Junior development is more important than points

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AL K HOLIC
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by AL K HOLIC »

So at what age does it become points?

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

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http://www.soccerdrillstips.com/ wrote:Too Much Emphasis On Winning Leads To Failure

You already know that the fist challenge of a youth soccer coach is to make training more fun and enjoyable for the kids. Now let’s focus on the second biggest problem facing any youth soccer coach and one of the main causes of failure.

Symptoms: Players feel the coach plays favorites or too much pressure on them
Cause: Too much emphasis on winning
Coaching Problem: Failure to balance Winning vs. Fun

Let’s go back to the main reasons why kids quit playing soccer for a while. If you remember, the first reason why they quit is because they weren’t having fun anymore. The second reason why kids quit playing the game is in their words: “The coach played favorites”. This is also related to other two of the top 10 reasons why they quit: “Too much emphasis on winning” and “There was too much pressure”.

A deeper research on this subject found that 21% said they had been pressured to play with an injury, 71% said they wouldn’t care if no score were kept in their games and 41% said they have awakened in the night worrying about upcoming games.

Another study revealed that 95% would rather have fun than worry about winning and 90% said they would prefer to be on a losing team if they were able to actually play rather than warm the bench on a winning team.

And let’s find out what 400 parents said about this subject at the National PTA Convention:

  • • 84% of parents believe that youth athletic programs place too much emphasis on winning
    • 56% said the biggest negative is that sports are too competitive
    • 50% said they would like to see coaches be less focused on winning


If all these stats aren’t enough, let’s quickly bring up again the top 10 reasons list why kids participate in youth sports, just to show you something. Guess what? “Winning” was LAST! To win is only the reason #10 why kids play soccer, so why would you try to make it #1?

This over-emphasis on winning in youth soccer, places great pressure, not only on your players, but also on you as a coach. Although the lessons learned through competition are important, it is of greater importance that you focus your teachings on the fundamentals of the game and the physical skills necessary for the future. Too much pressure at an early age can kill the enjoyment of soccer in the kid, and lead to low retention rates.

Too much emphasis on winning can also result in scheduling too many competitions and games. If there’s no balance between competition, practice and other activities, this is not in the best interest of your players. As a youth soccer coach, you must understand that the process is more important than the outcome, and “winning” is great, but it’s much more important that kids feel good about themselves and are happy and involved.

In one other survey, only 9% of the kids said that winning should be a coach’s highest priority. If you are able to put aside the win-lose mentality and put your focus on your player’s needs, you and the kids will actually begin to win more.

What Winning Really Is And How To Measure Success

Here are a few questions you should ask that will help you know yourself a little bit better and understand the coaching orientation you’ve been following so far:

  • • What is your definition of winning?
    • What exactly is winning for you?
    • How do you know if you’re winning or not?
    • How do you know if you won and when?


These are important questions that may have different answers depending on your own definition of “winning”. This concept has already caused many discussions in the youth soccer coaching community. After all, how should a youth soccer coach measure success?

Especially at youngest ages, coaching success should not be measured in “X” number of wins and “Y” number of losses. The overall majority of youth soccer coaches use this as their yardstick (or their coaching “Philosophy”.) In terms of measuring your success as a coach, I would recommend that you consider these four areas:

  • 1. Howmuchareyourplayersenjoyingthegameandhavingfun?(Youcan survey them to measure this. See suggestions on page 11.)
    2. Howmucharetheskillsofyourplayersdeveloping?(Useplayerevaluation forms with stats to keep track of their progress)
    3. Howistheircharacterandpersonalityevolvingasyoungmenorwomen?
    (Use your own observation skills, get to know your players better and talk to their parents)
    4. Howmuchenthusiasmandexcitementaretheyshowingtowardthegame?
    (Use your own observation skills and be alert)


You should concentrate on getting 100% out of your players by making practice enjoyable and fun and de-emphasize winning or losing. Many times, losing a game doesn’t necessarily mean a team is “not winning” or not succeeding. You can play well and lose, just as you can play poorly and win.

The game can go wrong but you can feel that your players had a blast and enjoyed every minute of it, and you can also win without ‘soul’. Your team knows after a match whether they won or lost. It's you job, as coach, to tell them how they played the game. Let them know that what matters at the end is ‘HOW they did it’ and not ‘WHAT they did’.

Always keep in your mind that success is never final. Success is not a destination... it’s a journey. Don’t ever forget that achieving success as a youth soccer coach is a continuous process, and we all want this long ‘journey’ to be enjoyable and pleasant for everyone ‘travelling’ with us (including ourselves).

The failure to balance “Winning vs. Fun” is probably one the biggest challenges facing any youth soccer coach today. A big percentage of them adopt as a coaching philosophy “win at all costs” – and this is costing us all too much: running off marginal players, sweating down overweight kids, breaking rules to gain an unfair advantage and the worst of all, feeding the big percentage of 70% of kids that quit a game they were suppose to love.

I trust you to make a difference in your player’s lives in a way far more meaningful than just wins or losses. I trust you to teach values like sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline, integrity, respect, perseverance, fairness, honesty, leadership, collaboration, passion and friendship.

IMPORTANT: When I say that your coaching philosophy should be based on making practice fun, DO NOT confuse this with focusing SOLELY on “having fun” either. If you do that, it can become a worse problem for you. I have coached hundred of youth coaches worldwide and I’ve seen many that ONLY cared about ‘fun’ and totally forgot about stressing the fundamentals like hard work, discipline and being competitive and exigent. These “fun-only” coaches allow everything on their coaching sessions, and they suffer hard and rarely win games or the respect of their players. This can lead to players getting hurt, hard-working players losing interest because of not getting recognition for their hard work and seeing no punishment for those messing around little ‘hooligans’ that destroy the harmony of the group or skip practice. You need to find the right mix and I’m sure you’ll be rewarded.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Armageddon »

Nothing but what i have been preaching for years.
But everybody wants leagues for points, promotion & relegation.
time to re-think FFA

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by rossonero »

i dont agree, it should always be about winning....reasons are:
*parents want to take the kids to WINNING clubs
*winning teams attract better players
*when a club attracts the best players and have large numbers at trials they can charge more for fees
*parents will always be happy with the club and especially coaches if they constantly win
*players are happy and you do not have to worry about developing as you have the best players anyway
*the feeling you get as a winning coach walking around the club telling everyone how good your team is and what a great job you have done is very rewarding

theres many more reasons why you should concentrate on winning but i wont list them all....

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Željko Jurin »

rossonero, I hope youre taking the p*ss, especially that last point ........
Spot Željko Jurin Jnr ......

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rossonero
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by rossonero »

zelks do u think i could be that bad???

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Željko Jurin
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Željko Jurin »

I dont know, 95% of the time youre ok, and then you rip out something from left field (eg) skillful, uncordinated players
Spot Željko Jurin Jnr ......

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rossonero
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by rossonero »

:lol: true, but its not what i meant....have to learn to be more careful next time

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Squizzy »

Cabbage Leaf wrote:Nothing but what i have been preaching for years.
But everybody wants leagues for points, promotion & relegation.
time to re-think FFA
Over the years, I've found it's mostly Parents who want this. Although, to be fair, it's slowly changing.

I remember my first year of coaching, I was an assistant in an U11 side and each week they would compare their 'home-made' league tables with Parents from the sides we were playing. Even swapping phone numbers so they can update as the season progressed!

You can both shudder and laugh at the same time I guess...

I think it's definitely better now though, with more of an emphasis on development. But let's face it, change wasn't going to happen in a season or two. Changing decades of one mentality into a different one is going to take time and patience.
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rossonero
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by rossonero »

its getting better i agree....
but what would happen if for example a team at adelaide city or blue eagles lost every game????

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Squizzy »

rossonero wrote:its getting better i agree....
but what would happen if for example a team at adelaide city or blue eagles lost every game????
I guess you'd have to ask AC or ABE. And even that would probably depends on a heap of different things too (eg: age, Coach, Club/Federation philosophy, is the team appropriate for the division they play in, and the list goes on).

You can't compare U8's to say U17's (or you'd hope not to compare them anyway).

A bit of an open ended question, surely?
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by johnydep »

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fa-votes-for-changes-to-youth-game-that-could-end-era-of-kick-and-rush-7794109.html wrote:

In an under-nines game I refereed last season, a boy attempted to dribble out of his own goal area under pressure. From the sidelines came the shout: "Get rid of it. No skill." The voice was that of the coach. And we wonder why Norway, even under an exponent of direct football such as Egil Olsen, kept the ball better than England on Saturday.

That is what an emphasis on league tables can do to well-meaning but under-educated coaches (whose praise from parents is often dependent on league position). Football is about winning, but it should also, when children play, be about fun and development. The FA Council's assent yesterday to the Youth Development Review (YDR) is a belated, but very welcome step towards producing an England team that will treat the ball as a friend, not a time-bomb. Admittedly, most of the boys it will affect will never come close to playing for their country, but even at parks level the ability to trap and pass the ball enhances enjoyment and should improve participation rates.

Under the new proposals, to be phased in over two years, league tables will be banished until under-12 (secondary school) level. There will still be competition, but it will be in the form of cups and festivals. From under-12, instead of playing in a league from August to May (a long time for an 11-year-old, especially if the team is struggling) children will play a series of smaller competitions, which will be regularly restructured so teams play others of similar ability.

The other main proposal is the banning of 11 v 11 until age 13. Up to under-8 level, children will play five v five, with appropriate-sized goals and pitches. Under-9 and -10 levels will play seven v seven; under-11 and -12 will play nine v nine. These mandatory changes will enable children to get more touches of the ball during matches, to play on smaller pitches which encourage passing through the thirds (instead of the big kid lumping it forward), and rescue pint-sized goalkeepers from the impossibility of defending adult-sized goals.

The YDR is the result of widespread consultation, much of it with children, and a 138-date national roadshow persuading the conservative world of youth football to accept it. Gareth Southgate, the FA's head of elite development, and Nick Levett, national development manager for youth and mini soccer, deserve much credit for the 87 per cent vote in favour. However, to be sure of getting a yes vote some proposals had to be abandoned or watered down.

The next challenge is persuading the youth game to accept a new eligibility date of 1 January to obviate the age-bias which means an unfeasible number of professional and international players are born in the first four months of the school year. Schools would retain a 1 September cut-off date.

Child's play

The main changes


A gradual progression to 11 v 11 football, to be phased in by 2014/15: mandatory 5 v 5 football for under-7s and under-8s, with 9 v 9 for under-11s and under-12s.

The sizes of pitches and goals will naturally fit the team numbers. Rather than demanding too much running from growing children, this should help to hone the youngsters' technique.

No long adult eight-month season, either. It will be broken down into smaller periods of competitions to encourage increased learning for the developing players.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

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http://www.socceru.com/us_youth_soccer_training_vs_england_academy.htm wrote:Does the US Youth soccer system and England's differ greatly?

You bet they do. We found this article on the web and thought it was one of the best describing the birth of English Academies and how they differ from US youth programs.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-ACADEMY TIMES

The English Premier League was launched in 1992 and was basically a restructuring of the professional game in England to allow the top clubs to benefit financially from the increasingly lucrative television rights income.

At the same time, the English game was suffering from three serious problems: hooliganism, ground safety issues and dwindling success at the international level. The 1980’s are remembered in England as the decade of stadium disasters, hooliganism, and disappointing national team performances in major competitions. A government report concluded that the stadiums at the top tier must be converted to all-seating, installed with close caption TV’s to monitor hooligan elements, and modernized in many other ways to improve fan safety. Government funding from lotteries plus the new television money, which was going to be massive, were earmarked to help pay for all these new requirements

Meanwhile, The FA, the governing body for soccer in England, realized that the professional clubs must do a better job of developing players to stop the slide of the national team into mediocrity. In the 1990’s, The FA went ahead and created a new blueprint for player development which mandated that every Premiership club must have a Youth Academy with specific requirements for staff qualifications and licensing, facilities, training, games, player ages, and supporting educational opportunities for the players. Hence, the birth of the modern Academies occurred in the late 1990’s.

The situation for women’s soccer wasn’t very healthy in those days. Up until the 1990’s, women’s soccer did not get much funding or priority in England, as in most of the world. Only in the USA was women’s and girls’ soccer taken seriously, due to Title IX implementation. Girl’s soccer in England finally got a boost in the 1990’s. The FA felt obliged for moral and political reasons to support women’s soccer and started to promote girls’ leagues and player development schemes. Many of the professional men’s clubs started to support a women’s team and some funded the teams within a semi-professional scope. Fulham FC even fielded a fully professional women’s team for a few years. But the lack of revenue from TV or attendance in the female game kept the top level of the women’s game in a semi-pro or amateur status. Nevertheless, women soccer in England is slowly progressing and most Premier League clubs run girls’ academies in addition to the boys. More on that later.
If the youth academies were only started in the late 1990’s, what was the player development structure before that?

Prior to the academies, the professional clubs were only allowed to sign players starting at the age of 15. Players younger than 15 could train at Centers of Excellence run by the professional clubs, but the clubs could not really ‘own’ them. The players were free to train at as many centers as they wished, since they didn’t belong to any one club.

Since the Centers of Excellence were just for training, the actual youth leagues were organized, managed, and coached by volunteers, just like in the USA. There were city leagues, district leagues, and various knock-out cup competitions and tournaments, just like in America. School soccer was also huge in scope and profile, and was well organized. Volunteer teachers coached the school teams in regional and national competition and, in fact, the U-15 National Team was selected from school teams.

In pre-academy days, a typical youth player played for his local youth team, coached by a volunteer parent coach, and would also play for his school team. The best players would also be invited to train at the Centers of Excellence. Once players reached 15, the very best would be signed by the professional clubs, which is where the serious training started, under professional youth coaches.

This meant that the important formative years of development between the ages of 6-14 were in the hands of volunteers and school teachers. This environment resembled very much the youth soccer environment here in America, and spawned the same problems we encounter here today, namely: too many games; emphasis on competition, teamwork and winning trophies at a young age; size, fitness and work rate valued over skill development; kick and run soccer; coaches fighting over the best players; schools and various youth leagues competing for the players’ time; and a general lack of a systematic, progressive, centrally directed player development plan. Sounds familiar?

The professional clubs lamented the lack of skill of the players entering their youth teams but were not willing to invest time and money on younger players if they weren’t allowed to own them until 15. It must be said that the system did produce many players for the professional teams and the English league was always competitive and exciting to watch and English clubs did well in European competition. But the player development system with its volunteer driven culture was over-structured, over-coached, and did not encourage individualism or creativity. The system did not have any room for the truly gifted individualist to emerge. English soccer simply was not set up to produce magicians the like of Ronaldinho, Zidane, Totti, Henry, Kaka or Berkamp and the national team suffered as a result. Of course, success is a relative term. For England, elimination at the quarter final stage of a World Cup is considered a failure, since

England expects to win every tournament they enter. For the USA, getting to the quarter finals stage is considered a huge success.

The English governing body has finally acknowledged this problem and that’s why the academy concept was born in the 1990’s. Starting in the late 1990’s, the professional clubs were allowed to sign players as young as 8 into their academies. But to qualify as an Academy, clubs had to follow a set of criteria. The FA set out the Academy criteria and mandated that every Premier League club must abide by these criteria.

It’s too early to gauge the success of the Premiership Academies, since they have been in existence less than a decade. Most of the current generation of players in the English leagues grew up in the old system of volunteer coaches and School soccer. Beckham played his youth soccer for a team coached by his own dad. The bulk of the English National Team that played in the 2006 World Cup grew up in the old system. It will take another 5-10 years before we can evaluate their academy system. But judging from the performance of the Liverpool U-18 team that came to Atlanta in the past two years and from the emergence of young players like Wayne Rooney, it looks like the academies are producing more creative players who are technically more versatile.

The game in England has also been greatly influenced by foreign coaches and players over the past 10-15 years and the impact has trickled all the way down to the youth academies.

THE ENGLISH ACADEMY SYSTEM

The Boys Academies

Structure

Every Premier League club must have an Academy operating according to strict guidelines. The objective of the guidelines is to ensure that players do not just possess high technical level, but are also schooled in proper self care, nutrition, character, and social skills. The goal is to produce intelligent, skillful players who behave as professionals, can take care of themselves outside the soccer field and who can seamlessly adjust to normal productive life after retiring from playing.

The academies are fully funded by the pro clubs. The players do not pay a cent. West Ham, for example, spends $3 Million per year on the academy operations, maintenance, players and staff. The pay back is theoretically in the form of players developed for the first team or players sold to other clubs. Since the cost of an average Premiership player is currently around $3M to $5M, all it takes to keep the academy financially viable is produce one quality player per year or one exceptional player every couple of years.

The academies start at U-9 and teams are formed in one year increments all the way through U-16 and then into a two year group of U-17/U-18 players. The soccer year is from September to August, to coincide with the school year. Clubs can sign up to 30 players in each age group, but most sign 12-16 players per group. Players are signed for one year at a time until U-12, making it a one year commitment from both sides. At the end of each year, the club decides which players to retain and who to release. Players are free to leave the club at the end of the year, even if the club wants to keep them, but if they go to another club, the new club must pay the old club a transfer fee to compensate for the time and effort invested into the player. If the two clubs cannot agree on a fee, the transfer fee is determined by a tribunal.

At the U-13 age group, clubs can sign players for either a two year period or a four year period. This longer term commitment is good for the players, but in turn, protects the club from losing the player for the next four years. At U-15, again the clubs sign players for a two year period unless they are already on a four-year deal. At U-17, the players who are good enough leave school to sign on a two year apprenticeship, where they start earning a living as full-time professionals. After the two year apprenticeship, at U-19, players are either signed on a normal professional contract or released.

The U-9 through U-12 age groups train 3 times per week and play one game per week, on the weekend. The training frequency increases gradually after that and by U-17, the players train twice a day Monday to Friday and play once on the weekend. Of the ten sessions for the apprentice professional players (U-17/U-18), three of them are required to be educational sessions to prepare them for a career outside of soccer should they not make the grade as professional players.

Scouting

All clubs have a wide and sophisticated scouting network. The scouting is arguably the most crucial component of the youth academy since it tracks down and identifies the best players outside the club who are the candidates for replacing the released players each year. Until U-12, the academy rules restrict clubs to signing players who live within a

one hour commute from the training site. After that, the geographical limit is expanded to 90 minute commute and from U-16 onwards, clubs have no geographical limits for getting players. These commuting limits are obviously designed to force clubs to concentrate on developing their own local players and to prevent young players from spending excessive time traveling to sessions and games.

The most important stage for scouting is at the pre-academy ages, U-6, U-7, and U-8.

For these young ages, most clubs create satellite centers and invite players to train, so they can evaluate them and sell the club to the most promising players and their parents.

Since clubs are not allowed to sign them before U-9, the best 6-8 year olds can train every night at a different club and test the waters until decision time arrives at U-9. The pro clubs fight over the best players just like here, but once a player signs for a club he can only transfer for a fee. This way, the clubs’ investment is protected while players retain their right to move at the end of the year.

The English Academy Philosophy

The success of an academy program is measured by the number of players they produce for the first team. This is definitely a long term perspective, in stark contrast to how success is measured here by our youth clubs. In England, academy teams don’t have to win games, just produce players. The focus is on developing top players by the time they turn twenty, whereas here, the focus is much shorter term since youth coaches are on a race to develop winning teams to win State Cup at U-13.

In England, game results at the academy games are not important. In fact, academy games in England are all friendly games, just like our U-10/U-12 ‘Academy’ games, except that in England the games are friendly all the way to U-16. The Premiership academy teams play only against other Premier Team’s academies, so there are no promotion-relegations to worry about. There are no standings and no championships until the U-17/U-18 bracket. Since promotion-relegation is based on the results of the professional team, the youth team’s destiny is out of their control and they can just focus on development and let the professional players worry about results.

Academy teams play 8v8 from U-9 to U-11 and play 11v11 from U-12 onwards. The games are split into either four quarters or three thirds, to allow the coaches to bring the players in for instruction or adjustments. The philosophy of many of the academy coaches is to let the players make their own decisions in the game, and use the intervals for any instruction. They especially refrain from coaching the player on the ball and limit coaching from the sidelines for off-the-ball positioning or team shape and even that is done sparingly.

The training is repetition based to develop technique, but using activities that replicate game conditions. The goal is to breed good habits by taking care of the little details via repetitions and corrections. The corrections must be positive with coaches careful not to embarrass the players in front of their teammates.

By the time players reach 14, they should be technically proficient, so that tactical training can be accomplished. But work on technique is never neglected, even at the first team level.

Academy players are not allowed to play more than 30 games per year. This cap on games was implemented to prevent player burn-out, which was a real problem in England prior to the academy system, and is a huge problem in our youth game. Once a player

signs for an academy, his playing time is monitored and recorded to make sure he gets sufficient playing time without exceeding the maximum number of games. Academy players are not allowed to play for another youth team and most academies do not allow their players to play even for the school team. The player’s annual schedule is closely supervised to maintain the optimum balance between development and recovery.

Furthermore, when a player signs up with an Academy, he is guaranteed to play at least

24 games per year. This mandatory playing time is applicable to all the academy teams at all the academy ages. It’s quite a paradox when profit driven, multi-million dollar clubs operating in the cut-throat business of the professional game treat their youth players with such sensitivity while some of our own youth coaches fail to do the same, even though most of our youth clubs are supposed to be community based, non-profit, volunteer run organizations.

According to Steve Heighway, the Liverpool Academy Director, anytime a player is released, his club helps him find another team at a lower level of the pro game. Parents get a progress report twice a year from the coaching staff, and the player’s school gets a copy of the report as well. The coaching staff works with the schools to monitor the players’ academic progress. The academies are very much in tune with the needs and welfare of young players and do their best to look after them. All academies must employ not just fully qualified coaches, but also medical staff and educational and welfare officers who look after the off-the-field needs and education of the players.

Parents are kept informed via progress reports and periodic communications, but they are no allowed to get involved in the same way parents are involved in the USA. In

England’s academies, parents are prohibited from coaching from the sidelines and are generally kept at bay. During training, parents are not allowed near the fields and are usually confined to the club lounge or behind field barriers, where they can watch the session from afar, or relax and socialize. Some academies, such as the West Ham academy, ask parents to sign a Code of Conduct that outlines the dos and don’ts.

Steve Heighway emphasized in his presentations that the academy coaching staff goes to great pains educating the parents on the relatively low rate of academy graduates who actually become professional players. Steve stresses how competitive it is, and that parents have to prepare their son emotionally and practically for the possibility of getting released by the club. According to Steve Heighway, one of the toughest parts of the job is managing parent’s expectations and releasing players and shattering their dreams. The players in Liverpool’s academy are all technically strong, so the ones who do make it are those with the right mental strength and character that can deal with the stresses and the ups and downs.

In his presentation, Tony Carr, the West Ham Academy Director, outlined his academies’ philosophy on player development as follows:

  • - Open attacking style predominantly 1 & 2 touch movement.

    - Player led philosophy.

    - Let the players express themselves and let them make the decisions.

    - Enjoyable learning environment. Serious but fun.

    - Repetition based program.

    - Technique based training, breeding good habits.

    - Development of the player, not the team. The end product is what matters, not results.


Tony Carr emphasized that the goal is to develop players rather than teams. Game results are not important. West Ham do not emphasize conditioning/strength until U-15 but hire an expert to work on balance, left-right stability and coordination with the younger players.

The Girls Academies

Most of the Premier League clubs run academies for girls that serve as the feeder system into their women’s team, but the girls academies are not as developed or well funded as the boys. In most cases, the girls have to pay for their own kit, facilities and travel.

Arsenal is one of the few clubs that funds a residential academy for girls.

It all starts at the school levels. The girls’ academy coaching staff conducts free clinics at

local schools in order to promote women’s soccer and identify the most promising players. These clinics are for girls between the ages 6 to 16. The best talent is then invited to train in Development Centers. These centers do not play organized league games and only train. From there, the very best players are invited to join the club’s

Center of Excellence at the U-10, U-12, U-14 and U-16 age groups. These teams play friendly games against other club’s where no standings are kept.

Players are signed for one year intervals until U-16. At that point, the best players are signed into the U-18 Academy team and can progress from there into the reserve team and finally to the senior women’s first team.

Since women’s soccer in England is not professional, many of the top English players aspire to come to the USA and play college soccer. Many American college coaches travel frequently to European countries such as England to scout for talent and focus mainly on the European national team level players. Overall, the level of the women’s game in the USA is superior to that found in England, but the gap is slowly closing.

WHAT LESSONS CAN WE LEARN FROM ENGLAND

The English player development system has undergone drastic changes in the last decade.

The irony is that, while The FA has been for many decades a recognized world leader in coaching education and has exported its soccer educational curriculum all over the globe, its player development was steadily falling behind the leading soccer nations such as Holland, France, Italy, Brazil and Argentina. Cultural and historical traditions and a somewhat insular approach had to be overcome in England in order to embrace the methods of some of these leading soccer nations. But now, the ‘Europeanization’ process in England is in full swing.

So, the first lesson we can learn from England is that we must also adopt an open mind and learn from everyone and not fall into an insular mind set of ‘this is America and we do things differently here’. We might be in America, but in soccer, we are competing with the rest of the world and can ignore it at our own peril. Our current youth soccer environment has very similar problems to those that existed in England prior to the academy system and we need to address them just as they had to address them.

Those of us who had the privilege to watch the Liverpool U-18 teams train and play against our ODP team would agree that technically, we are still behind the top youth players from abroad. Our players are still prone to giving the ball way needlessly due to poor control or misplaced passing and the lesson is clearly that our coaches need to spend more time on developing technique in the formative ages of 6-14. When the game is faster, our players’ technique breaks down too easily.

The other lessons we can learn from England is in the area of child welfare and risk management. The Premiership academies’ commitment to a sensitive treatment of the players is impressive. Even though it’s a business, they are clearly committed to a child-centered approach that puts the best interest of the individual player first. They are stridently monitoring player abuse, both mental and physical, ensure enough playing time for each player to build confidence and skill, and invest considerable resources and money to develop rounded human beings rather than just soccer players.

It’s an eye opener to see how the English academies are protecting the players as one would protect a fragile and valuable treasure. For example, restricting the number of games to 30 per year. In the USA, elite players play between 50-100 games per year, which is not only excessive and counterproductive, but a form of player abuse. The Liverpool U-18 team that visited Atlanta in May spent 10 days in America, but only played a total of 3 games. When our teams travel, they play multiple games per day, which is ridiculous. Our players’ experience should be about quality, not quantity.

The academies are also very careful to educate and protect the players from any risky behavior, such as unhealthy life style, poor nutrition, lack of supervision, or any potential dangerous situations when traveling. Our clubs could learn a lot from their approach and high regard for players’ well being. Players’ code of conduct, as well as parents’ and coaches’ code, as well as policies addressing safety for team travel, practice and game days would be a good start.

The English academies see their youth program as an investment for the future. In contrast, American youth soccer is regarded as a revenue producer, a profit center. The day will have to come when the MLS clubs will take over the development of our elite players and do it along a similar philosophy to the English academies. Until that happens, our youth clubs should monitor the behavior of our coaches and educate the parents to ensure that our players are protected from trophy hunting mentality, burnout, and a misplaced emphasis on winning at younger ages. We must follow the English example and do a better job of protecting the players’ safety, while promoting the technical and creative aspects of the game over team building.


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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Nice One Cyril »

Even with a top quality junior coach, the biggest obstacle trying to teach young kids how to play football properly is their parents. This is especially true in Australia (and probably the US as well) where many of the parents have played that funny oval ball game and not football. Once the kids get to 13 or 14, they're old enough to speak their mind and tell Dad to bugger off, but by that time often the damage is done and the bad habits ingrained.
Victor Meldrew wrote:A decent govt..... like uk. :lol:
"The game is about glory, doing things in style and with a flourish, going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Faith No More »

Nice One Cyril wrote:Even with a top quality junior coach, the biggest obstacle trying to teach young kids how to play football properly is their parents. This is especially true in Australia (and probably the US as well) where many of the parents have played that funny oval ball game and not football. Once the kids get to 13 or 14, they're old enough to speak their mind and tell Dad to bugger off, but by that time often the damage is done and the bad habits ingrained.
+1

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by hudsona »

Not to Comets! Sack U14 coach 'cause not enough points..yet they're playing really good football!
disgraceful!

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Nice One Cyril »

hudsona wrote:Not to Comets! Sack U14 coach 'cause not enough points..yet they're playing really good football!
disgraceful!
If, and I stress the if, that's the reason, that's really poor by the club.
Victor Meldrew wrote:A decent govt..... like uk. :lol:
"The game is about glory, doing things in style and with a flourish, going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."
Danny Blanchflower

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by AL K HOLIC »

parents complained, not the club, parents and players all walking because they are not winning. Another play from the back victim. At the end of the day a club just want results, and development, however if they are losing good players and A league positions you can bet they change their tune and look to fix it.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Coach_Mulatinho »

Please make sure you have coorrect information, before you spread wrong gossip

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Faith No More »

he is a good person & a very good coach.
Their new coach works on a similar style so don't know what the issue is ?
they outplayed us yesterday & deserved the points.
we are all at different levels of development with our teams, but the one thing i hear loud & clear is " we want to play Div 1 ".
Maybe thats why he is no longer there , maybe some 'relegated teams' will lose players to Div 1 clubs next season.
Sad but true, loyalty lasts as long as the season, can't say i blame them either but development doesn't happen over night.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by ebisusakai »

it's really neccessary for the future

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Ricky Tan »

johnydep wrote:
http://www.socceru.com/us_youth_soccer_training_vs_england_academy.htm wrote:Does the US Youth soccer system and England's differ greatly?

You bet they do. We found this article on the web and thought it was one of the best describing the birth of English Academies and how they differ from US youth programs.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-ACADEMY TIMES

The English Premier League was launched in 1992 and was basically a restructuring of the professional game in England to allow the top clubs to benefit financially from the increasingly lucrative television rights income.

At the same time, the English game was suffering from three serious problems: hooliganism, ground safety issues and dwindling success at the international level. The 1980’s are remembered in England as the decade of stadium disasters, hooliganism, and disappointing national team performances in major competitions. A government report concluded that the stadiums at the top tier must be converted to all-seating, installed with close caption TV’s to monitor hooligan elements, and modernized in many other ways to improve fan safety. Government funding from lotteries plus the new television money, which was going to be massive, were earmarked to help pay for all these new requirements

Meanwhile, The FA, the governing body for soccer in England, realized that the professional clubs must do a better job of developing players to stop the slide of the national team into mediocrity. In the 1990’s, The FA went ahead and created a new blueprint for player development which mandated that every Premiership club must have a Youth Academy with specific requirements for staff qualifications and licensing, facilities, training, games, player ages, and supporting educational opportunities for the players. Hence, the birth of the modern Academies occurred in the late 1990’s.

The situation for women’s soccer wasn’t very healthy in those days. Up until the 1990’s, women’s soccer did not get much funding or priority in England, as in most of the world. Only in the USA was women’s and girls’ soccer taken seriously, due to Title IX implementation. Girl’s soccer in England finally got a boost in the 1990’s. The FA felt obliged for moral and political reasons to support women’s soccer and started to promote girls’ leagues and player development schemes. Many of the professional men’s clubs started to support a women’s team and some funded the teams within a semi-professional scope. Fulham FC even fielded a fully professional women’s team for a few years. But the lack of revenue from TV or attendance in the female game kept the top level of the women’s game in a semi-pro or amateur status. Nevertheless, women soccer in England is slowly progressing and most Premier League clubs run girls’ academies in addition to the boys. More on that later.
If the youth academies were only started in the late 1990’s, what was the player development structure before that?

Prior to the academies, the professional clubs were only allowed to sign players starting at the age of 15. Players younger than 15 could train at Centers of Excellence run by the professional clubs, but the clubs could not really ‘own’ them. The players were free to train at as many centers as they wished, since they didn’t belong to any one club.

Since the Centers of Excellence were just for training, the actual youth leagues were organized, managed, and coached by volunteers, just like in the USA. There were city leagues, district leagues, and various knock-out cup competitions and tournaments, just like in America. School soccer was also huge in scope and profile, and was well organized. Volunteer teachers coached the school teams in regional and national competition and, in fact, the U-15 National Team was selected from school teams.

In pre-academy days, a typical youth player played for his local youth team, coached by a volunteer parent coach, and would also play for his school team. The best players would also be invited to train at the Centers of Excellence. Once players reached 15, the very best would be signed by the professional clubs, which is where the serious training started, under professional youth coaches.

This meant that the important formative years of development between the ages of 6-14 were in the hands of volunteers and school teachers. This environment resembled very much the youth soccer environment here in America, and spawned the same problems we encounter here today, namely: too many games; emphasis on competition, teamwork and winning trophies at a young age; size, fitness and work rate valued over skill development; kick and run soccer; coaches fighting over the best players; schools and various youth leagues competing for the players’ time; and a general lack of a systematic, progressive, centrally directed player development plan. Sounds familiar?

The professional clubs lamented the lack of skill of the players entering their youth teams but were not willing to invest time and money on younger players if they weren’t allowed to own them until 15. It must be said that the system did produce many players for the professional teams and the English league was always competitive and exciting to watch and English clubs did well in European competition. But the player development system with its volunteer driven culture was over-structured, over-coached, and did not encourage individualism or creativity. The system did not have any room for the truly gifted individualist to emerge. English soccer simply was not set up to produce magicians the like of Ronaldinho, Zidane, Totti, Henry, Kaka or Berkamp and the national team suffered as a result. Of course, success is a relative term. For England, elimination at the quarter final stage of a World Cup is considered a failure, since

England expects to win every tournament they enter. For the USA, getting to the quarter finals stage is considered a huge success.

The English governing body has finally acknowledged this problem and that’s why the academy concept was born in the 1990’s. Starting in the late 1990’s, the professional clubs were allowed to sign players as young as 8 into their academies. But to qualify as an Academy, clubs had to follow a set of criteria. The FA set out the Academy criteria and mandated that every Premier League club must abide by these criteria.

It’s too early to gauge the success of the Premiership Academies, since they have been in existence less than a decade. Most of the current generation of players in the English leagues grew up in the old system of volunteer coaches and School soccer. Beckham played his youth soccer for a team coached by his own dad. The bulk of the English National Team that played in the 2006 World Cup grew up in the old system. It will take another 5-10 years before we can evaluate their academy system. But judging from the performance of the Liverpool U-18 team that came to Atlanta in the past two years and from the emergence of young players like Wayne Rooney, it looks like the academies are producing more creative players who are technically more versatile.

The game in England has also been greatly influenced by foreign coaches and players over the past 10-15 years and the impact has trickled all the way down to the youth academies.

THE ENGLISH ACADEMY SYSTEM

The Boys Academies

Structure

Every Premier League club must have an Academy operating according to strict guidelines. The objective of the guidelines is to ensure that players do not just possess high technical level, but are also schooled in proper self care, nutrition, character, and social skills. The goal is to produce intelligent, skillful players who behave as professionals, can take care of themselves outside the soccer field and who can seamlessly adjust to normal productive life after retiring from playing.

The academies are fully funded by the pro clubs. The players do not pay a cent. West Ham, for example, spends $3 Million per year on the academy operations, maintenance, players and staff. The pay back is theoretically in the form of players developed for the first team or players sold to other clubs. Since the cost of an average Premiership player is currently around $3M to $5M, all it takes to keep the academy financially viable is produce one quality player per year or one exceptional player every couple of years.

The academies start at U-9 and teams are formed in one year increments all the way through U-16 and then into a two year group of U-17/U-18 players. The soccer year is from September to August, to coincide with the school year. Clubs can sign up to 30 players in each age group, but most sign 12-16 players per group. Players are signed for one year at a time until U-12, making it a one year commitment from both sides. At the end of each year, the club decides which players to retain and who to release. Players are free to leave the club at the end of the year, even if the club wants to keep them, but if they go to another club, the new club must pay the old club a transfer fee to compensate for the time and effort invested into the player. If the two clubs cannot agree on a fee, the transfer fee is determined by a tribunal.

At the U-13 age group, clubs can sign players for either a two year period or a four year period. This longer term commitment is good for the players, but in turn, protects the club from losing the player for the next four years. At U-15, again the clubs sign players for a two year period unless they are already on a four-year deal. At U-17, the players who are good enough leave school to sign on a two year apprenticeship, where they start earning a living as full-time professionals. After the two year apprenticeship, at U-19, players are either signed on a normal professional contract or released.

The U-9 through U-12 age groups train 3 times per week and play one game per week, on the weekend. The training frequency increases gradually after that and by U-17, the players train twice a day Monday to Friday and play once on the weekend. Of the ten sessions for the apprentice professional players (U-17/U-18), three of them are required to be educational sessions to prepare them for a career outside of soccer should they not make the grade as professional players.

Scouting

All clubs have a wide and sophisticated scouting network. The scouting is arguably the most crucial component of the youth academy since it tracks down and identifies the best players outside the club who are the candidates for replacing the released players each year. Until U-12, the academy rules restrict clubs to signing players who live within a

one hour commute from the training site. After that, the geographical limit is expanded to 90 minute commute and from U-16 onwards, clubs have no geographical limits for getting players. These commuting limits are obviously designed to force clubs to concentrate on developing their own local players and to prevent young players from spending excessive time traveling to sessions and games.

The most important stage for scouting is at the pre-academy ages, U-6, U-7, and U-8.

For these young ages, most clubs create satellite centers and invite players to train, so they can evaluate them and sell the club to the most promising players and their parents.

Since clubs are not allowed to sign them before U-9, the best 6-8 year olds can train every night at a different club and test the waters until decision time arrives at U-9. The pro clubs fight over the best players just like here, but once a player signs for a club he can only transfer for a fee. This way, the clubs’ investment is protected while players retain their right to move at the end of the year.

The English Academy Philosophy

The success of an academy program is measured by the number of players they produce for the first team. This is definitely a long term perspective, in stark contrast to how success is measured here by our youth clubs. In England, academy teams don’t have to win games, just produce players. The focus is on developing top players by the time they turn twenty, whereas here, the focus is much shorter term since youth coaches are on a race to develop winning teams to win State Cup at U-13.

In England, game results at the academy games are not important. In fact, academy games in England are all friendly games, just like our U-10/U-12 ‘Academy’ games, except that in England the games are friendly all the way to U-16. The Premiership academy teams play only against other Premier Team’s academies, so there are no promotion-relegations to worry about. There are no standings and no championships until the U-17/U-18 bracket. Since promotion-relegation is based on the results of the professional team, the youth team’s destiny is out of their control and they can just focus on development and let the professional players worry about results.

Academy teams play 8v8 from U-9 to U-11 and play 11v11 from U-12 onwards. The games are split into either four quarters or three thirds, to allow the coaches to bring the players in for instruction or adjustments. The philosophy of many of the academy coaches is to let the players make their own decisions in the game, and use the intervals for any instruction. They especially refrain from coaching the player on the ball and limit coaching from the sidelines for off-the-ball positioning or team shape and even that is done sparingly.

The training is repetition based to develop technique, but using activities that replicate game conditions. The goal is to breed good habits by taking care of the little details via repetitions and corrections. The corrections must be positive with coaches careful not to embarrass the players in front of their teammates.

By the time players reach 14, they should be technically proficient, so that tactical training can be accomplished. But work on technique is never neglected, even at the first team level.

Academy players are not allowed to play more than 30 games per year. This cap on games was implemented to prevent player burn-out, which was a real problem in England prior to the academy system, and is a huge problem in our youth game. Once a player

signs for an academy, his playing time is monitored and recorded to make sure he gets sufficient playing time without exceeding the maximum number of games. Academy players are not allowed to play for another youth team and most academies do not allow their players to play even for the school team. The player’s annual schedule is closely supervised to maintain the optimum balance between development and recovery.

Furthermore, when a player signs up with an Academy, he is guaranteed to play at least

24 games per year. This mandatory playing time is applicable to all the academy teams at all the academy ages. It’s quite a paradox when profit driven, multi-million dollar clubs operating in the cut-throat business of the professional game treat their youth players with such sensitivity while some of our own youth coaches fail to do the same, even though most of our youth clubs are supposed to be community based, non-profit, volunteer run organizations.

According to Steve Heighway, the Liverpool Academy Director, anytime a player is released, his club helps him find another team at a lower level of the pro game. Parents get a progress report twice a year from the coaching staff, and the player’s school gets a copy of the report as well. The coaching staff works with the schools to monitor the players’ academic progress. The academies are very much in tune with the needs and welfare of young players and do their best to look after them. All academies must employ not just fully qualified coaches, but also medical staff and educational and welfare officers who look after the off-the-field needs and education of the players.

Parents are kept informed via progress reports and periodic communications, but they are no allowed to get involved in the same way parents are involved in the USA. In

England’s academies, parents are prohibited from coaching from the sidelines and are generally kept at bay. During training, parents are not allowed near the fields and are usually confined to the club lounge or behind field barriers, where they can watch the session from afar, or relax and socialize. Some academies, such as the West Ham academy, ask parents to sign a Code of Conduct that outlines the dos and don’ts.

Steve Heighway emphasized in his presentations that the academy coaching staff goes to great pains educating the parents on the relatively low rate of academy graduates who actually become professional players. Steve stresses how competitive it is, and that parents have to prepare their son emotionally and practically for the possibility of getting released by the club. According to Steve Heighway, one of the toughest parts of the job is managing parent’s expectations and releasing players and shattering their dreams. The players in Liverpool’s academy are all technically strong, so the ones who do make it are those with the right mental strength and character that can deal with the stresses and the ups and downs.

In his presentation, Tony Carr, the West Ham Academy Director, outlined his academies’ philosophy on player development as follows:

  • - Open attacking style predominantly 1 & 2 touch movement.

    - Player led philosophy.

    - Let the players express themselves and let them make the decisions.

    - Enjoyable learning environment. Serious but fun.

    - Repetition based program.

    - Technique based training, breeding good habits.

    - Development of the player, not the team. The end product is what matters, not results.


Tony Carr emphasized that the goal is to develop players rather than teams. Game results are not important. West Ham do not emphasize conditioning/strength until U-15 but hire an expert to work on balance, left-right stability and coordination with the younger players.

The Girls Academies

Most of the Premier League clubs run academies for girls that serve as the feeder system into their women’s team, but the girls academies are not as developed or well funded as the boys. In most cases, the girls have to pay for their own kit, facilities and travel.

Arsenal is one of the few clubs that funds a residential academy for girls.

It all starts at the school levels. The girls’ academy coaching staff conducts free clinics at

local schools in order to promote women’s soccer and identify the most promising players. These clinics are for girls between the ages 6 to 16. The best talent is then invited to train in Development Centers. These centers do not play organized league games and only train. From there, the very best players are invited to join the club’s

Center of Excellence at the U-10, U-12, U-14 and U-16 age groups. These teams play friendly games against other club’s where no standings are kept.

Players are signed for one year intervals until U-16. At that point, the best players are signed into the U-18 Academy team and can progress from there into the reserve team and finally to the senior women’s first team.

Since women’s soccer in England is not professional, many of the top English players aspire to come to the USA and play college soccer. Many American college coaches travel frequently to European countries such as England to scout for talent and focus mainly on the European national team level players. Overall, the level of the women’s game in the USA is superior to that found in England, but the gap is slowly closing.

WHAT LESSONS CAN WE LEARN FROM ENGLAND

The English player development system has undergone drastic changes in the last decade.

The irony is that, while The FA has been for many decades a recognized world leader in coaching education and has exported its soccer educational curriculum all over the globe, its player development was steadily falling behind the leading soccer nations such as Holland, France, Italy, Brazil and Argentina. Cultural and historical traditions and a somewhat insular approach had to be overcome in England in order to embrace the methods of some of these leading soccer nations. But now, the ‘Europeanization’ process in England is in full swing.

So, the first lesson we can learn from England is that we must also adopt an open mind and learn from everyone and not fall into an insular mind set of ‘this is America and we do things differently here’. We might be in America, but in soccer, we are competing with the rest of the world and can ignore it at our own peril. Our current youth soccer environment has very similar problems to those that existed in England prior to the academy system and we need to address them just as they had to address them.

Those of us who had the privilege to watch the Liverpool U-18 teams train and play against our ODP team would agree that technically, we are still behind the top youth players from abroad. Our players are still prone to giving the ball way needlessly due to poor control or misplaced passing and the lesson is clearly that our coaches need to spend more time on developing technique in the formative ages of 6-14. When the game is faster, our players’ technique breaks down too easily.

The other lessons we can learn from England is in the area of child welfare and risk management. The Premiership academies’ commitment to a sensitive treatment of the players is impressive. Even though it’s a business, they are clearly committed to a child-centered approach that puts the best interest of the individual player first. They are stridently monitoring player abuse, both mental and physical, ensure enough playing time for each player to build confidence and skill, and invest considerable resources and money to develop rounded human beings rather than just soccer players.

It’s an eye opener to see how the English academies are protecting the players as one would protect a fragile and valuable treasure. For example, restricting the number of games to 30 per year. In the USA, elite players play between 50-100 games per year, which is not only excessive and counterproductive, but a form of player abuse. The Liverpool U-18 team that visited Atlanta in May spent 10 days in America, but only played a total of 3 games. When our teams travel, they play multiple games per day, which is ridiculous. Our players’ experience should be about quality, not quantity.

The academies are also very careful to educate and protect the players from any risky behavior, such as unhealthy life style, poor nutrition, lack of supervision, or any potential dangerous situations when traveling. Our clubs could learn a lot from their approach and high regard for players’ well being. Players’ code of conduct, as well as parents’ and coaches’ code, as well as policies addressing safety for team travel, practice and game days would be a good start.

The English academies see their youth program as an investment for the future. In contrast, American youth soccer is regarded as a revenue producer, a profit center. The day will have to come when the MLS clubs will take over the development of our elite players and do it along a similar philosophy to the English academies. Until that happens, our youth clubs should monitor the behavior of our coaches and educate the parents to ensure that our players are protected from trophy hunting mentality, burnout, and a misplaced emphasis on winning at younger ages. We must follow the English example and do a better job of protecting the players’ safety, while promoting the technical and creative aspects of the game over team building.

Very interesting read! One day something like this in Australia would be great.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by The Kings Jesta »

johnydep wrote:
http://www.soccerdrillstips.com/ wrote:Too Much Emphasis On Winning Leads To Failure

You already know that the fist challenge of a youth soccer coach is to make training more fun and enjoyable for the kids. Now let’s focus on the second biggest problem facing any youth soccer coach and one of the main causes of failure.

Symptoms: Players feel the coach plays favorites or too much pressure on them
Cause: Too much emphasis on winning
Coaching Problem: Failure to balance Winning vs. Fun

Let’s go back to the main reasons why kids quit playing soccer for a while. If you remember, the first reason why they quit is because they weren’t having fun anymore. The second reason why kids quit playing the game is in their words: “The coach played favorites”. This is also related to other two of the top 10 reasons why they quit: “Too much emphasis on winning” and “There was too much pressure”.

A deeper research on this subject found that 21% said they had been pressured to play with an injury, 71% said they wouldn’t care if no score were kept in their games and 41% said they have awakened in the night worrying about upcoming games.

Another study revealed that 95% would rather have fun than worry about winning and 90% said they would prefer to be on a losing team if they were able to actually play rather than warm the bench on a winning team.

And let’s find out what 400 parents said about this subject at the National PTA Convention:

  • • 84% of parents believe that youth athletic programs place too much emphasis on winning
    • 56% said the biggest negative is that sports are too competitive
    • 50% said they would like to see coaches be less focused on winning


If all these stats aren’t enough, let’s quickly bring up again the top 10 reasons list why kids participate in youth sports, just to show you something. Guess what? “Winning” was LAST! To win is only the reason #10 why kids play soccer, so why would you try to make it #1?

This over-emphasis on winning in youth soccer, places great pressure, not only on your players, but also on you as a coach. Although the lessons learned through competition are important, it is of greater importance that you focus your teachings on the fundamentals of the game and the physical skills necessary for the future. Too much pressure at an early age can kill the enjoyment of soccer in the kid, and lead to low retention rates.

Too much emphasis on winning can also result in scheduling too many competitions and games. If there’s no balance between competition, practice and other activities, this is not in the best interest of your players. As a youth soccer coach, you must understand that the process is more important than the outcome, and “winning” is great, but it’s much more important that kids feel good about themselves and are happy and involved.

In one other survey, only 9% of the kids said that winning should be a coach’s highest priority. If you are able to put aside the win-lose mentality and put your focus on your player’s needs, you and the kids will actually begin to win more.

What Winning Really Is And How To Measure Success

Here are a few questions you should ask that will help you know yourself a little bit better and understand the coaching orientation you’ve been following so far:

  • • What is your definition of winning?
    • What exactly is winning for you?
    • How do you know if you’re winning or not?
    • How do you know if you won and when?


These are important questions that may have different answers depending on your own definition of “winning”. This concept has already caused many discussions in the youth soccer coaching community. After all, how should a youth soccer coach measure success?

Especially at youngest ages, coaching success should not be measured in “X” number of wins and “Y” number of losses. The overall majority of youth soccer coaches use this as their yardstick (or their coaching “Philosophy”.) In terms of measuring your success as a coach, I would recommend that you consider these four areas:

  • 1. Howmuchareyourplayersenjoyingthegameandhavingfun?(Youcan survey them to measure this. See suggestions on page 11.)
    2. Howmucharetheskillsofyourplayersdeveloping?(Useplayerevaluation forms with stats to keep track of their progress)
    3. Howistheircharacterandpersonalityevolvingasyoungmenorwomen?
    (Use your own observation skills, get to know your players better and talk to their parents)
    4. Howmuchenthusiasmandexcitementaretheyshowingtowardthegame?
    (Use your own observation skills and be alert)


You should concentrate on getting 100% out of your players by making practice enjoyable and fun and de-emphasize winning or losing. Many times, losing a game doesn’t necessarily mean a team is “not winning” or not succeeding. You can play well and lose, just as you can play poorly and win.

The game can go wrong but you can feel that your players had a blast and enjoyed every minute of it, and you can also win without ‘soul’. Your team knows after a match whether they won or lost. It's you job, as coach, to tell them how they played the game. Let them know that what matters at the end is ‘HOW they did it’ and not ‘WHAT they did’.

Always keep in your mind that success is never final. Success is not a destination... it’s a journey. Don’t ever forget that achieving success as a youth soccer coach is a continuous process, and we all want this long ‘journey’ to be enjoyable and pleasant for everyone ‘travelling’ with us (including ourselves).

The failure to balance “Winning vs. Fun” is probably one the biggest challenges facing any youth soccer coach today. A big percentage of them adopt as a coaching philosophy “win at all costs” – and this is costing us all too much: running off marginal players, sweating down overweight kids, breaking rules to gain an unfair advantage and the worst of all, feeding the big percentage of 70% of kids that quit a game they were suppose to love.

I trust you to make a difference in your player’s lives in a way far more meaningful than just wins or losses. I trust you to teach values like sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline, integrity, respect, perseverance, fairness, honesty, leadership, collaboration, passion and friendship.

IMPORTANT: When I say that your coaching philosophy should be based on making practice fun, DO NOT confuse this with focusing SOLELY on “having fun” either. If you do that, it can become a worse problem for you. I have coached hundred of youth coaches worldwide and I’ve seen many that ONLY cared about ‘fun’ and totally forgot about stressing the fundamentals like hard work, discipline and being competitive and exigent. These “fun-only” coaches allow everything on their coaching sessions, and they suffer hard and rarely win games or the respect of their players. This can lead to players getting hurt, hard-working players losing interest because of not getting recognition for their hard work and seeing no punishment for those messing around little ‘hooligans’ that destroy the harmony of the group or skip practice. You need to find the right mix and I’m sure you’ll be rewarded.
Some very interesting points:

1 / Transfer fees between academy teams (not to be a smart a#^* but can you imagine the amount of junior transfer fees some clubs in particular would be paying each year?!)

2 / While i agree with some of the symptoms / problems with kids quitting bit, I think the youth and parents of today also need to accurately assess their own / childs ability. Some parents talk their kids up like they are already better than Messi, the child believes their own hype, and now, when they are not actually the team super star it all becomes a bit too hard. Are kids/players aware of how Kaka was actually the odd one out for most of his life in Brazil as he came from a well to do family. The majority of super star players from South America come from poverty like conditions. They don't have the latest Vapour/Predator boots, they're lucky to have shoes. They learn early on to fight for everything they get, not expect it to be handed to them. One of Messi's greatest attributes is his humility. Another one is his work rate. While coaches should encourage and coach equally, players should realise there is also a level of hard work required on their part.

3 / As said earlier in this thread, all these academies are at professional clubs. West Ham spend 3m euro a year... Adelaide Utd are lucky to make 3m a year in turnover. The A-League clubs need to run these academies with full time coaching staff to ensure the same results. Or the people with money in SA need to fund the local clubs to have full time coaches (or give them enough reimbursement to cover the 5 nights of the week plus match day).

4 / Australia's biggest issue is the countries size vs population saturation. Due to the cost of funding A-league youth teams to play each other, not for a long time will we see more than one youth team per club, unless the local leagues of each state are happy to have A.Utd U12-17 playing in the junior leagues too. *NB* before the whole but they will be full of the best players and the competition will be unbalanced... remember they can only pick so many players, and it's no different to other european countries, Ajax are the biggest club in Holland and therefore produce the highest quota (certainly over the last 20yrs) as they attract the best players... but PSV / Feynoord / Herenveen / AZ / FC Twente are still all successful.
One option that I've been thinking about for the last couple of weeks with all this talk of the Australian Premier League, and the local clubs playing in a Champions League style club comp against each other: Why do away with the A-League, each state has their own comp and there is a National championship with big prize money at the end champions league style each year. So best of SA vs best of VIC etc... no different to Holland, Belgium etc all in close proximity but having their own comps. With a big prize pool on the line more clubs would/should invest more in facilities / junior development / coaches... It would mean less money spent around the country on travel expenses leaving more to potentially be put into junior/grass roots football. More clubs than just Adelaide Utd would be an attractive prospect as more will have access to top competitions and possibly the doors could open for more clubs becoming professional.
It makes sense in my head, hope it came across the right way...

5 / I agree that development is more important than points, but developing a winning mentality is also part of development. Back on what makes Messi so special... he knows how to win. He knows he needs to fight to make that happen. It's not just about tricks, flicks and tika-taka football, there is a purpose to the game... to be better than the opposition. A player who knows how to pass, control, score, tackle etc... is great. A player who knows why they are doing all that is even better. If two players are equal on ability but one wants it more, we all know the outcome.

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Steve#4
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Steve#4 »

I didn't read all the articles but skimmed a few....Two main differences that put us on the back foot.

1. Soccer is not our number 1 ball sport as in Germany, Spain etc...

2. Kids these days only get to have a kick lunch times at school or at a club training.
The kids in the articles have access to street/park soccer with their mates whenever they have a spare minute. We are a country full of helicopter parents who won't let kids out of their sight. I never see kids down the park just kicking a soccer ball unless the parents have their fold out chairs within eyesight.

The Kings Jesta
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by The Kings Jesta »

Solution to the whole playing for points thing could be:

every junior team plays in the division their senior team plays in, regardless of where the junior team finishes each year. You can still have points and award a "league title" to the winners but clubs at the bottom of the league can still focus on playing a certain style as there will be no relegation to "worry" about. Clubs could also promote youngsters in to higher leagues more regularly as, once again, the points don't really matter.

A possible by product of this would also be that the first team may also see greater numbers of supporters from within the club on a Saturday as where/how they are playing now effects the whole club i.e. if i was a promising 14yr old in the juniors at a Premier league club that was struggling, i'd want to be there on match day to cheer on the first team to try and help them stay in the top division so that i stay in the top division. having played 1st team at a few different clubs, i can say it was certainly better playing at the clubs that promoted to the juniors to come and watch the seniors, made for a much better atmosphere at the game (even if they just come to home games coaches of junior clubs should encourage their teams to watch and support the first team / and the club should let them and their parents in for discounted/free prices)

as the meerkat says "Simples"

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Nice One Cyril »

The Kings Jesta wrote:Solution to the whole playing for points thing could be:

every junior team plays in the division their senior team plays in, regardless of where the junior team finishes each year. You can still have points and award a "league title" to the winners but clubs at the bottom of the league can still focus on playing a certain style as there will be no relegation to "worry" about. Clubs could also promote youngsters in to higher leagues more regularly as, once again, the points don't really matter.

A possible by product of this would also be that the first team may also see greater numbers of supporters from within the club on a Saturday as where/how they are playing now effects the whole club i.e. if i was a promising 14yr old in the juniors at a Premier league club that was struggling, i'd want to be there on match day to cheer on the first team to try and help them stay in the top division so that i stay in the top division. having played 1st team at a few different clubs, i can say it was certainly better playing at the clubs that promoted to the juniors to come and watch the seniors, made for a much better atmosphere at the game (even if they just come to home games coaches of junior clubs should encourage their teams to watch and support the first team / and the club should let them and their parents in for discounted/free prices)

as the meerkat says "Simples"
Except that, whilst I agree that points don't matter per se, teams at the bottom might be getting belted every week and teams at the top winning easily. The whole purpose of junior football is development and the best way to do that, apart from at training, is to play teams of roughly the same abilities. The way the Fed run the leagues is fine, the problem is some of the coaches and the parents.
Victor Meldrew wrote:A decent govt..... like uk. :lol:
"The game is about glory, doing things in style and with a flourish, going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."
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black
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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by black »

in all this development discussion of the "best tams" do stats become important at junior level?
They certainly are in senior grades.
1/6.... but still 6. :)

"you see the eye to detail,the accuracy of the pass, it's the weight of the pass and the decision making in the games, that makes top players stand out form average players" - Rene' Meulensteen,

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by johnydep »

http://www.tsn.ca/soccer/story/?id=407037 wrote:HOW PARENTS CAN LOOK TO DEVELOP YOUNG SOCCER PLAYERS

The question is this: Why do some parents feel the need to move their child from soccer club to soccer club year after year in the hopes of joining a 'winning' team?

Let me start by explaining where I'm coming from with this question. I view the education of young soccer players – from the time they start kicking a ball to the time they are fully grown adults – as very much like the education of young children in school.

We send our children to school in order for them to learn -- at the appropriate stages of their development -- the skills they need to succeed in their education and, by extension, in their life.

We do not expect kids in grade three to be able to do calculus, nor do we expect them to be able to go on job interviews. We do not judge them by adult standards – we judge them by age and ability specific standards for children. Our goal, every year, is for our children to progress with their peers to the next level of their education.

Some of those peers are more advanced for their age, and some are a little behind. That doesn't change the objectives of the school, nor does it change the objectives of the teachers. Their job is to challenge every child to advance in their education, so that they can go on to achieve long-term success.

Would a parent of a young child change schools if that child came home with poor grades? Would they blame the teacher, or shop around for a teacher at another school who would tell them what they want to hear, that their child is, in fact, a genius that is simply misunderstood?

While some parents may very well do that, I think most reasonable parents would instead sit down with their child's teacher to discover what they can do as parents to help their child achieve success in school. That discussion would likely involve the parents spending more time working with their child at home on the concepts that their child is struggling to understand. It would likely also involve the parents teaching their child the importance of commitment and dedication to learning.

So how does education in school relate to young players learning soccer? Just as teachers are partners with parents in the education of their children, soccer coaches are partners with parents in the education of their soccer-playing children.

While many parents understand that the goal of a student in grade three is to learn enough to graduate to grade four, many parents fail to understand what the metrics are for success as a young soccer player.

Many parents have only one metric for success when it comes to youth soccer – winning.

Because of this, these parents fail to understand that their child embarks on a learning process when they begin to play soccer, just as they embark on a learning process at school. It begins with learning the physical literacy skills of running, kicking and jumping, and progresses to more advanced skills like kicking a ball with multiple surfaces of both feet, dribbling the ball against opposition and interacting with teammates to attack and defend.

These parents are so desperate for their child to succeed in soccer – which, due to the parents' limited understanding, means winning games – that they fail to understand that their child first needs to learn the fundamentals of the game.

Young players need to learn to be comfortable with a ball at their feet, to pass and receive the ball, to shoot the ball with both feet. Those are some of the core fundamentals young players need in order to achieve long-term success in the game. There is no shortcut to success in soccer; there isn't a player in the world who reaches the highest level of the game without first acquiring those skills.

To put the process of skill acquisition into the context of education, consider this: Teachers do not ask children to compose essays before they are first taught to write the letters of the alphabet, followed by words, followed by sentences, followed by paragraphs, etc. There is a structured learning process that children go through in order to reach the stage where they are able to write complex topical essays.

Yet when it comes to soccer, many parents fail to understand that the very same process is required. How can a child be expected to be successful in the game before they are first taught to kick a ball with both feet, to dribble the ball, to pass and receive the ball - the very skills through which games can be won?

One often hears parents on the side lines yelling instructions to their children. Those parents believe that they are supporting their child's learning, and that their child will learn faster if they are given vocal encouragement. In reality, more often than not, this encouragement only serves to confuse the child.

Picture it in a different context. If a child were asked in school to add the numbers four and five, would a parent yell out from the back of the classroom, "Nine! Nine is the right answer! Say nine!"

This is essentially what those parents are doing on the sidelines of a soccer field. They are taking away their child's opportunity to learn through guided discovery, a process whereby young players experiment with new skills under the guidance of their coach, thus involving them in the learning process. When a parent is barking orders at a child from the sidelines, they are actually detracting from their child's learning opportunity.

Not all parents are like this, of course. The vast majority are very supportive of their children's soccer education, and understand that it isn't all about winning. But how do we go about changing the culture of soccer in our country, so that all parents understand that the process of developing young soccer players doesn't lie solely in the win column?

Clubs and Academies across Canada must work to educate parents, so that those parents understand that the soccer field is their child's classroom -- where they go to learn the game. The onus is on the teacher (the coach) to make learning the game fun for the students (the players.)

As parents, you must understand your job is to support the learning of your child, not hinder it. You can play a big role in emphasizing the lessons that your child's coach is trying to teach them. Develop a comfortable relationship with the coach, so if you have any concerns about your child's understanding of those lessons, you can speak freely with the coach so you can work together to help your child learn.

If your child has a season where the losses outnumber the victories, ask yourself these two important questions, "Did my child have fun this year? Did they learn more fundamentals?" If you can answer 'yes' to both of these questions, there is a good chance your child is in a good learning environment.

And finally, don't get fixated with wins and losses. They aren't nearly as important as you might think. When it comes time for your child to try out for an elite team, be it at the university, provincial, national or professional level, trophies count for nothing. Fundamentals are what really matter; if your child has mastered those, there is a very good chance they will find the success that they desire.

And that is something that every parent wants.

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Re: Junior development is more important than points

Post by Sturt »

Excellent stuff.

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