It’s encouraging to witness first-hand how soccer is taking off in the United States. According to a recent survey, youth soccer participation rates increased roughly 300 percent from 1974 to 2014. During my current off-season, I have conducted a number of clinics for some of these youth players. Typically, a club will invite me in for a day, and I work with boys and (mostly) girls on and off the field. Ages and ability levels vary greatly, but I am always astounded and moved by the level of enthusiasm and eagerness I see in the players.
My clinics are aimed to empower. Everything I show the players during the technical session can be practiced independently with just a ball and minimal space, and usually does not require a partner. I use no special equipment, rarely place any cones, and we don’t scrimmage. There is plenty of time for those activities in the sessions they do every week with their teams. Instead, I want to give them ideas that they can build on.
Off the field, I share with them my journey. I tell them why I see what I do as an on-going process, during which I have learned that no coach can decide how good you will be.
Every clinic I’ve done has left me feeling both hopeful and baffled. Our country is full of raw potential. I see it in boys and girls eager to play by the hundreds, in parents seemingly willing to drive anywhere and pay anything for good experiences, in beautiful indoor facilities, well-meaning organizers, thoughtful questions.
But I also have become starkly aware of how much this country needs a standardized development system. Not an elite league, or tryouts, or college showcase tournaments and high school playoffs — we already have those and they all serve a wonderful purpose. We need a development system so that all this good intention does not get lost, so that it has a direction.
In my time living everywhere from Sweden to Cyprus to Japan, one of my favorite activities was to watch children play and train. In Sweden, they would do the same crossing and finishing patterns that our professional team did. The youngest players could barely kick far enough to make the drill work, but they rehearsed the movements and the timing as if they were pros. In Cyprus, the kids all warmed up the same way we did, went through meticulous footwork patterns the same way, and played 2v2, even though the ball was almost up to their knees. Young Japanese girls circulated the ball with an understanding similar to that of their senior national team, even passing back to their goalkeeper on multiple occasions to get out of trouble.
In this country, our young players don’t necessarily possess a universal understanding. I work with a group whose dribbling footwork is quick and clean and they can juggle more than proficiently, but when I ask them to strike the ball with their laces they look like beginning players. Other times, I have to spend 10 minutes to get the players to use correct technique to juggle once or twice with both feet, but then I see them play and their natural instincts and ability to maneuver is quite impressive. There is no right way to approach the game, but for us to compete in producing players to match those in the rest of the world, I think we owe it to ourselves to create some basic standards.
What we still lack in this country is a set of expectations for each age group that leads to a unified final picture. What are the appropriate technical skills a U9 player should master before moving on to U10? What tactical principles should all players learn at U14? What systems and roles should players be exposed to that are in line with how our men’s and women’s National Teams play?
We have wonderful coaches and hard-working kids all over the country. All are eager to make this game a central part of their lives. The next step for is for everyone to be on the same page.
If, as Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote in Outliers, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field, then imagine if all young players could devote their hours to a set of universal standards. I guarantee that those who learn the proper skills in a structured development system can have both success and still find freedom and fun in playing the game.
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