Reply to Playing styles

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Playing styles"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]

Well I'm glad we agree on so much :-).  I think the areas where we might still disagree are

1.  Whether the club matters - where I agree with your point that the what really matters is the coaching, but would suggest that some clubs do a much better job than others of pulling together a team of good coaches, implementing a coaching philosophy, and therefore providing consistently good coaching across all (or nearly all) of their teams.

2.  I still disagree that kids will learn technical skills as well at a club where they are not emphasized as one where they are.  Dribbling and ball striking are the only skills which kids can truly develop on their own through solo practise.  The other skills require the coaches to emphasize them in training and in gameplay.  In a club which emphasizes long balls played to fast forwards, the kids will not learn these skills nearly as well as a club which is committed to the kids developing an eleven man passing game based around quick thinking, first touch, and quick, accurate passing.  And irrespective of intent or commitment to any particular tactics - a team where all the players have developed these skills is going to retain possession much better than one where they haven't.

3.  I am not an Alexandria parent, but from my observation of the players it seems to me that Alexandria is one of the clubs which does a good job of developing these skills in their players across all their coaches and teams.  They are not the only club which could claim this, nor in my view are they even the best, but they are certainly amongst the best in this area.[/quote]

Some thoughts.

1) Most of the clubs have a hard time retaining coaches from year to year. There are a few marquee coaches at some clubs,, but the majority are unknowns. I would be hard pressed to state definitively that any specific club has good coaching across all their teams. Kids/parents should know who will coach them before they pick a club.

2) At the younger ages, there is no need for a style of play. In reality, it shouldn’t even be part of the discussion. The physical space and drill design should be planned to encourage good decisions. I see far too many clubs run 30 minute passing and pattern drills every practice to make the kids look like the club  has a style. This time would be better spent working on technical skills. Patterns and styles should come later. If I give a 10 yo a hammer and a nail, it may take him a full minute to nail it into a board. A 15 yo will take a couple of seconds. Introducing concepts too early is painful for everyone, but takes away from the kids developing.

3) Alexandria is one of the clubs where they do a lot of pattern play with their younger kids. Is it attractive soccer, sometimes. Unfortunately, the kids are told at a young age that there is a right way and a wrong way to play. When they get older, they are trained to make what they were taught was the right decision. That passing system is not always the best decision, but the kids have not been trained to make decisions, only execute their rote patterns. After the kids go through puberty, 13/14 for girls 15/16 for boys, that singular style of play isn’t working for the teams. (The teams underperform). Sometimes the best decision is to kick it to the fast kid and score instead of trying to build out of the back under high pressure. I’d be suspicious of any club who claims they are teaching a style because they are likely not teaching the whole game.[/quote]

On (1) I agree that kids/parents should know who will coach them before they pick a club.  And I'm just a parent so you may well have a better feel for the coaching across the local clubs than I do - but from my own observations I have noticed that Herndon, Alexandria and Arlington Academy seem to have kids that are consistently technically better than the clubs they each compete with - so they must be doing something right.

On (2)  I agree with what you are saying about there being no need for a "style of play" in the sense you mean.  But I continue to think that teams that teach the technical skills well will end up appearing to have a style of play simply because they retain possession so much better than teams where the kids cannot control and move the ball properly.

On (3)  I haven't seen Alexandria run practices so I don't know if they are guilty as charged.  They may well be - in which case they could improve - but whatever else they do or don't do - they do teach solid technical fundamentals.  And I disagree that the Alexandria teams underperform at the U15 and U16 ages.  Their U17 team doesn't seem to be all that good (judging by results at least - I haven't seen them play), but I will be interested to see how the 2005 and 2006 teams perform over the next couple of years.  I know nothing about the girls teams.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics