Player development is a myth
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Anonymous
No. This is the one area where the coach really makes a difference. Soccer IQ is mostly taught. Sure some kids learn faster than others, and some will always have better vision and speed of thought - but a basic understanding of what to do and how to think about the game pretty much all comes from the coach. And this is more important to results than talent which is why a good coach can take a losing team and turn into a team which wins nearly every game and a bad coach can take a winning team and finish bottom of the league. Coaches can teach technical skill too, but (a) the player himself is responsible for a much greater proportion of his development in this area than the coach (whereas it is the other way around for soccer IQ), and (b) it takes longer to have an impact. |
Anonymous
No. It's not the GPA, I agree. My kids always had very good spatial reasoning and quick processing---no learning disabilities or classroom difficulties--but, yes, some of the brightest kids I know are like your son and struggle with the classroom. My brother was more like your son and played at a professional level. It took him 8 years to get his undergrad degree  and he is incredibly bright in a wide array of subjects but never was a 'student'.
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Anonymous
I wanted to add that I read a really interesting study about soccer players and the level of IQ and how it correlated to the higher levels across the board. There was a 'chicken and egg' debate whether playing the sport over time at increasing speed and thinking was part of the reason for the higher IQs across the board the higher success a player achieved. Or--were these players naturally smart/higher cognitive reasoning. Executive function predicts the success of top-soccer players: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034731 https://www.wired.com/2012/04/soccer-cognitive-functions/ I think we have all seen 'dumb' gifted ball skilled players that can't read a field and make bad choices...it really starts to come out as they move up in age groups. |
Anonymous
1. This may vary depending on the level of knowledge of parents. I agree that a great many are not able to distinguish what is good development and what isn't. In my experience this is truer at lower levels of travel and more on the girls' side than the boys. At higher levels on the boys' side parents are generally more knowledgeable and are better judges. 2. Good coaching and development do take time and often result in early losses. But the process does not take forever. A good coach, by focusing on development, should be able to produce wins within months not years. I agree that many parents (especially ones who cannot see the improvement) will be unhappy during the period of development while the team is losing. And it helps for the coach to have enough experience to know that his system will produce a winning team in the end so he has the confidence to stick to his plan. 3. It's also worth noting that there is, after the initial period, a high correlation between development and winning. There is a much better chance that a good team has benefited from good development than that a losing team has. This does not mean that all winning teams have been developed well, but it does mean that most teams who are consistently losing after a whole year are not getting good development. |
Anonymous
The clubs aren't 'poaching' your players, the top players and their families are choosing to move to ECNL/GA clubs. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Unless the losses are against teams that do kick and run to secure their wins. Good for those parents that are happy bragging that their children are in the top team though their own DCs are getting behind. |
Anonymous
For girls, where the goal of playing ECNL/GA is often college soccer . . . Watch the NCAA tourney this week and next. COLLEGE teams win playing kick and run. There’s no cost to “getting behind” in the actual real world that we all live in. |
Anonymous
Congrats to runners and kickers they have a future in college. |
Anonymous
| “Kick and run” is played at every level. See Haaland, E. |
Anonymous
No. Development beats "kick and run" most of the time. "Kick and Run" works against teams which are not well developed, and it gives an undeveloped team a gambler's chance of winning a game against a better team - but such tactics will lose more often than not against a good team. If a team can't consistently beat "kick and run" teams then that is an indication that the coach is not developing the kids well. |
Anonymous
Totally agree with this. Especially during puberty coaches seem to like bigger players. For example, a kid in U12B was a good player and didn't have much impact on the game a year later he's the biggest kid on the field and his athleticism has taken off cause now he's bigger, stronger, faster. Though once all the kids get through puberty I imagine he'll lose that edge and return to just being a good player. Kids that hit puberty earlier definitely have an advantage in Soccer. It's unfortunate coaches won't focus on developing technical skills. My kid's ECNL team mainly focuses on small games and passing. It's helping the team in game to move the ball and playing better as a team, but individually none of them could hang with MLS Next top talent. My kid worked out with an MLSNext team this Spring and he said all their players were very quick, athletic and had incredible technical skills where they can all dribble to get themselves out of trouble. My kid is very quick and athletic, but lacks the technical ball skills. He knows what he needs to work to get to that next level. Will probably have to get him some private coaching for him as well. |
Anonymous
No that’s not true. If the K&R teams has better athletes they win special in the younger years. K&R is extremely easy to coach. Kick the ball into the opponents side of the field, let your aggressive, big and fast kids run it down. Players(they are kids) will make mistakes but they are on the opponents side of the field. So you are likely to score. If the teams have similar athleticism the game will be decided on skill and team work. |
Anonymous
I suspect you just haven't seen a good coach at work and it depends on what you mean by "younger years". At U8 I'm inclined to agree. But certainly by U10, well coached teams with technical players will destroy kick and run teams. My DS was on a U11 team with a great coach several years ago now. The coach picked kids for technical ability and taught them how to play. Every game was against teams filled with bigger, faster kids. In the fall season the team started out losing maybe 3 out of the first 5 games, and then won 4 out of the next 6. In the spring season, against exactly the same opponents, it won every single game, many by 6 or more goals. Before that season, despite many years of youth soccer with older siblings, I didn't really understand how much difference a good coach can make to the kids' development. Many of the kids on that small club team went on to DA clubs - largely based on what they learned that year. I agree that it would be nice if more coaches developed kids well so that this was the rule rather than the exception. But there are more and more clubs and coaches who work this way these days and it is not too hard to find a good coach if it is important to you. Although it may not be important which is perfectly reasonable depending on the reason your kid is playing sport in the first place. |
Anonymous
Fascinating, thanks for sharing that. |