Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. Where are you people? Where can I find you on weekends?! I have several kids and have had them play at several different clubs, both big and small, and it drives me fuckin' insane watching all these parents just accept the norm, thinking that dropping their kid off for these big team practices is doing anything. They don't even watch practice to understand, and then at games yell "send him/her" every time my DC gets the ball. When my young DC instead tries a difficult piece of individual skill in the middle third and makes a mistake, I instead get to witness groans from idiot parents, and a coach yelling at the player to play faster and don't possess so long. I completely agree that whenever one of my kids makes a giant stride forward, it has rarely anything to do with practice, and often everything to do with what they did on their own that month. We are totally screwed. And I am just baffled why, until I read posts like these, there seems to be no parents at these clubs that think the way we do! Kick and run fast is the #1 skill I see on many top teams. No one is yelling to play beautiful, possess, use skill, and find a more dangerous and daring option then just kicking it down to the forwards. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but this does represent the system that my kids play in and that my spouse and I constantly have to "coach" our kids against before dropping them off at practice. We can see this problem, and my spouse and I were not even elite soccer players when younger. Again, where is the outrage from parents, and why aren't we demanding more from both our kids and clubs? I love the one coach I know who has his kids train on their own with a juggling log, etc., but every other coach we've had would never even know how many my children can do. They only positive reinforcement they get is from making juggling part of our family culture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. Where are you people? Where can I find you on weekends?! I have several kids and have had them play at several different clubs, both big and small, and it drives me fuckin' insane watching all these parents just accept the norm, thinking that dropping their kid off for these big team practices is doing anything. They don't even watch practice to understand, and then at games yell "send him/her" every time my DC gets the ball. When my young DC instead tries a difficult piece of individual skill in the middle third and makes a mistake, I instead get to witness groans from idiot parents, and a coach yelling at the player to play faster and don't possess so long. I completely agree that whenever one of my kids makes a giant stride forward, it has rarely anything to do with practice, and often everything to do with what they did on their own that month. We are totally screwed. And I am just baffled why, until I read posts like these, there seems to be no parents at these clubs that think the way we do! Kick and run fast is the #1 skill I see on many top teams. No one is yelling to play beautiful, possess, use skill, and find a more dangerous and daring option then just kicking it down to the forwards. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but this does represent the system that my kids play in and that my spouse and I constantly have to "coach" our kids against before dropping them off at practice. We can see this problem, and my spouse and I were not even elite soccer players when younger. Again, where is the outrage from parents, and why aren't we demanding more from both our kids and clubs? I love the one coach I know who has his kids train on their own with a juggling log, etc., but every other coach we've had would never even know how many my children can do. They only positive reinforcement they get is from making juggling part of our family culture.

Maybe we should have some kind of sideline signal or call so parents that are on this same page can get together---form our own team. Oh yea---forgot---there's that whole monopoly thing preventing us from getting a field or joining a league as an independent.

Anonymous wrote:Well said. Please forward that to every local club's recreation director, all of which design these inane 4U, 5U, and 6U-8U programs, that all too often have nothing but a bunch of babysitting birthday party games and giant group drills that they sell to niave parents as curriculum that is so important to "making soccer fun in order that we retain these kids later at 13." Total garbage. As any soccer playing mom/dad knows, and who has raised kids at this age and who has wanted to pass on foot skills, technique, and ability on the ball, these youngers can have tons of fun learning the same skills as we see being introduced to 9U travel players. Want to know how clueless we are in this area? One of the local ECNL clubs mentioned a few posts back actually adopted a rec policy a few years ago trying to prevent/limit families and friends of youngers from getting together to play and train and learn these things on their own (the very things that none of these clubs are providing, and that the little kids desperately need and can have fun mastering if done right). Of course these clubs want you to pay extra money for their "skills sessions" taught by their staff in giant, and worthless, group settings. The $$ that we pay these directors for the crap programming that goes on at these young ages is just maddening. How many sessions of What Time is it Mr. Wolf do we need, when there are some kids that have been learning skills since almost 3, or there are kids at 5 who want to just play the game in a small sided soccer format with a knowledgeable coach who can use opportunities in the scrimmage to offer developmental coaching points, e.g., like not using your toe, or dribbling inatead of kicking? Instead, we cut into game time at 5U and even 6U, and force these kids to do boring group drills that offer some weak coaching point about using your laces. Then these rec. directors come up what seems like a brilliant idea to have coaches screen for these "advanced" kids, but instead all they end up with are programs that select fast and agressive 5 and 6 year olds, instead of ones that are bored out of their minds by the garbage curriculum in this area. These coaches in these programs NEVER talk to parents, and clubs work against them thinking they know what kids need better then knowledgeable, interested soccer parents. There is no hope for us in this area when the whole system has a mindset that is working against you and the curriculum is a bunch of baloney & cheese. There is absolutely nothing for our little kids in this area.

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight...some of the top criteria for local clubs is 'pure speed from A to B'. They claim they can create soccer players out of any kid with speed/athletic ability and zero soccer ability. Hence, the placement of solely aggressive, big fast kids that knock other kids down in tryouts.

Then---we are told soccer clubs should not teach any fundamental skill. The players should already arrive with fundamental skill. Yet--the players they chose are the ones without any fundamental skill--just speed and size.

Also, how are they defining fundamental skill? Does this include first touch? Does this include trapping? Does this include dribbling--inside and outside of the foot? We know it no longer includes heading.

Christ--America is screwed.

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Anonymous wrote:^^yes. Many clubs don't use it as a warm-up tool. Many don't have a soccer culture. There are no rewards for time put in on their own to practice it.

Case in point--my own kid at 9 went from barely juggling 10 to over 1,000 in one summer. Not a single coach in the age group knew this. Why? They don't pay attention to the progress of any of the kids they claim to coach. They only watch about 10 out of the 65--the rest as another poster commented on--are thrown away/on the shit list before they reach 10. Kids in the US aren't pulling out the soccer tricks like kids in other countries because nobody can do them. You change the culture in your own club---and you'd be amazed at what you can accomplish when you start setting challenges. I still am amazed to attend top area tryouts and see maybe only 2-3 out of 150 warming up with juggling and other individual skill sets.

And, yes, the DOC/club directors, are to blame for lack of street soccer when they fill every other minute with some shitty pay-for-training that if a kid doesn't attend he gets a demerit next to his name. It's bad enough kids are subjected to 90 minutes 3 times a week of non-individualized/personal training but now any other free time they have to build their own game is taken away.

Yes--I do blame the Clubs when by 12 a player still can only use one foot. The training with weak foot in practice should have started much younger.

Yes-I do blame the Clubs when a player by 10 doesn't have correct shooting technique.

Yes-I do blame the Clubs when players can't properly receive a ball.

As a parent--I am paying $3500 a year and I still have to teach my kids how to play the game because nobody is teaching them.

So when in all of this do you as a parent take responsibility for what your kid could do away from the game to improve? When do you as a parent take responsibility for keeping your kid in an environment that you recognize as poor development for your kid?

Practice should not be where kids learn to juggle. That is something that any kid, in a home where soccer is a culture will do. Juggling is something that knowledgeable parents will either teach or encourage.

Knowledgeable parents. The poster is claiming there is zero soccer culture in this Country over and over again---and zero knowledgeable soccer parents. IF that is the case--don't the kids have to learn the Culture somewhere? A good coach or Club would be the next best option. No? This is the one that creates rewards and challenges for the kid that can show up at the end of the season with them most consecutive juggles, or quickest # in a minute, etc. This is the coach that tells the kids when they are on the sidelines waiting to practice to start juggling.

A big factor in this area is TRAFFIC. Sometimes the poorest training option is the closest. The dilemma becomes--drive farther away and sit in traffic or pay even more $ to supplement everything your Club is lacking.

I have no qualms about having my kid skip a practice for quality one-on-one training in the early years or skipping a club-sponsored training or camp when I find higher quality ones elsewhere. Below 13--a kid should be working on being the best individual player he/she can be. Clubs have no loyalty--they shouldn't expect it in players either.

And do you think European clubs bother with juggling competitions or do you think it is just something that is expected? The fact that you think a club needs to mandate juggling should tell you everything there is to know about our soccer culture. Juggling should be the equivalent of playing catch in the back yard with a football or baseball.

Look--you are preaching to the choir. Did you miss the sentence where I said my 9-year old could already do over 1,000 consecutive juggles (both feet, other body parts)?

My kids are not the norm because they grew up with a mother that played soccer for 20 years and was kicking a soccer ball with them from the time they could stand. I can't throw a spiral and I certainly can't throw a baseball---but I could play soccer and that's what we did at the park. Thanksgiving extended family football matches---were futbol matches.

My husband coached our boys rec teams. The majority of his players came from parents that had never played soccer themselves or even watched a game on TV. He had all of these kids juggling and using both feet equally as well by the age of 7.

Yes--it would be great if American kids were actually juggling on their own initiative and practicing against a wall--but they aren't. The ones that aren't are most likely kids whose parents never played the sport. They think that the 3 team practices per week are already way too much soccer. So--how are they going to learn what they should be doing? Like my husband and father before him did,,,,,YOU TELL THEM. Whether you think it's a mandate or not---it gets the kids to start doing it and once they start seeing the great improvement and the pride that comes with it--the more and more they do it on their own. You know, it's called: coaching.

No you are not getting it or understanding it.

The "norm" needs to be parents who understand the game who teach their kids juggling on their own. Parents should be teaching the fundamentals, not a soccer club. Would you send your kid to kindergarten not know the alphabet? No, but that is what is happening when kids are joining soccer. There is no cultural core competency for soccer in this nation, none.

Anonymous wrote:Loudoun and FCV won't last 2 years together. Too much ego.

Who coaches
Who pays coaches
Where do they play
Watch the fallout if one team has more loudoun than Fcv or the other way around.

Have fun

Anonymous wrote:Loudoun and FCV won't last 2 years together. Too much ego.

Who coaches
Who pays coaches
Where do they play
Watch the fallout if one team has more loudoun than Fcv or the other way around.

Have fun

asksoccernova wrote:So, if the 3rd world country player development model doesn't fit here, and the European academy model (and with pro teams in little tiny towns that can always fight for promotion up to the 7th division all the way to the top one) doesn't fit here, what is the answer?

The only answer other than "we need more time" is what US Soccer, of all people, has been advocating for a while, which is ECONOMICAL TRAINING SESSIONS.

(snip)

To run a good training session, the burden is on the coach to know how to structure it and teach the topic. USSF has excellent coaching education programs despite all the other things people dislike about the organization, and I learned this concept when I took my D License a while ago. Most of the original USSF (and NSCAA) coaching courses were based on coaching courses in Germany, England, and the Netherlands... but the people putting the USSF coaching courses together realized that we don't have as much time to work with players per week, so while there was good material in the courses, it didn't translate to the American player who didn't even have a feel for the ball yet as a teenager compared to their counterparts in other countries.

I think the idea of economical training sessions originally came from Germany, where at some point, most run-of-the-mill soccer clubs in the country realized it wasn't possible to get the kids 4-5 days per week (except maybe the top top clubs that they had to compete against). So the solution was to implement economical training sessions where the entire practice places demands on the player in all areas of the game: physical, mental, technical, and tactical. You get 90 minutes to train all 4 areas, so its up to the coach to design the session appropriately. There are a lot of variables that can be manipulated in a session (field space / dimensions, time, numbers, amount of pressure, number of touches, restrictions, time limits, incentives... the main things though that slide the difficulty scale up or down are the amount of space and the amount of time that players have to execute a skill or make a decision)

"South American" and "Latin" (Spanish/Italian) training sessions are not economical at all actually... but they don't need to be because its assumed that the players are around the ball so much that they have already developed the technical (skill) part of the game on their own. That's why they are on the team to begin with.

Interestingly enough, training sessions in S.A./Latin countries are designed with the assumption that the players ALREADY have a very high skill level (you won't be on the team if you don't anyway). Therefore, the typical coach will more or less roll the ball out and give the players an objective, but not give them specifics on how they should achieve that objective exactly (or just make running commentary as they play). They let the players play creatively, with their own flair, and be their individual selves as long as they achieve the objective. A German or Dutch session will be extremely specific about how an objective is to be achieved, and even if the objective is still achieved (but in the wrong manner), it's "wrong". Some clubs in these countries break the mold of their own country's soccer culture, and those teams are the interesting ones to watch - Barcelona playing with Dutch influence, Arsenal playing with French influence, DC United in the days of Harkes/Pope/Agoos/Lassiter/Olsen playing with Marco Etcheverry & Jaime Moreno, both players who emerged as among the best from Bolivia's 3rd world country development model (from Tahuichi, which put structure around the 3rd world dev model with huge success) as the engines of the team, etc.

So for right now, I think the solution is educating more coaches and making sure they "get it" when it comes to session planning. Enough faulting the kids for not being from a crazy-about-soccer family where the dad played and enough faulting them for not playing Joga Bonito 24/7 on concrete with soda cans.