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/ 

Player Development IV

Number Of Touches
Data Comparing Training To Match Play

Part IV in the Player Development series.  Read: Part I, Part II, Part III.

After the quick study on time of possession in Part I of the series, we followed up at a training session tracking the number of touches one player took in training.  While games are exciting, and kids love to play, they might be best viewed by the adults involved as recesses...or electives a student will be more eager to take than core curricula.  I doubt any thinking person would advise students to be given the option carte blanche to study whatever they like, most would take recess as often as they choose!  There are some subjects that a functioning citizen simply must master to a degree.  But, that is also presuming that the aim is to make each player achieve his or her potential to the fullest.  It might also be worth submitting that teaching young people to enjoy any endeavor in a meaningful way, advancing their understanding and fundamental mastery of the topic is the best route to doing so.

College Season Wrap

Haverford College 

Wins On PKs; Advance In NCAA Tourney

Stevens Institute of Technology Halts Fords Season In Round Of 32

The celebration as the Fords hit their fifth PK to win the competition after junior GK Adriy Mshanetskyy (Miss-Shan-ets-ski) saved two of the Wesleyan University kicks (guessed correctly on the other two, touching one) giving the squad a chance at the sweet 16.

Amherst College Women's Soccer

NCAA Hijinks

A slightly lighter subject than the usual stuff...While the Amherst player's behavior is pretty lousy, one does have to ask how the Colby kid could take her eye off the ball a second time!  Fool me once....

Player Development III

Fear And Loathing In US Soccer

USSF Establishes New Development Academy Demands: 
No High School Sports, 10 Month Season Highlight Changes

Part III in the 192 Square Feet Player Development series.  Read: Part I & Part II

Seems everyone is talking about it (*see bottom of post for article links), and where Philly seems to be all afire about the changes perhaps some further discussion here would be of use to a few folks.  Every paradigm shift comes with lots of outcry and discomfort (see: Affordable Care Act; Social Security/OASDI Program).  With all due acknowledgement to the difficulty of knowing the right path to take, I'm fairly sanguine about the changes.  But it's worth acknowledging that having worked for 12 years on both the youth and college sides of the recruiting process, I'm much more comfortable with the realities than a parent who lacks the insider knowledge.  At any rate, just as a student who attends a school like Carleton won't suffer in life for having not gone to Harvard, most kids will do just fine without ever playing for a Development Academy program.

The other side of this argument is that the soccer community is too wrapped up in the changes with the Development Academy; regular clubs ought to be taking the hint and following the approach taken by the USSF to the degree the stakeholders feel is suitable.  If we made our clubs better, not being a part of the DA would be far less of a concern to the close-but-not-quite set of players.  Doesn't it seem odd that the USSF, and the experts they consulted with came up with the approach they did, and so few of the clubs (run by part-timers, volunteers, and generally non-soccer-professionals) see fit to replicate that effort?

The change is a good one, and the tempest will pass.  No one need be worried about being shut out of senior level opportunities.

Here's why.

1V1 Skill

"Take Ons" Take Practice
OPTA Stats Zone Analysis

In discussing a topic covered at 192 Square Feet this August (read it here) with one of the LMSC boys at training this week, I thought it might be of interest to look at the pros' numbers and again consider the need for high-volume repetition training environments.  To diffuse the cynicism of those who trust the status quo of youth soccer, and to provide a data-based foundation on which to build a smarter youth soccer model, the ten screen grabs below come from OPTA's "Stats Zone" app, and show the players who dribbled at opponents the most from the 10 EPL games over the weekend of 10/27-28.

Player Development II

Striking A Balance In Youth Soccer

"Tell me how you play, and I will tell you who you are."
-Eduardo Galeano

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
-Einstein

Part II In The 192 Square Feet Player Development Series; Read Part I Here.

One of my favorite soccer aphorisms, the quote from Galeano's "Soccer In Sun And Shadow" applies to the themes currently at the forefront of my thinking as I observe youth soccer.  With Klinsmann taking over the National Team (much of his agreement included influence over player development nationally), and Claudio Reyna's production of the USSF Curriculum, and the advancement of the USSF Development Academy the pipeline to the men's National Team is changing faster and more profoundly than at any other time in the history of US soccer.  See the 10-month rule FAQs regarding the Development Academy, for instance.  That's the subject of another post to be published here later*.

The main concern is the "how" of player development, and the pressures that have taken youth soccer away from the youth.  Many lament the loss of unstructured play - though that never really existed in the US.  Europe has truly lost the informal play; soccer was organized from the get-go in the US, at least on the mainstream level.  So, in resolving the "how," we have to examine whether or not the genie can be stuffed back into the lamp; can we organize disorganization?