Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ the concept was even more than that. They would rotate coaches in training because they said a coach that was a former striker would think differently than a defender, etc. The wanted to have different input and influences.

We do not think at that level in this country. It's just a fact. My kids now get this. They have a different trainer every few days. The trainers all take notes. The TD also rotates through the every single session. Sometimes it's 2-3 trainers at one field, etc. They said it's also natural for a coach/trainer to favor a certain style/player so rotating helps with that as well. It's a well-rounded approach.

And, look, it isn't possible in our travel model. It's just not. Our kids of different age groups aren't even at the same fields or times...and they don't have the flexibility to move so many kids around.

IT would require a seismic shift that will never happen to change the sport in this country. First to go, would have to be 'travel soccer'.

Our DA system is not doing very poorly at this as well.

correction: Our DA system is doing very poorly at this as well

Anonymous wrote:^^ the concept was even more than that. They would rotate coaches in training because they said a coach that was a former striker would think differently than a defender, etc. The wanted to have different input and influences.

We do not think at that level in this country. It's just a fact. My kids now get this. They have a different trainer every few days. The trainers all take notes. The TD also rotates through the every single session. Sometimes it's 2-3 trainers at one field, etc. They said it's also natural for a coach/trainer to favor a certain style/player so rotating helps with that as well. It's a well-rounded approach.

And, look, it isn't possible in our travel model. It's just not. Our kids of different age groups aren't even at the same fields or times...and they don't have the flexibility to move so many kids around.

IT would require a seismic shift that will never happen to change the sport in this country. First to go, would have to be 'travel soccer'.

Our DA system is not doing very poorly at this as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coaches focus too much on team development??? Welcome to soccer, it's a team sport! No wonder out national team has absolutely no chemistry.

Yet places like Spain, Germany, Italy focus on player development in the younger years. You are too dense to understand the difference. That does NOT mean tactics and player movement is thrown to the wayside.

What it means is that the individual is moved through a developmental system according to their individual needs. For us, that means our child has been gradually moved up and up in training age groups, and eventually games. He is working at the level that fits him. The coaches are teaching the kids the spatial concepts, movements, first touch, etc. which are essential to team play---yet they are taking a hard look at each kid individually. They will play younger kids for developmental reasons even if it means games and tournaments are lost.

The kids learn every position on the field, and learn them well. As older players--they will be able to transition accordingly as needed. Again, this may mean losing a game when your forward is getting time in the back, etc.

The team concept is bigger in these individual academies. No player is greater than the rest and you can see that with guys like Messi. Humbleness.

We are a prima donna country. We prop kids up and shit on the rest. We don't have patience and think a kid at 9/10/11 is finished with no future.

Who the hell are you calling dense? WE AGREE, YOU JERK! Everything you just pointed out IS what team building is. I understand that at the younger ages it is all about individual development, I never said that it wasn't. Hence why I said our national team has very little chemistry on the field, because as a collective we do not focus on proper team building and making technically strong, humble, versatile players who leave it on the line for the good of the team, at the older age groups. You people are so caught up over your precocious children that others can't make a post about the coaching in the older age groups without you blowing up because you think someone slighted your 12 year old. You seem to be very knowledgeable, so why would you lead your statement with "you're so dense."? Obviously you see the importance of team building, not for wins, but to improve the quality of the play AS A TEAM. If your player is selfish they were not developed well, I don't care how talented they are. It is a team sport.

"I have never seen a team make a debut. Individual players do. Therefore, an academy should focus on individual development”

– Johan Cruyff –

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coaches focus too much on team development??? Welcome to soccer, it's a team sport! No wonder out national team has absolutely no chemistry.

Yet places like Spain, Germany, Italy focus on player development in the younger years. You are too dense to understand the difference. That does NOT mean tactics and player movement is thrown to the wayside.

What it means is that the individual is moved through a developmental system according to their individual needs. For us, that means our child has been gradually moved up and up in training age groups, and eventually games. He is working at the level that fits him. The coaches are teaching the kids the spatial concepts, movements, first touch, etc. which are essential to team play---yet they are taking a hard look at each kid individually. They will play younger kids for developmental reasons even if it means games and tournaments are lost.

The kids learn every position on the field, and learn them well. As older players--they will be able to transition accordingly as needed. Again, this may mean losing a game when your forward is getting time in the back, etc.

The team concept is bigger in these individual academies. No player is greater than the rest and you can see that with guys like Messi. Humbleness.

We are a prima donna country. We prop kids up and shit on the rest. We don't have patience and think a kid at 9/10/11 is finished with no future.

Who the hell are you calling dense? WE AGREE, YOU JERK! Everything you just pointed out IS what team building is. I understand that at the younger ages it is all about individual development, I never said that it wasn't. Hence why I said our national team has very little chemistry on the field, because as a collective we do not focus on proper team building and making technically strong, humble, versatile players who leave it on the line for the good of the team, at the older age groups. You people are so caught up over your precocious children that others can't make a post about the coaching in the older age groups without you blowing up because you think someone slighted your 12 year old. You seem to be very knowledgeable, so why would you lead your statement with "you're so dense."? Obviously you see the importance of team building, not for wins, but to improve the quality of the play AS A TEAM. If your player is selfish they were not developed well, I don't care how talented they are. It is a team sport.

^^ the concept was even more than that. They would rotate coaches in training because they said a coach that was a former striker would think differently than a defender, etc. The wanted to have different input and influences.

We do not think at that level in this country. It's just a fact. My kids now get this. They have a different trainer every few days. The trainers all take notes. The TD also rotates through the every single session. Sometimes it's 2-3 trainers at one field, etc. They said it's also natural for a coach/trainer to favor a certain style/player so rotating helps with that as well. It's a well-rounded approach.

And, look, it isn't possible in our travel model. It's just not. Our kids of different age groups aren't even at the same fields or times...and they don't have the flexibility to move so many kids around.

IT would require a seismic shift that will never happen to change the sport in this country. First to go, would have to be 'travel soccer'.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coaches focus too much on team development??? Welcome to soccer, it's a team sport! No wonder out national team has absolutely no chemistry.

Yet places like Spain, Germany, Italy focus on player development in the younger years. You are too dense to understand the difference. That does NOT mean tactics and player movement is thrown to the wayside.

What it means is that the individual is moved through a developmental system according to their individual needs. For us, that means our child has been gradually moved up and up in training age groups, and eventually games. He is working at the level that fits him. The coaches are teaching the kids the spatial concepts, movements, first touch, etc. which are essential to team play---yet they are taking a hard look at each kid individually. They will play younger kids for developmental reasons even if it means games and tournaments are lost.

The kids learn every position on the field, and learn them well. As older players--they will be able to transition accordingly as needed. Again, this may mean losing a game when your forward is getting time in the back, etc.

The team concept is bigger in these individual academies. No player is greater than the rest and you can see that with guys like Messi. Humbleness.

We are a prima donna country. We prop kids up and shit on the rest. We don't have patience and think a kid at 9/10/11 is finished with no future.

I found it really interesting that before his death, the great innovator Johann Cruyff, was looking as 'individualizing' development as the new direction.

"I have never seen a team make a debut. Individual players do. Therefore, an academy should focus on individual development”

– Johan Cruyff –

"We began to develop these ideas about taking an individual approach to coaching young players," he explains. "We spoke about these coaches who only wanted to win the match at the cost of everything else when it came to youth development. We started to write things down and come up with a plan to help the individual players in a better way.

"We presented it to our bosses at Ajax but they were not so interested. In fact, it was the opposite. Their attitude was that we should not do this. This is Ajax. This is dangerous." Change meant risk. It meant shaking things up. But the danger appealed to Cruyff. Ajax's mavericks soon had the backing of the game's grandest maverick thinker of them all.

The problem, as Cruyff and his cohorts saw it, was that these coaches were too preoccupied with getting their team to win matches. "We did not want the results to be important," says Jongkind. "There is only one team that needs to win and that is the first team. A youth game is the same as training. It is a means to an end not an end in itself. It is a tool."

They would insist on highly-rated defenders playing in midfield to improve their touch in tight situations even if it meant conceding goals and losing games. "Now you see a lot of clubs and federations talking about this but often it is just words," he adds. "You have to match the actions to the words. It is very difficult to really do that. But that is what we did.

Cryuff's coach at 15 only had him playing 2 days per week vs Ajax's 5 because he was weak and skinny---he took him to the local track and field team.

Do we have a system that thinks this way? Hell no.

Anonymous wrote:Coaches focus too much on team development??? Welcome to soccer, it's a team sport! No wonder out national team has absolutely no chemistry.

Yet places like Spain, Germany, Italy focus on player development in the younger years. You are too dense to understand the difference. That does NOT mean tactics and player movement is thrown to the wayside.

What it means is that the individual is moved through a developmental system according to their individual needs. For us, that means our child has been gradually moved up and up in training age groups, and eventually games. He is working at the level that fits him. The coaches are teaching the kids the spatial concepts, movements, first touch, etc. which are essential to team play---yet they are taking a hard look at each kid individually. They will play younger kids for developmental reasons even if it means games and tournaments are lost.

The kids learn every position on the field, and learn them well. As older players--they will be able to transition accordingly as needed. Again, this may mean losing a game when your forward is getting time in the back, etc.

The team concept is bigger in these individual academies. No player is greater than the rest and you can see that with guys like Messi. Humbleness.

We are a prima donna country. We prop kids up and shit on the rest. We don't have patience and think a kid at 9/10/11 is finished with no future.

Anonymous wrote:For the poster above who quit travel - where are you getting good training and also game time without the travel BS? Coaches and money have ruined travel soccer in NOVA. They are almost all out for themselves and their own glory, no matter what the impact is on the players. It is sad that most parents are too ignorant to know better.

+1 This sums up our thoughts as well. Where are you finding this?

We are a dedicated soccer family with children that for some time have complained that all their teams or cubs focus on the wrong crap - and these are 1st teams! They want to quit travel......but for what? Agree that most parents are clueless about soccer development and care about "sending him/her" on offense and "clearing it" on defense. We can't even enjoy watching most youth soccer in this crowd anymore. Effort and athleticism and making a winning team that wins 10 gazillion tournaments ...... that is club soccer.

So, where are you finding this magic soccer paradise??

Coaches focus too much on team development??? Welcome to soccer, it's a team sport! No wonder out national team has absolutely no chemistry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In keeping with recent posts about how poorly the US, US Dev. academy and travel clubs are at identifying and developing players and how much politics come into play....yep! We are playing old men when we should be developing our younger players.

https://sports.yahoo.com/u-s-soccer-still-doesnt-get-051541958.html

Only 2 of the players represented where even in the DA. This failure should signal the need for DA unfortunately at some point in the near future U.S. Soccer has to trust in what it has tried to build and begin handing the keys over to the next generation of players.

DA is still on the stupid US format and it still selects players in the EXACT same manner, through butt-buddy Club coach system. It's all politics. Which tryout field a player gets put on, which kids get passed on word-to-mouth...all a complete joke. Same thing, new wrapper. They drills and training are the same. Sucky.

Says parent of kid not in DA. DA isn't perfect but it certainly casts a wider net and offers far more oversight than what the current USMNT EVER had. That is a nice rant but it isn't completely true.

at our club, there is no wide net. It is the same exact A team that just moved into the DA slot.

And you are assuming this means that every other DA program is the same?

For the poster above who quit travel - where are you getting good training and also game time without the travel BS? Coaches and money have ruined travel soccer in NOVA. They are almost all out for themselves and their own glory, no matter what the impact is on the players. It is sad that most parents are too ignorant to know better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In keeping with recent posts about how poorly the US, US Dev. academy and travel clubs are at identifying and developing players and how much politics come into play....yep! We are playing old men when we should be developing our younger players.

https://sports.yahoo.com/u-s-soccer-still-doesnt-get-051541958.html

Only 2 of the players represented where even in the DA. This failure should signal the need for DA unfortunately at some point in the near future U.S. Soccer has to trust in what it has tried to build and begin handing the keys over to the next generation of players.

DA is still on the stupid US format and it still selects players in the EXACT same manner, through butt-buddy Club coach system. It's all politics. Which tryout field a player gets put on, which kids get passed on word-to-mouth...all a complete joke. Same thing, new wrapper. They drills and training are the same. Sucky.

Says parent of kid not in DA. DA isn't perfect but it certainly casts a wider net and offers far more oversight than what the current USMNT EVER had. That is a nice rant but it isn't completely true.

DA is a joke, at least in this area.

What a lazy and thoughtless comment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In keeping with recent posts about how poorly the US, US Dev. academy and travel clubs are at identifying and developing players and how much politics come into play....yep! We are playing old men when we should be developing our younger players.

https://sports.yahoo.com/u-s-soccer-still-doesnt-get-051541958.html

Only 2 of the players represented where even in the DA. This failure should signal the need for DA unfortunately at some point in the near future U.S. Soccer has to trust in what it has tried to build and begin handing the keys over to the next generation of players.

DA is still on the stupid US format and it still selects players in the EXACT same manner, through butt-buddy Club coach system. It's all politics. Which tryout field a player gets put on, which kids get passed on word-to-mouth...all a complete joke. Same thing, new wrapper. They drills and training are the same. Sucky.

Says parent of kid not in DA. DA isn't perfect but it certainly casts a wider net and offers far more oversight than what the current USMNT EVER had. That is a nice rant but it isn't completely true.

DA is a joke, at least in this area.

I know girls who made DA who were on the B team at our club previously. I'm not impressed with the DA rosters so far. Its just watering down the top teams in the area. Which is good for my child because now they are on the A team I guess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In keeping with recent posts about how poorly the US, US Dev. academy and travel clubs are at identifying and developing players and how much politics come into play....yep! We are playing old men when we should be developing our younger players.

https://sports.yahoo.com/u-s-soccer-still-doesnt-get-051541958.html

Only 2 of the players represented where even in the DA. This failure should signal the need for DA unfortunately at some point in the near future U.S. Soccer has to trust in what it has tried to build and begin handing the keys over to the next generation of players.

DA is still on the stupid US format and it still selects players in the EXACT same manner, through butt-buddy Club coach system. It's all politics. Which tryout field a player gets put on, which kids get passed on word-to-mouth...all a complete joke. Same thing, new wrapper. They drills and training are the same. Sucky.

Says parent of kid not in DA. DA isn't perfect but it certainly casts a wider net and offers far more oversight than what the current USMNT EVER had. That is a nice rant but it isn't completely true.

at our club, there is no wide net. It is the same exact A team that just moved into the DA slot.