Post edited 9:55 pm – July 16, 2010 by 180shooter
After England was eliminated, English angst contributed to several articles about problems with the English system.
There is a huge developmental window of opportunity from the ages of 2-12 during which time 95% of a brain’s movement patterns will have been imprinted. It’s possible to learn new skills after this stage, but the time to internalise them gets ever longer.
It’s therefore obvious that to develop footballers with great touch it would be advantageous to train them properly from the earliest possible age and ingrain the correct ball-caressing technique before they get to secondary school.
Unfortunately the responsibility for coaching at this most critical stage falls upon the least qualified of coaches, those at grassroots clubs.
Of course, the U.S. faces the same issues, as do most basketball clubs around the world. In terms of learning and development, youth basketball is the most important time, yet we do nothing to promote expert youth coaches. The only way to profit as a coach in basketball is to run tournaments or coach at the college or professional levels.
Look at the difference in coach education in England versus other nations:
According to UEFA, “there are only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa’s B, A and Pro badges, its top qualifications.” In comparison “Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.”
While a certification certainly does not guarantee that a coach is good, having 10-15 times as many credentialed coaches certainly gives a federation more hope that many of its young players will have good coaches.
In France the municipal government funds professional football coaches to work with all the junior clubs in their local area. In Spain every town and village has a centrally-funded deportivo (literally, sports club) where young people can play football, basketball, tennis, volleyball and more under the supervision of highly trained coaches.
In England kids get changed in the back of their Dad’s muddy car and run onto a bobbly pitch where somebody else’s Dad shouts at them for an hour.
The U.S. system is certainly more like English example than the French or Spanish system, yet the U.S. manages to produce plenty of basketball talent. Why? Population advantages. Basketball is the most popular sport in one of the world's most populous and affluent nations with available facilities, good nutrition, resources, etc. However, despite these advantages, we do a poor job of maximizing them, regardless of the results. Just look at soccer, a slightly less popular sport that still has many of the same advantages. Or baseball, the national pastime.
According to this author, not only is the grassroots coaching a problem, but the academies are problematic. Again, structure is not the only answer.
Rising from the mini-soccer maelstrom, the most talented players in the English grassroots game are invited to train at a local professional club’s Academy or Centre of Excellence.
t’s also not that great if you actually enjoy football. Once you’re in an academy there won’t be much playing it.
It seems an obvious truism to say that the time spent practicing something is directly correlated to how good at that thing somebody will be, but in most cases players will see a dramatic reduction in their training time as soon as they join an academy.
Between the ages of 8-14 – remember the development window? – academies average 2-4 hours of contact time a week, and most require that their players avoid also playing for their grassroots clubs or school teams as a precaution against… actually I don’t know if it’s injury, conflicting training styles or something else. A huge fear of ‘overtraining’ is prevalent throughout our elite youth development institutions.
Meanwhile, in Germany, Bayer Leverkusen are training their youth players for 18 hours a week. In Amsterdam, Ajax see their players every day. In Brazil, 3000 professionals live at their clubs, eating, sleeping, learning and – crucially – training with their teammates every day of the week.
There are two sides here. First, 2-4 hours is insufficient. However, one issue in the U.S., in my opinion, is the overtraining that comes from playing with both a high school and club team at the same time. This results in 2-3 practices per team per week plus tournaments on the weekend with both teams. A recent article wrote about a player who had played 9 games in 2 days. While there is a need to find enough time to practice and play, there also needs to be some common sense.
The author brings up a point about first-team call-ups that reflects college recruiting, which is essentially the same thing in the current U.S. system:
Whilst the brain is almost completely developed by the end of high school, the body can continue to mature until 22 (or even older). Oftentimes skilful players dismissed for their stature at 17 and 18 will strengthen sufficiently in the following years to a level where they can compete with the earlier developers and even with the bigger, tougher professionals.
In fact these players will frequently have developed excellent ball control, balance and poise as coping mechanisms for playing with the stronger players around them. When they catch up physically they can be much more effective than the players who have always been able to bully their way around the football pitch.
Unfortunately an under-developed 18 year old has very few options at the end of his youth career. If he isn’t left to rot in the awful reserve league with the old and the lame, he might find himself shipped out to the awful lower leagues (with the old and the lame).
What happens to the overlooked, skillful player who heads to a low D1, D2 or D3 school? Does he receive the same developmental opportunities as the high-D1 player? How does this demotion affect his motivation? I wrote about Seth Curry and motivation previously. In my opinion, he was able to cope with being overlooked because he could look at his dad's success and know that it's within his grasp. Does your average player have a similar role model? Does he have access to the coaching and training to help him reach the professional ranks?
In Brazil, scholars frequently sign small contracts which keeps them in the youth development system up to the age of 22 – and it’s no coincidence that many Brazilian superstars have break out seasons in their early-twenties, whilst so many English ‘wonder kids’ at 18 look distinctly average a few years later.
This is similar to the college system. From a positive perspective, college gives thousands of players an opportunity to continue playing and developing, and dozens of players who never would have made an NBA roster out of high school wind up with successful professional careers.
The author concludes:
With more qualified coaches in more places, working to a central template of player development, there can be greater communication between players, parents, junior clubs, schools and academies (and less reason for academy coaches to object to players training elsewhere). This would increase the number of training hours and lift young footballers closer to the 10,000 hour target.
Isn't this the answer in the States, too?
http://backpagefootball.com/wo…..ds-future/
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