Reply to The Development years - Direct (Kickball) versus Possession Style

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad][quote=Anonymous]All I can say is that my son's Alexandria team was never really able to get how to play possession style this year.  The team did terribly, and we always seemed to have the ball in our half of the field and were never able to move it forward.   In almost every game, the "man of the match" for our team was the goalie.  It could just be that the team wasn't very good.  However, in one of our games, the ref commented that he could "sort of see what we were trying to do, but it wasn't working."[/quote]

Assuming this is U9 or U10 -- I'd say there's a good chance this team will get considerably better over time. As a lot of parents here will say, the players who learn possession skills at an early age will overtake the others.

The caveat: It's still a physical sport. Players who aren't slow and strong are always going to be at a disadvantage. Some coaches think they can take any group of random 9-year-olds and make them top players by U14. They can do their best, but it might not pan out.

But you can't write players off at a young age. Sometimes kids finish up a growth spurt and have a lot more coordination and speed than they had at age 8. If those kids learned skills at age 8, they'll be better than the kids who didn't.[/quote]

Under u12 for the girls side, it seems a lot of big clubs’ top team are made up of the same type of kids- big, strong and fast. The style of play is for the player to make contact and push the other girl off the ball or beat her with speed. Many of these girls lack the technical skill they will need in a few years. Many do the same thing- bad touch, head down(have to find the ball), move forward and at some point do a cut back. If they are stopped moving forward, everything breaks down and they are done. It gets results if your team is bigger, stronger and faster vs another team.

The problem is playing on the top team is competitive. You have to use what works best for you. So the girls use size, speed and/or strength and not technique and each year it gets harder and harder to win that way. Also different positions demand different skills. At u10 you can have a big strong girl play the 10. At u12/u13 and up that 10 positions will requires skill, vision and soccer IQ.  If you do not have that type of player, you go to a more direct style of play and hope your athletic girls will win. It’s a self reinforcing cycle both with the clubs and the players. At lot of times I think the clubs/coaches do not know what to do with a u10/u11 girl who shows promise as a 10. Those type of kids have a different mindset and do not fit the system. They can beat players with the dribble but want to pass and get assists. [/quote]

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