Reply to How competitive is ASA travel soccer team? Is it hard to make the team?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Re: PPs Qs -

ASA doesn't spend much time on technical skill or touch.

You probably have to train individually for that.

The focus seems to be: team speed of play - effort - winning.

It is not kick & run but it is not possession focused either.

Half of the players try to control and use touch to extend possession under pressure, and the other half go direct and boot it to solve their problems.

Just basic youth soccer in this country.  No need to overreact one way or the other.  Not ideal development but lots of players do have lots of fun.[/quote]

Sounds like a hot mess.[/quote]

For better or worse I've been through travel soccer 4 times now.  When I was a youth player it was called Select and there was no internet so I watched old videos of world cup games to get a glimpse of how it should/could be played.  Not a lot of fancy dribbling, just fast running and passing.  My older son played with Albion on the west coast and they focused on ball mastery until U11ish and game play IQ was a secondary lesson that taught more in a realtime fashion as opposed to practices.  Seemed to work well given the high level of competition vs their performance.  We then moved here and now all 3 of my kids play for a local club who I think has it set up as good as any.  Not perfect, but the top 2 teams are good enough to keep each other on their toes.

In my opinion there are some key over arching themes to successful development.

-  Coach must stay age appropriate (my youngest has amazing foot skills, but gets lost on the larger pitch.  Don't get too complicated with the terminology.)
-  Team chemistry.  Team that trains well together and laughs together can beat any team.   It's about trust and selfless playing because the faster player will always be slower than the ball.  [b]These teams tend to stick together for a long time and after a few years, they just destroy opponents.[/b]
-  Over doing it.  Let the kids play and train hard, but let them do other things.  I found a few weeks off over the winter gets them real hungry to get back into soccer.   I don't force them to juggle non-stop daily, get their "touches" in so to speak. 
-  Technical training outside the club.  I can tell which players train outside the club.  Crisp touches, exciting dribbling, and calmness during pressure situations.

Last observations.  Those that bitch about CCL, NCSL, etc.  Does not matter!!!  Play who they put in front of you!  You you beat everyone by 10 weekly then your team needs a harder league, if you are loosing by 10 every week you are playing too high and should go to a lower division.  Bottomline, to develop you need to play at a skill appropriate level.   Don't over generalize an entire club/league.  ASA will have good coaches and teams, they will have some average ones as well, that's just how it is.
-  [/quote]

not always best situation for player growth.  kids that only stay in comfort zone may win trophies, but without constant challenge and experiencing different teammates, different styles of play and varied coaching don't grow as much individually.  I've seen kids that will only do a camp or training if every single kid from their team is doing it.  They can't function outside of that 'set' group.  They are used to being prima donnas.  Growth comes from having to prove yourself and learn to fit in time and time again.  The players I've seen stay on these set teams over time may function together, but individually they are stagnant.[/quote]

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