke in this country without any formal youth development system (which includes some basic education in Europe).  It ain't all about the game...but it might well be all about the brains.  Why leave it to chance?

The whole person makes for success.

So Answer The Question Already
However, years of lumping balls forward to the attacking players tends to leave most youth defenders with one outstanding trait: the ability to lump a ball forward.  And maybe stand between the ball and the goal.  Meanwhile, as we saw in part IV of this series, the precious few touches to be had in game situations are offered at a lopsided ratio to the attacking players.  Certainly no coach who wants to win will encourage dribbling about or taking excessive touches in the defensive half...but what does that mean for the backs who are pegged as backs from U12 for life?  Don't dribble.  Don't take on players.  Don't try to take a touch or two and play across the back line to switch the attack to the far side.  Don't join the attack.  Don't overlap the winger in front of you.  Don't take any risks.

Granted, those kids will be winners of numerous, forgettable games throughout their young lives.

But when the colleges come a-calling, they (more now than ever) seek players with technical skill.  They need outside backs who can attack, support the attack and switch the ball side-to-side.  They need defenders who are cool under ever-increasing "pressing" from opponents, even deep in the defensive half.  They need players who can keep the ball.  But youth defenders can't do this (remember, if they tried, they'd give up goals occasionally, the team would lose, the parents would rebel, the coach would get canned, and lose his/her self-esteem).

And so, when my friend Chris McLain of Colgate comes to the house to speak with you about your daughter, or I stop over to inquire as to your son's interest in Haverford, you can bet we're there because junior has some technical skill.  On the other hand, I bet that your house isn't on the list of stops if your kid plays in the back for the average soccer club.  We'll find some speedy winger and make an outside back of out her.  We'll take a big, strong holding midfielder and put him at center back.  What we won't do is try to teach an 18 year old booter how to play keep-ball in our half.  Or how to surge forward and provide crosses into the penalty area.

Conclusion

There's two ways to avoid this particular fate.  One, jump from one club to another until one of them puts your kid up front.  Two, demand that your club invests in the liberal arts approach, giving every young player time in every position, especially in the small-sided age groups (up through U12 plus or minus), and that they put training ahead of wins and losses (it won't kill junior to learn how to handle disappointment...he can use his new iPhone to text his therapist about it...)

Conventional wisdom has produced nothing in terms of elite soccer players in this country.  Donovan, Dempsey, Reyna...these guys are good, but they aren't going to make a World Cup all-tournament team any time soon.  Sooner or later, youth soccer will awaken to the notion that if someone is going to lead this particular orchestra, they'll need to turn their back on the crowd [James Crook(s?)]  Condemning untold numbers of youth players to second-tier status for lacking speed and size when physically immature must become viewed as the least-effective fashion to find and develop talent.

Lastly, being a defender at the youth level is boring.  Kids don't want to play in the back because of all the above listed reasons.  Ask Dani Alves, Patrice Evra, Leighton Baines, or Philipp Lahm if playing outside back is fun.  They are essential parts of the attack, plus they have the confidence born of knowing they can play at either end of the field as well or better than the guys who specialize at one end or the other.  If only youth coaches encouraged young defenders to do the same...

Appendix: Losing

Of course, with about 14 games played this season in the EPL, take a look at how many of the EPL sides are boasting winning records.  9th in the table is the last team with a winning record, though from 5th down there are an awful lot of draws.  Maybe so few Americans play in England because our kids just crumble under the weight of the grim reality of simply having to lose on a regular basis.











Resources

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timmaurer/2012/10/05/mo-money-mo-problems-espn-goes-broke/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2125422/Wayne-Rooney-intellectual-heavyweight-Study-finds-footballers-cleverer-think.html

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/04/soccer-cognitive-functions/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/may/29/wayne-rooney-answers-questions

http://espnfc.com/us/en/news/1071240/beautiful-game-beautiful-mind-.html