I just discovered this article via a thread on BigSoccer. Written about two weeks ago by Robert Ziegler for Top Drawer Soccer (a great place for youth soccer news and commentary), it asks some hard questions as to how the new Development Academies will really improve the player pool for the United States.

My personal belief is that the Academies will help because the players will be placed in a more professional environment. Instead of playing in a regional premier league, or worse, against local competition, the clubs will be competing against a select group chosen for their quality from across the nation. No longer will clubs steamroll their way through state cups and face little opposition until they encounter similar-strength programs at nationals. The clubs won’t have to travel to tournaments on opposite coasts to play a couple strong teams and a couple of weak teams. The quality is assured by the USSF, which means that these clubs should face much better competition on a more regular basis. And because these clubs are seriously limited in what competitions they can be involved with outside of the Development League, there’s much less risk for burnout as kids are no longer playing 60-80 games per year. There’s a ratio of games to practices to ensure the Academy club players receive ample training time as well. All of these improvements lead me to believe that the players will be better prepared than in the past. I don’t think that means that suddenly we’ll be producing fifty top professional prospects each year as opposed to the five or ten we do now (I’m thinking of players that are able to sign with quality professional teams instead of entering college). But I do think this will raise the overall level of the average player, which in theory should produce some better college players, some better MLS players, some better senior national team players. I stress that these small steps will help, but will not be a panacea.

That being said, I think the whole initiative has the potential to provide great benefits to the US player pool. Right now I think the quality of coaching and players is too dispersed among the sixty-some odd clubs that are involved as well as those who aren’t involved with Academy clubs. However, it also appears that some of these Academies are starting to become slightly regionalized, so as opposed to representing one club, they’re acting as a pinnacle for several clubs to aim their prospects at. Examples include Chicago Magic/Chicago Wind merger (only at Academy level) and the Schulz Academy holding open tryouts/forming a sort of alliance in the Treasure Coast area, which comprises several clubs. I think this is a good situation and believe it will continue at it adds depth to the player pools in each area. In essence, I see a more European model emerging from this system as the Academies adopt other clubs as feeders and become more regionalized, all eventually hoping to get players involved with either the youth national teams, or hopefully, with MLS clubs. As players like Matt Kassel and Jorge Flores develop through the MLS youth systems and are able to sign pro contracts, I think the MLS clubs will really be able to select from the top talent in their respective regions and will thus be viewed as a step above the average Academy. Thus we will begin to see a more direct connection from youth player at random club to national team or MLS player.

But those are simply my thoughts on the Development Academies and the trends I see or believe will occur. It’s the here and now as the Academy system takes flight that the article examines and as I see great potential, it’s important to keep everything in perspective. And some of the comments from on high really bother me. We hear the argument all the time about how the US has never produced a world class player. We’re seeing more and more potentially very good players, but we have yet to produce that diamond that shines on the world stage. To me, along with what we know about development procedure and policy in the US and abroad, means that the United States still needs to make changes at nearly all levels before we can produce players of the quality seen in Argentina, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy. As a coach in the system who is eager to learn and improve, I’m constantly looking for more information and guidance from more experienced coaches. In the aforementioned nations, there are players who were outstanding players or have proven themselves outstanding coaches. But when you look at the very cream of the crop in the United States, most everyone is quite unproven from a global perspective. Bruce Arena performed well with the senior national team and DC United, but has never coached a foreign club. I think the US would be well served to do everything they can to learn from their European and South American brethren, so I’m disheartened when I read our national team coach, Bob Bradley, state:

“We all are respectful of what goes on around the world. Many coaches in this country have gone to great lengths to learn from methods and coaches around the world, so I think we’re always looking to see how things get done elsewhere,” Bradley said. “In the end it has to be applied to what goes on here. You have to understand soccer in the United States and understand our levels and where we are with leagues and youth programs and the college system. That’s all important. We’re always trying to balance those 2 things. There are those people who sometimes believe that all the answers need to come from somewhere else, but there are a lot of very, very good people in this country who have worked in the game for years. So you need to balance between having an open mind about ways to improve and– recognizing the unique aspects of soccer here and the good things that have gone on here.”

It’s good to be respectful and good to have enough confidence in your ability going forward that you don’t have to abandon your ideas for someone else’s. That being said, there are other nations who have won multiple World Cups and consistently produce great players. Some may say that there are socioeconomic differences that lead Brazil and Argentina to be able to produce players at the quantity they do, but surely the United States and Spain or France have enough in common that we can more closely emulate some of their methods. This sort of logic really ticks me off. From my experience, those involved with the USSF more often than not always want everyone else to understand that emulating other nations simply isn’t that easy nor necessary. They want to chuckle at those foolish enough to think that the success of other nations has surely left clues as to those successes. Everyone thinking logically like that must simply understand that because our youth programs are not as strongly tied to a professional system like in other nations and that the majority of our youth players are fed into the college soccer system, we simply must spend years figuring everything out on our own. Why look to more successful models and try to install useful elements (think what the Japanese have done with soccer in their country) when you can spend an eternity reinventing the wheel? That stereotypically American arrogance drives me insane every time I hear it. If you ever stop and ponder why the United States, with its vast amount of resources, hasn’t produced a world class player or placed beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup (somewhat luckily if you want to be cynical), just listen to the top brass in our country speak about player development and the direction it needs to take.

I do agree that the United States has specific challenges, just as every nation does. But that doesn’t mean that we need to mostly figure out on our own how things could possibly work. The NCAA’s rules and structure are extremely detrimental to player development. The players don’t get enough games and training. There can be a lot of variation between quality of opponents on a given team’s schedule. There are limits to what the players can and can’t do with regards to playing/training with professional clubs. These are challenges the United States needs to solve before we reach our potential as a soccer nation. But BYU’s soccer team doesn’t play in an NCAA conference. They play in the Premier Development League, an amateur/semi-pro league that is recognized as the best of its kind in the nation. They aren’t limited by NCAA statutes, only by the PDL’s rules. It would certainly be challenging, but finding ways to get more players into similar situations year round (many top college players participate in the PDL during the summer) would improve the player pool. Surely universities would be unwilling to move in the direction BYU has taken due to money and publicity reasons. But David Richardson of Chicago Sockers mentions is quoted in the article as saying that “U.S. Soccer has $40 million or more it’s trying to figure out how to spend.” Might it be reasonable to suggest some of this money could go towards compensating or rewarding universities that make similar changes as BYU, if at all possible? Maybe start a college league like they have started the Development Academy League with some of that money being used to reward the members who join (meeting certain criteria established by US Soccer) and paying for TV production (Fox Soccer Channel already broadcasts some Division I soccer games each week during the season)? Now that might be some direct connectivity that Bradley speaks about. That way US Soccer would be completely free of outside interference with relation to player development. They would set all the rules from top to bottom.

I think until we have more coaches striving for intensive education experiences in top soccer environments; until we recognize we still have a lot we can learn and incorporate from other nations; and until we can make changes to either the college system or the fact that the majority of player pool passes through said system, the United States will continue to struggle to reach the true soccer potential it’s capable of reaching.

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This article in The Independent from our friends across the pond takes a look at the player development model in England. The current setup in England has been coming under intense scrutiny for the past couple of years as the English national team routinely fails to live up to its hype. The latest failure was the loss to Croatia a few months back, which knocked them out of Euro 2008. England likes to think of itself in terms of the world’s elite but one World Cup victory (1966) on home soil and no significant successes from youth teams or in European Championships for some time has lead to some hard introspection. Nevermind the fact that several of their top club teams are littered, or in Arsenal’s case, fully stocked, with foreign talent and it becomes apparent that something is wrong with England’s youth development model. National team coach Fabio Capello and his staff have commented on the English players’ inability to play a possession based game due to both their less than incredible technical skills as well as cultural pressure (fans want to see exciting end to end soccer that disregards tactics for opportunism). The United States has not produced a world class player to this day, but we boast a huge population and youth player base. While it’s old news that many experts within the game in our country have realized the need for change at the grassroots level within the past several years, it’s also true that we need to take a hard look at the overall structure within US Soccer to see whether we’ve made the proper corrections.

I think it only makes sense to examine our problems somewhat in regards to England because, while our nation is huge and culturally diverse, from the top down we have mostly adopted practices from England in regards to soccer. I’m sure it’s because a language barrier exists when comparing the United States to France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, etc. that we have looked to our English brethren for guidance in the sport. But now is the time for the United States to try and adopt ideas and practices more common among those nations, the true world’s elite.

Some of the interesting points the article makes are the ways in which the structure differs in France and Italy. In Italy, for example, players participate in small sided games (SSGs) until they are they are thirteen. How many clubs or leagues do we see in the US playing nine-a-side at U-13? Quite few, if any, I imagine. While some recreational leagues may play small sided all the way up through the age of thirteen, I’m sure very few ‘travel’ or ‘premier’ leagues follow suit. I know that through the influence of US Soccer there has been additional emphasis placed on SSGs at age group level. While it would have been common ten years ago to see players at the young ages playing eleven-a-side, it’s now at the point where most leagues and clubs are at least making an effort to use SSGs as the competition format, particularly at the younger ages. I think SSGs have a strong connection to the tactical development of young players. While they also increase the number of touches, and thus technical ability of each player, the fewer players on the field equals simpler soccer problems to solve. This makes it easier to reinforce good habits, particularly those of supporting runs. I think using SSGs makes it easier on the coaches to identify problems and correct them among players and keeps things simple so the players learn the basics more quickly. It looks like we’re already developing better players in the United States, judging by the personnel and their results at tournaments like the U-20 World Cup and U-23 Olympic Qualifying, but we’ll probably have to wait another 5-10 years to really see the results of increased attention to SSGs.

The style of play in the continental nations also requires a bit of examination. From my experience watching games on TV, it seems like the Italians are possibly the most technically and tactically precise of any in Europe. The player positioning is superb and there are very few mistakes made when performing the range of basic skills. The fact that the Premiership is so fast probably adversely affect quality of all technical execution, but the game is really end to end with much less adherence to strict tactical plans. La Liga is somewhere in between, with technically sharp players who are relatively disciplined tactically. That being said, I think Serie A is one of the more boring leagues to watch week in and week out. Just like any league, the top teams are usually fairly enjoyable, but the average team in the top flight is where you can really see the true quality of a nation’s players. The Italians are almost like slaves to tactics though, and the reason I find their league somewhat less entertaining is that everything is precisely measured and there are few moments where opportunity takes center stage. Right now the average players in the United States rely too much on athleticism and are beginning to show signs of technical precision as well. But we still lack the quality tactical play that will propel our players to the next level. We’re still chasing England in all of these regards, but seem to be recognizing the fact that we also need to carve our own path to the top tier. That the US is a maturing soccer nation with so many different influences to consider both helps and hurts. From all corners of our nation we have individuals with great experience in foreign soccer cultures teaching our youth their way of doing things. It’s great to have that cosmopolitan flavor throughout the United States, but it also makes me wonder what would happen if we declared a somewhat ‘national style’ a la the Netherlands. All of the Dutch players grow up playing in a 4-3-3 with real wingers. This makes it easy for the national team as the players all know how their system is intended to be played. They are constantly producing players that fit this system because this is what they learn. This could help our youth development to have some specific standards that clubs must adhere to when coaching youth players. While it might not work as well with a fledgling soccer nation like the United States, it’s interesting to think of what the best path possible is and whether a ‘national style’ would be beneficial in the long term.

While some may argue that a foreign national coach will help alleviate these problems, I respectfully disagree. I do believe that a foreign coach (like an Italian, Frenchman, or Spaniard, but not the average Englishman) would introduce a greater degree of tactical sophistication to our senior team, but I don’t think it would really solve any problems in the long run. I don’t know that we would be necessarily that much more (or any more) successful at the World Cup, which is all the senior team is about. But hiring a foreigner as a technical director to our youth national teams might push the United States in the right direction with regards to player development. For too long I feel that we’ve been attempting to figure everything out on our own. Sure we hired Carlos Quieroz (Sir Alex Ferguson’s right hand man at Man U) to write the 2010 report, but from what is commonly understood, very little of that report was every utilized. It did result in Generation Adidas, which has done some good for MLS, and Bradenton, which is the crown jewel of US player development, so it did yield some positives overall. But hiring an experienced foreign coach to make changes and adjustments to the way our youth soccer players are educated could provide the necessary boost that would take years to happen otherwise. The French won the World Cup in 1998, ten years after the creation of Clairefontaine, an institution similar to Bradenton. Clearly we are moving in the right direction, but have we done enough?

Where England and the United States are close to level terms is with regards to youth trainers. Just like in England, we have the least experienced and least qualified coaches working with the youngest ages. The more experienced coaches naturally want to be working with the older age groups, where they can teach more complicated subject matter like higher level tactics. With the young players, it’s really a matter of being patient and not expecting too much too soon. With older players the coach can demand that they learn faster and the ones who don’t simply fall by the wayside. This is true all over the world. When the U-18 players don’t make the grade in terms of what they’re supposed to learn, they’re forced to leave the club they’re currently at. This happens from professional clubs in Europe to top level premier teams in the United States. With the youngest ages though, particularly in the United States, we don’t have a ‘premier’ system in place that selects for the ones that are currently most capable. While Ajax, of the Netherlands, world renowned for their youth development system may have one year contracts stipulating a player learns ‘x, y, and z’ or is not offered a contract the next year, the local soccer club can’t typically afford to cut the less promising eight year olds (nor should they, as they aren’t offering a direct path to the pros like Ajax is). I think the youth clubs need to make some changes so that more experienced coaches are working with the younger age groups, at least at the premier clubs. If the clubs brought in specialized skills coaches to work with players outside of the normal practice (like an extra session a week for ‘x’ amount of weeks or something like that), I think the technical quality of the players would significantly improve.

While the United States has made great strides in player development, we have yet to produce a world class talent (a player who would be an automatic selection for any national team). We still have much work to do before ours is a truly great soccer nation. I hope we can learn from the mistakes of others like England as well as the success of some South American and continental European nations to shorten the time before now and our first World Cup victory. While articles like these inevitably raise more questions than they answer, I’ll take my own stab at some changes I believe the United States should make to improve the quality of our player development.

Matt’s recommendations for change:

These changes are based on idealism, not necessarily feasibility:

1. Hire a continental European, Argentine, or Brazilian as technical director of US Soccer. This individual would have control over coaching education and player development programs. The head coach of Bradenton would report to this person. They would have the power to institute required changes to all youth clubs in the country (suggestions like ‘x’ v ‘x’ at U-whatever, etc.). This individual would have influence in deciding how the US should implement teaching their style of play at each age.

2. At all Academy and Cup level clubs, the coaches should specialize at their age group and should be paid professionals, not volunteers coaching their child’s team. That would mean that a coach works with the U-12 boys and doesn’t move up in age group each year while staying with the same team. This would make it easier to implement a club curriculum and eventually we would have coaches who excel at teaching the necessary skills for each level and would hopefully be able to spot talent at their age group.

3. Institute at least one more Bradenton style institute (West Coast) so as to develop more players and provide high level training to a greater number of players, theoretically increasing the national player pool.

4. Develop some guidelines for a US style of play. I don’t think this should be too narrowly defined as one of our strengths is our foreign-tinged population. But I think certain elements should be taught no matter what. As the US will, for the foreseeable future, be producing top athletes, I think examples might include outside backs that always overlap and get into the attack. Maybe developing outside midfielders who can attack and defend equally well would be another.

5. Continue to include MLS clubs in the development plan so they exist as the highest plane of club level soccer. Hopefully through their own abilities they emerge as the best options in comparison to the other Academies. But if they aren’t, hopefully they will work with the best so the players have the chance to become involved with a professional club from increasingly younger ages.

I think these changes would be giant strides toward improving the quality of player development in the United States. We currently are seeing small pockets of quality emerging (ex. Jozy and several U-17 players coming out of Schulz Academy in Florida) throughout the country, but we need this to be happening in all fifty states. We are slowly learning and growing, but the sooner the better. We all have the same goal, we just need to all figure out the best ways going forward to help increase the US’ stature on the world soccer stage.

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For the lack of content so far this week. Work, running training sessions, rehabbing (torn ACL from soccer and the subsequent knee reconstruction), and other stuff have taken up a lot of my time so far. I was working on an article related to youth development in the United States with respect to England and a couple of the continental European nations. Bruce at du Nord found this article through his always excellent work and it caused me to think about the direction the good ol’ US of A is taking. We have constant debates at all levels and from all quarters as to the best way for the US to develop into a soccer superpower and I’ll provide my own thoughts on that when I finish the article in the next day or two. Enjoy the United States versus Poland (3:30 pm, FSC) today! Also, if you happen to have called in sick to work so you can watch the US and you have Gol TV, check out Argentina and Egypt at 2pm. I think it could be an enjoyable game. From what I read Egypt plays a flowing, South American type style of soccer, so it might be an interesting matchup.

How much thought do you give to breaking your players into teams during practice? Do you always play starting offense versus starting defense? Try to make even teams by mixing the stronger players with the weaker players? Do you plan out the teams in advance based upon what you want to accomplish that practice?

Personally, I typically aim for the latter option. I know many coaches who have the ability to plan out practice a few minutes before it starts, if not as the players are arriving. They seem to me to have a huge database of activities and sessions in their head that they whip out at the drop of a dime to run a pretty decent practice. For myself, though, I try to plan everything out to the last detail. Call me Mourinho if you want (and I’d be quite flattered as well), but I find things run smoothest when I know exactly how the practice is going to unfold. And planning out the way I’m going to break up the teams is no different.

If this is the last training session before I game, I’ll look to give the starting players the most challenge possible and this usually results in playing the starting midfield and strikers against the starting back line. I usually play the starting goalkeeper with the starting back line because even if I think the second team will have success against the starting team’s weaker back line (resulting in more goal scoring chances), it never really materializes. Thus all I’ve done is bored the starting goalkeeper and wasted his practice time. By working with the starting back line, the goalkeeper also gets to work on communication and distribution with those players, creating a more cohesive unit. Hopefully the starting attackers will get enough challenge by trying to break down the starting back line that everyone will get enough work. The less drop off in playing ability from top to bottom, the easier it is to ensure that this is the case.

I don’t always elect to break the teams up in this manner though. Occasionally I’ll try to focus the team on maintaining possession or looking for specific opportunities that, due to the experience level of the team, do not materialize immediately. In these instances, I’ll maybe try the starting midfield with a weaker attack or defense, depending on exactly what I want to emphasize. It also depends on the quality of the players as I mentioned previously. One team I coached had a pretty wide gap between the top half and bottom half of the players. It was a constant challenge to figure out how to break up the teams to get what I wanted out of them. If one of the role players was having a bad day, I’d just have to juggle players around until I got suitable matchups.

Just like a lot of things related to soccer, it comes down to the individual players and their qualities. The higher the level you’re coaching, the more you can make specific requests of the players. At the lower levels, you might not be able to see a whole lot of difference no matter who you put on the field. I hope this article gives you pause for a moment to think about whether you’re making the most of your scrimmage time by the way in which you break up teams. Remember that before the age of fourteen or so, it’s entirely about player development, so keep that in mind when you’re telling the players which pinnie to put on.

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Do you give your players regular soccer homework to perform outside of practice? If you answered ‘yes’ to this question, clap yourself on the back. As a player, I was never really given much in the way of soccer homework. Especially not at the younger ages. I had a Guatemalan coach when I was fourteen who constantly stressed that I needed to add more feints and footwork into my game. Prior to his suggestions I relied almost exclusively on speed. I could beat players easily with a limited number of touches, but no coach before this one had looked into my future to see me struggling to cope with similarly speedy defenders. He encouraged me to both do Tae-Bo (rhythmic cardio boxing for the uninitiated) to improve my agility and attend a Coerver camp to improve my comfort with the ball (for those who don’t know, The Coerver Method is a Dutch system aimed at developing players’ ability with the ball). He would relate stories of growing up in Guatemala where, when he wasn’t playing soccer with kids in the neighborhood, he would imagine everything around him as an opposing defender. When he ran to his friends’ houses he would stop in front of trees and bushes, juking left and right, as he used his imagination to sharpen his soccer skills away from the field. I’m not sure if he played professionally (I imagine he probably played at a fairly high level; maybe not top level professional, but at least the equivalent of AAA baseball or something similar), but he tried out for Guatemala’s Olympic soccer team and I believe was assigned to the reserve team. Not a bad accomplishment by any means. While playing for this coach I experienced a rapid growth in my technical abilities. His South American flavored practices were very different to what I had previously been exposed. I only played on his team for one season, before moving on to a more competitive ‘premier’ team, but sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out as a player if I had continued to play for him (although that’s an entirely different topic altogether). But my main reason for relating this anecdote is: providing your soccer players with soccer homework and stimulating their imagination is maybe one of the most important things you can as their coach.

I’ve already told you about the methods this coach assigned me to improve my rhythm, but the other side of that coin is that he would frequently teach me a technique at the end of practice, explain in what game situations it was useful and why, and would then tell me to go practice it all the time at home. This is how I first learned how to run with the ball properly. Before that, I would simply hit the ball forward with the inside of my foot and catch up with it. As I progressed he taught me additional techniques that I was to practice at home. When I was sixteen I played for another coach who decided that my touch and comfort with the ball wasn’t up to snuff. He told me his own story of going into the park in Philly and banging the ball against the wall while listening to his tape player. He apparently went to a Division I school in Philly before suffering a career ending ankle injury. So, going into my senior year of high school I would go to a wall near my house and practice receiving the ball from all different speeds and angles, in my barefeet (helps speed up the learning process by allowing a better touch on the ball, some, including myself, believe). My touch was the best it ever was and I had my best season as well.

Imagination is another aspect of play that, when used appropriately can really produce some magic on the field. I remember stumbling upon Nike’s soccer website which used to have a section where anyone could submit video of themselves performing freestyle tricks. I had always juggled, but only used the conventional surfaces. I had never tried to perform some of the tricks I saw on these videos. Inspired, I would go outside and practice, trying to nail down tricks I had watched on the videos. I would slow down the video to see each move piece by piece. Then when I was outside, I would imagine that I was in a game. Using my imagination, I would dream of pulling off cool tricks and flicks to get around defenders. So when I was juggling, I would flick it up in the air over a fictional defender then cut it back to my other foot to evade another oncoming defender and continue to string movements together until I decided to do something else. This translated on the field as the type of creative play I became known for. It opened my mind to see that I really could use any means necessary to get the ball from point A to point B. While always trying to be team efficient, I wouldn’t shy away from popping it over a defender’s head if I surmised that be the best method of beating that player. It really helped me to establish what I consider to be my ’style’ as a player.

So I think one of the greatest gifts you can give your players is homework. The more you can individualize it the better, but at least select a technique and an activity through which they can practice said technique and tell the team to go practice it for a week. You can’t force them to do it, but the players who listen will improve much quicker than the rest and social pressure should help take care of the rest. While I always practiced on my own ever since I started playing at U-11, receiving specific feedback from these two coaches significantly guided my efforts. Try to stimulate their imagination as well. Encourage them to play with the ball when they’re at home, trying difficult tricks they’ve either seen or heard about. Certainly perform some if you can. Let them know that they can find great videos on the internet of freestyle soccer players and professional players like Ronaldinho who consistently exhibit a supreme level of technical skill. Hopefully you’ve read my last article Why Winning Isn’t Important and realize that stimulating this creativity will allow you and more importantly, your players, to reap the benefits in the long term. Good luck!

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Now that I have your attention, let me explain further. I think too much emphasis is placed on winning games at young ages as opposed to focusing on developing all of the players to reach their maximum potential. When the emphasis is on development, the players are allowed to develop their skills and make mistakes, which helps lead to confident, intelligent players. Even in leagues and teams where the thought exists that winning should take a back seat to player development though, I still observe behaviors that reinforce our society’s obsession with victory. One such scenario: In a U-10 boys recreation league game, a team that has been in relative ‘control’ of the game gives up a late goal. Near the end of the game the coach of this team calls the players together (the league was using quarters due to heat) and tells them that he can do one of two things. Continue to sub the players at regular intervals (which provides equal opportunity for all players to play the game and develop) or play the ‘best’ players for the last quarter so the team has a chance at winning. Asking this in front of the entire team, it’s pretty obvious that the ‘best’ players are going to clamor loudest for option B. They did and the coach made few or no subs for the last quarter of the game. And these are ten year olds in a recreation league!

My main complaint with the status quo is that below the competitive U-14 level, it doesn’t really accomplish anything to win at the sake of player development, besides providing the coach and players with a falsely inflated sense of self worth. That’s not to say that I think teams below U-14 should aim to lose all of their games by any means necessary. On the contrary, I’m happy for teams to be successful, if their goal is player development and victories come as a result of this focus. But what do I mean exactly when I talk about ‘player development?’

What I mean is that the point of every practice and every game should be to help all of the team’s players become individually better. If the focus isn’t on improving the players, then it’s on making the ‘team’ better so the ‘team’ wins more games, or, possibly worse, there’s no focus at all. When practices are geared towards player development, correct activities are chosen that emphasize improving the players’ basic skills first and applying them in game like situations second. When this philosophy is applied in game situations, the players are given the freedom to make their own decisions and express themselves. The coach may give some directions, but he isn’t constantly spouting information from the sideline. The players are allowed to make mistakes, even ones that may result in conceding goals or ‘losing the game.’ The mistakes are recognized as golden learning opportunities by the coach, who then uses them as tools to help the players improve their insight (knowledge of the game). Allowing the players to express themselves may result in attempts to dribble out of pressure in front of the defending goal, but may also result in a brilliant run to score or create a goal scoring chance. Most importantly, the players will develop the confidence to attempt a unique solution to a soccer problem. While the players WILL make mistakes that result in conceding goals and losing games, proper coaching and continued adherence to a player development philosophy will yield major benefits around the age of fourteen, when winning rightfully becomes more important. At this point, the players all should have highly developed basic skills and should have some idea of basic team tactics; a very solid soccer platform to build upon. The players will then be suitably equipped to test themselves against high level regional or national competition. The very best will then be able to decide for themselves how far they want to go in the game, rather than already having this decision partly made for them by win obsessed coaches.

Win-centric coaches and teams hurt the players in the end because they don’t allow the players to properly develop. Often times these teams place a strong emphasis on positioning and counter attacking. Typically the players stay rooted in ‘their position’ (by which I mean defenders will stay back and simply look to defend, rather than helping to attack when appropriate) and generally look to attack through one or two players who have physical advantages over most other teams (usually speed). These players don’t learn the principles of the game or their position, but learn to play very conservatively so as not to make mistakes that lead to goals and learn to rely on one teammate to carry the team. They don’t learn how to be good teammates who work hard making runs to support the player in possession. They don’t develop a good soccer knowledge base because they only know how to play one position. While these teams may be successful at the young age groups, by the time the players hit maturity, they get absolutely blown away. I’ve seen it happen. The players can’t compete with those who are the product of player development focused models and usually drop out of the game by the time they’re in their mid teens. While they may love the game, they’ll find something else that they can be moderately successful at. They may have even had a lot of potential, but believe they ‘just weren’t ever going to be good enough’ because of the poor coaching they received when they were young. While it can be disheartening to lose some games at a young age, the future pay off of developing players capable of going as far as they want in the game is well worth the wait. Would you rather have coached a couple of successful high school players or several college players? Would you prefer a U-10 local league trophy or a national championship with your U-18 team? The choice is yours.

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Scouting is one of those things that every coach does at some point or another. Maybe you’re coaching a club team at a tournament and have the opportunity to observe your next opponent. Maybe you’re a college coach and are able to directly watch or obtain footage of the next team you’re about to face. Before I really knew what to look for, which was cultivated by learning more about soccer tactics, watching more live games, and picking the brains of more experienced coaches, I found myself not really knowing all that much about another team, even after watching them play a full game. I’m sure plenty of other coaches, particularly club coaches, have found themselves in similar situations. Well fear no more; I’ll let you in on the secrets to successfully scouting an upcoming opponent.

While you can certainly follow this process in your head, it’s preferable that you have a piece of paper or two and a pen. This may or may not be as crucial depending on what level your coaching (maybe not as crucial for U-8, but who knows these days?)

1. Make note of what formation the team initially appears to use. This can be a good key to determining how the team prefers to play, so make sure you watch to see how many players are lining up on the back line and in the midfield. Teams may attempt to disguise their formation to a degree by lining players up in deeper or more advanced positions than they will normally be playing. This is especially true for outside players. I’ve rarely seen teams disguise players along the backline. Especially if there appears to be four defenders lined up, you can be almost certain that this is the number of defenders they will use.

2. Watch the first couple of minutes and see if it appears that any players have adjusted their positioning. This is where you’ll be able to determine if the team was disguising their formation or not at kick off. Players will settle into their average positions and you’ll be able to really tell who is playing at what positions. Make sure that you notice how this changes depending upon if the team is attacking or defending. If the outside players really push up high as soon as the team gains possession, you can be sure they’ll try to use those wide players to spread the opposing defense. Conversely, you might see players such as the wide midfielders or a central midfielder adopt very defensive positions when not in possession. In more advanced tactics, one of these players may even become a member of the backline depending on where the ball is at. It’s important to note these tendencies so you know what to expect during all phases of play (defending, building up, attacking).

3. Look to see what passing patterns are most common. Which players are passing to one another the most? Does the team always look to play through a specific player like the central midfielder, or do they try to use the wide spaces as much as possible? Does the team usually hit long balls from the defenders into a target man (or into space behind the opposing defense for a fast striker) or do they like to maintain possession through lots of short and medium range passes among the midfielders? This is really the key to unlocking the other team SO MAKE SURE YOU PLAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS DETAIL! This information tells you exactly how the team likes to play and how they believe they are most effective. As long as this is an evenly matched game or the team you’re watching is stronger, you can be sure this is how the team will try to play against you. If they’re seriously outclassed then they might try to play more directly (long balls out of the back, lots of hopeful 50/50 type balls played forward), but will still offer glimpses of the style in which they’re most familiar when given a bit of time on the ball.

4. Do they have a particular player that is their main threat/will be a major threat against your team? If there’s one player who you think can hurt your team given the opportunity, make sure you know who that player is and why they’re dangerous. Do they have a striker that is infinitely faster than your defense? Can one player just dribble circles around your team? This is also where you can start to take notice of where the attacks come from. We know which players look to combine with one another, but who actually is beating defenders 1v1 or generating shots? Try to observe the tendencies of these players. If one of their strikers always tries to dribble as his means of penetrating the box and then shooting, does he have a favored foot? Do they try to get the ball into the corner before working back to a central midfielder at the top of the box who simply hits a long range shot? Notice the attacking tendencies and then you can think of ways to neutralize them (like forcing the striker to his weak foot, forcing a central midfielder to drop back and stay close to their central midfielder, etc.) You don’t have to worry about trying to figure out every matchup that will occur when you play the team, just the really standout mismatches/threats.

5. Watch the dead ball situations to see if the team tries any exotic plays. Make note of whether the team always tries the same routine for free kicks or corners. Do they always try to serve a lofted ball to the back post, or do they sometimes play a short corner? Do they try to get a dangerous 1v1 player isolated behind the wall or at the edge of the box on a free kick? At both the club and college level I’ve seen teams try to confuse the opponent with players moving in patterns that eventually isolate one or two key targets at the back post unmarked. If you see anything you’re concerned might confuse your team, write it down and either practice it or run through it a few times in the warmup. You’ll gain a great psychological advantage if the other team sees you thoroughly thwarting their secret free kick weapon thirty minutes before kick off!

6. What else can you notice about the other team? Are they very aggressive and pushing their defensive line up high? Do they high pressure your outside backs or do they drop off and start defending somewhere closer to their own half of the field? The notes about the way in which they defend will let you know who on your team will have the most time on the ball. Will the outside backs have a lot of time to pick out a pass? Will they condense space but give time if you can get the ball to an outside player in front of their backline? This can help you to determine where your team should look to play the ball when in possession. This goes hand and hand with observing how the team plays defensively. There will always be at least one or two players who will have time on the ball and your team should look to use these players to relieve pressure and maintain possession. Look for the team’s weak points defensively and ways to take advantage of them. If they have weak outside backs, try to have your wide midfield players attack them 1v1. If they have small, weak center backs, try lots of crosses to your bigger, stronger strikers. There is plenty of other information that you can make note of and look to take advantage of, particularly if you have a practice in between the scouted match and your upcoming one. This additional information can be key at higher levels where you can really fine tune your team’s performance with respect to the opponent.

Now you have a wealth of information that should theoretically tell you every facet of the opponent’s play at best and provide a good idea of what the team wants to do at worst. After assessing the strengths of the opposing team, make sure you compare these to your own team’s strengths and weaknesses. If the other team really likes to counter attack and capitalize on the other team’s mistakes, tell your team to play a bit cautiously. You can even try playing low pressure (only close down the opponent starting about 40-45 yards from your own goal) and force them to adopt an entirely different style of play with which they are unfamiliar. Consider adding an extra central midfielder to help disrupt their build up if they like to play with a lot of possession. Alternately, you may decide that your team is strong enough that you need change very little about your style of play. In that case you should simply provide an overview for your team that highlights the other team’s preferred style and main threats, along with some instructions to the players who will be dealing with said threats.

Those instructions might include forcing their midfielders or strikers onto a specific foot that you identified as their weak foot. Possibly let your goalkeeper know she will have to communicate with the defenders and come off the line hard to clear any through balls intended for a fast striker. It might involve telling your wide midfielders to quickly drop off ten yards and pinch in slightly whenever your team loses possession. Whatever the team and individual instructions might entail, make sure the other team’s main threats are accounted for and any mismatches that favor the opposing team are neutralized. If you are able to make small changes (like playing Jimmy instead of Joe up top, not employing a revolutionary system your team has never heard of) to capitalize on the opponent’s weaknesses, that’s great as well.

Hopefully you’ve learned a few things from reading this article and at least feel more prepared the next time you have the chance to watch an upcoming opponent. I wish you success on the soccer field!

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NSCAA Tactical Development DVD
by NSCAA
available through the NSCAA

The National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Tactical Development DVD starts with an absolutely great idea. Namely, that American youth soccer clubs are often little more than a collection of individual teams all under the same name. that’s it, no greater connection between any two teams from a given club. The NSCAA’s Director of Coaching Education and Development, Jeff Tipping, contends that many clubs do not have a curriculum in place to ensure a specific progression from the youngest ages through to the oldest age group teams. Even clubs that do have a curriculum, he says, may have a disjointed one that does not provide the best organization or chance for success. The NSCAA’s DVD attempts to remedy that by providing a model for which clubs can implement a structured curriculum throughout all age groups, thus creating a greater connection between the club’s teams while ensuring that education goals are met for each age group.

Tipping is a fine coach in his own right, serving many years at the helm of Division III Muhlenberg College (a rival from my own college days, although Tipping was no longer the coach at that point) where he was very successful. In this DVD you can recognize his ability to coach, but he’s hindered by the seeming disinterest of the players doing the demonstrating. Unfortunately there seems to be an almost palpable tension where Tipping can’t quite get the players to listen to his directions. It’s a shame because he deserves more respect than the players seem to give him. It also detracts from the DVD and can be downright distracting at times where he has to make multiple corrections on the same basic principles.

While the NSCAA has recognized a problem in the youth soccer community and attempts to address it, they ultimately fall short of this goal. The main problem with their model is that it culminates with a 3-4-3 system when the teams start playing full-field 11v11 soccer. The 3-4-3 is an outdated system, proven defensively vulnerable at high level competitive play. Take a poll of college or professional coaches and see how many use a 3-4-3 as their base tactical formation. Scant few, I’d imagine. Personally, I don’t see the point in working with a model that is plain not useful at the next level. Sure the club might have success against weak local or even regional competition with great personnel available, but youth club soccer is not an end unto itself. Players don’t dream of playing for the local club’s U-18 team. They dream of playing in college or the pros. Why not develop a model that works to develop player abilities so they are prepared to play at that next level?

While the NSCAA never actually clues the viewer in as to why they chose the 3-4-3, it appears to be out of laziness. Their philosophy, as told in this DVD, is that a diamond (four field players) is the smallest shape that provides for all support angles (forwards, backwards, sideways) and thus should be used as the basic shape/formation starting at the U-7 and U-8 age groups (who the NSCAA believe should be playing 4v4 competitions). At each group where more players are involved, they show how easy it is to build upon the players’ existing tactical knowledge by pointing out how additional players reallly just add up to additional diamond shapes on the field. They keep doing this until the final form, the 3-4-3, is reached.

One of the key points made at the end of the DVD as a reason to use the 3-4-3 is that it develops more strikers due to the fact that the team is playing with three instead of two. I think this is quite misleading. Anyone who understands a three man forward line will quickly realize the skills needed to excel as one of the two wide forwards is quite different from those needed to be the man in the center. The wide players are more commonly known as wingers, which, for the sake of simplicity, are essentially flank midfielders who play higher up the pitch. I would not consider these players to be strikers. One need only to watch the recent Olympic qualifier between the United States and Cuba to see how ineffective two strikers (Charlie Davies and Robbie Findley) were at playing that wide role in a three man forward line. The striker in this system will be required to move side to side, checking back to receive the ball from midfield and either going at defenders 1v1 or getting into the box to finish a cross. The club would therefore be producing more wide players (two flank midfielders and two wingers) than true strikers (one). One need only look at top professional clubs to see that many of the most coveted players are pure strikers, the type developed as either the lone striker in a three forward system or either of the two in the more traditional format. The defensive weakness of systems that use three forwards has rendered them virtually obsolete in higher level soccer, thus wingers are really a dying breed in many ways. I don’t see Ford producing more Model-Ts because they can produce a higher number of cars each year and I don’t think clubs should be use a 3-4-3 for the sake of producing more strikers.

The NSCAA tries to defend this line of thought at the end of their program, by stating that their DVD should only be used as an idea, not necessarily copied exactly as shown. I think this is a bit weak. If you think the 3-4-3 is a great system, stand behind the program and state that you think this is the optimal model currently available. If not, then take the time to create a different model that ends with a more practical system. Great idea, unfortunately less than stellar execution.

Full Season Training Program - CBC High School Team
by Terry Michler
2007
Available through WorldClassCoaching.com

Level: High School

Pros: A season’s worth of small sided games and other useful activities; briefly touches on the use of alternative teaching methods like Powerpoint presentations; activities are geared toward playing an attacking style of play

Cons: Virtually no detail concerning the two tactics changes the team undergoes during the season; tactical information on the whole is kept to a minimum

This isn’t so much of a book per se, but rather a full season of training sessions from a state championship high school team in Missouri. I bought this manual because I was interested in seeing how an elite high school team’s season would be organized. How often specific exercises were repeated, how much time was devoted to certain topics, etc. Of course I realize that these will be completely different for every team, depending on strengths, weaknesses, style of play, but I think there’s a lot of value in this full season program.

In Teambuilding, Rinus Michels mentions that “a good youth trainer is able to offer his group a number of basic games (5v2, 4v2, 6v3, etc.), related to all kinds of complex soccer game situations. From simple to complex with nearly infinite variations” (p. 180). This is possibly the greatest strength of the Full Season Training Program. Clearly Terry Michler is an experienced coach and almost every practice utilizes some small sided game (SSG) variation. I’m personally a big proponent of SSGs as I think they get the players thinking about realistic soccer problems in an enjoyable way. It’s much easier for players to accumulate soccer knowledge (or insight as the Dutch would phrase it) when playing SSGs than full on 11v11 scrimmages. I learned some cool games to use with my teams from this manual and am eager to implement them in my own training sessions. Each of these activities is complete with some nice visual diagrams clearly illustrating how things work along with a short description. There were only a couple of times that I had to hunt around a bit to find the right description for the activity or had to read through it a couple of times to imagine the game properly. Accompanied by the same illustrations are several patterns of play Michler used with this team. Understanding and being able to implement patterned play was one of the most important milestones in my coaching education. Watching your team recognize a tactical situation on field followed by the correct decision making from several players is possibly the most rewarding moment for myself as a coach. I’m always interested in how other coaches pattern play and I think this is great information Michler has provided.

Michler also provides some idea of how he manages his high school team by some of the other information in this manual. There are short reports for every game and the reader can see that through the team’s performance in games, Michler opts to create some different tactics for his team. He briefly mentions that the team starts using a low pressure 1-4-4-1 formation and adds a 3-6-1 with a target man later in the season. While it’s interesting to note that he makes these tactical decisions, I would like to see more information as to how he actually went about making the changes (the team played out of a base 3-5-2). He does include some training exercises related to the formation shifts, but says very little about the actual tactics used. Although I suppose it’s somewhat beyond the scope of the manual, I would still like to know more. He does touch briefly on the fact that he uses Powerpoint presentations to break down tactical problems for the team after at least one of the games and I think it’s a great point to mention. A lot of the high school coaches I’ve worked with seem to do a vast majority of their instruction on the field, but I’m in full support of using available technology to paint the picture in a different way for the players. A few days after the slide show presentation the team is given a questionnaire to fill out concerning tactical problems that are still occurring. Again, I think this is a great use of different teaching methods because we all know how effective the old “raise your hand if anyone has a question about _____” is, particularly in front of a group of adolescent players.

Overall I think this is a great manual that will complement the library of any coaching working with high school aged players. The information Michler covers can be used with mostly any competitive team, although some adaptations should be made to tailor the material specifically to the abilities of the team in question. This book provided some help in conceiving how training might be organized over the course of an entire season, but as I mentioned before, the value really lies in the actual activities, how they’re used, along with the patterned plays, and alternative teaching methods that are briefly mentioned.

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