Forum Index
»
Soccer
DA vs ECNL vs everything else
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I agree. And there is currently an over-emphasis by US Soccer on one touch soccer. At some point, somebody has to beat somebody. None of our teams are very impressive. Even on the women's side, the rest of the world is catching up with our athleticism (our historic fail safe) and surpassing us on technical. |
Anonymous
| The key is trying to create 1v1 match-ups and then trusting our players to beat their man when isolated. Marcelo Bielsa covered all this 25 years ago but we look to Europe for influences, when we have South America that we could also learn from. I prefer 3 touches personally, a good 1st touch, 2nd touch you make your move, 3rd touch you keep the ball circulating unless you can attack space on the dribble. However, you cannot be dogmatic. Every play is different, and we have to allow players to own their game while putting them in positions to succeed. We also don’t put enough emphasis on verticality and creating CLEAN penetration, rather than the hopeful punts you see all over the place. |
Anonymous
The FC Girondins de Bordeaux is one of the major clubs in France's Ligue 1. The club also has a strong female team in France. The USA club was founded last Fall and was created around two teams from OBGC. The U19 team is ranked in the top 5 nationally and just won the MD state cup. The team has won Bethesda, Disney and Jefferson. The other teams are not as strong but as requested being developed. They don't have a long track record but they have great development and a great affiliation with a strong club in France. I expect big things from them this next year. |
Anonymous
I agree wholeheartedly on looking East when some of our answers may indeed be South. Well said. And I get the concept of playing the ball faster. My issue is that every single practice either of my kids has in the DA is always a 1-2 touch limit (depending on the drill and with most of the preference going to 1 touch). When in the world are they going to be given the opportunity and space to at least try something? I wouldn't even mind so much if one drill in a practice were that way, but all of them? And very true on the punts and over-emphasis on speed and athleticism. On one of my kids teams, there is a kid that is fast, but the technical work is non-existent. So how does this warrant 90% starts and playing every minute of every game, while technical players get pulled or don't even start? |
Anonymous
I would also like more information, since this is the first time I'm hearing about them at all in fact. |
Anonymous
| One of our players on our lower team is one of the fastest forwards you’ve seen, and has an absolute cannon. However, he never really learned how to hold the ball up and wait for support, make diagonal runs to drag defenders, and diversify his attack so the rest of his teammates can feature and ease the burden on him. His coach only cares about results and as such the game plan is just kick the ball to the fast guy up top and put the defenders into a foot race. It’s awful. Sure against mediocre teams that they would beat anyways he gets hat tricks like they’re nothing, but as soon as they play a team that is organized and has a coach that’s got a clue, he just gets bracketed and goes invisible, with the attack collapsing as a consequence. We say this to the coach all the time but it goes in one ear out the other. Some people just can’t be helped, they actually prefer playing volleyball. |
Anonymous
Unfortunately, I have seen this go on at the DA level too (depending on the team and coach). It's sad, because this poor kid thinks he's really good because he has scored a lot (or at least that is how most of these players are). I see that all the time. He doesn't even realize the problem is his lack of technical ability. |
Anonymous
That's why I didn't even consider DA for my kids. Americans always take things with blinders on, too literally. I really do not think there are many (only a very, very, very few) coaches in this Country that have a level of understanding of the sport. I don't have hope that DA is the answer because I have watched DA around the country, and DA training sessions around the area. I am less optimistic at US chances for the next World Cup and we are lucky they are expanding the field drastically to allow more teams in. We try to adopt what we think Europeans are doing, but only see a surface, simplistic version that we then implement dogmatically. Rondos, okay now everyone is going to do this one type of rondos. Possession-okay--nobody touch the ball more than once. Euro Clubs that play that way don't coach that way. They don't impose 'touch' limits. They let the player think. They guide without pigeon-holing them. There is just a fundamental difference of our understanding of the sport and the way to bring it to kids and develop them along the way. We were at a travel club that has a possession emphasis and they took that simplistic approach--pass right away. They didn't understand where the other players should be moving. They didn't allow their backs to come forward. It was a very poor interpretation of the possession game. They went backwards to a fault---not just when it was the best option. And for all the talk, they still were missing out on the kids that had the soccer IQ and were making the smart decisions for favor of the more physical kids up front. It was disappointing to say the least. |
Anonymous
Enjoy ECNL |
Anonymous
|
As a kid, I played b-ball in the area. I was not an elite player but often played against the elite players at camps, pick-up and HS games. The big team in that era was Dematha. No HS team came close to competing at that level on a consistent basis. Morgan Wooten was famous but he ran a system. Duke Coach, Mike Krzyzewski, gave an interview once and said that he loves Dematha players but has to be careful because some of those players excel in that system but don’t have the creative or ability to excel outside of the system. I am afraid that DA might be creating such a dynamic where players lack creativity.
The discussion reminds me of Brazil’s struggles with soccer. They were so bust trying to fashion their play around the style of the Europeans that they ignored their own style. Fortunately, they came to their senses and now Brazil has a recognized style of play. |
Anonymous
| ECNL does it too. |
Anonymous
| ECNL and DA both make that same mistake over and over. It's not really a platform problem. It's a coaching and mindset problem. |
Anonymous
Nope. They are all American run. |
Anonymous
This is nonsense. Look at the players first. In men’s soccer, our elite athletes generally are not as smart or technically skilled as their global counterparts. And our smartest and most skilled players are not nearly as athletic as their global counterparts. Yes, that is partly the result of deficiencies in our coaching and scouting system. But it is principally the result of who plays here, and how much, versus elsewhere. Our women do perfectly well with the same kind of coaching and development infrastructure. Because the women’s player pool here is stronger relative to global rivals. This doesn’t mean that we cannot improve coaching and development. But changing that alone for the worse or better will have very little impact relative to changes in the talent pool. |
Anonymous
|
^You are arguing my point. America has the athletes. We have no problem with physically gifted American soccer players that have speed, size, strength. We have more kids playing soccer than any other sport in the US. It's keeping some of them in it that's needed.
How do they get that intelligence? It starts at the BEGINNING. It doesn't start at the end of the line with a U17 DA or USMNT coach. The kids need to be watching a lot of European/S. American soccer from a young age. They need to be encouraged in creativity. They need trainers that understand how a soccer player develops. I still don't see that at any travel Club in the area. Then at 11/12 these kids filter into pre-DA--still missing key pieces of development and missing a true understanding of the game. It doesn't work when just a few kids on the team 'understand'. The entire team has to have that soccer IQ. They need to know where to be to support their teammates. They need to make the pass fully confident that their teammate will be in the right place by the time the ball gets there. With your rational would do you think Pulisic at age 14/15 and 120 lbs soaking wet 5'7" was one of your so-called dream athletes? He was one of the tiniest kids on his team when he started out. Yet, he is better than 99% of soccer players on the planet. Speed, brains, and competitiveness. The average Professional soccer player in the World is 5'11"; in Spain 5'10". The athletic attributes alone don't get you anywhere in soccer, nor does skill alone. Yes- you need a combo of both. But, you can't tell in the early years which kids will have that physicality down the road. We are still picking the most dominant players in the little kid leagues. Our time-line for a US soccer athlete is that they are fully-developed by U14/15 and that is the age when most kids quit soccer completely. So--why learn skill when these players can get by on pure physicality/kick-and-run and be SELECTED for those attributes up until then. Our definition of "athlete" for Football/Baseball/Hockey doesn't translate to the ideal soccer athlete and the type of agility/speed needed with the intelligence. Americans have in their mind that we will fill the field with 6'2" and over players and dominate everyone in the world if we could just get those players from other sports. We have the players, we just ignore them and their specific athleticism that fits the sport. |