Girls Development Academy

Sons of Pitches said:
If this is the mandated style of play it is terrible. These are two top 4 teams for the strongest division in the USSDA and they never once completed 6 passes in a row. Not once. I watched the entire game, the longest streak of passes was 5.

That said, these are all very gifted athletes. They are aggressive, fast and they could be GREAT players but they are not playing the mandated style of play.

It is a failure of our system in the USA.

MAP you posted a clip of UCLA passing out of the back, switching fields from the back, and a few short passes later a UCLA goal about 3 months ago. These two teams could learn from that.

What club soccer is doing to these young players is a travesty and will lead to further decline of soccer in our country.

As other posts have said, when is enough, enough? Or DA vs ECNL. Or promotion vs relegation. How could we get this so wrong?

Again, I want to make this clear this is not an indictment of the kids. They are chasing their dream, and using the platforms that are available, but we have this wrong.

We as a soccer community are wasting talent.

Rant over.
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I agree and can happily say this is not the only style. Notice my original post on watching the game the adjective I used was competitive.

We have some teams playing really nice, complex and beautiful soccer. Too bad LAGSD hasn't played Beach at home yet. I didn't look for West Coast on the list.
 
C.A.M. said:
I'm with pitches. They simply don't connect and you can't blame the field when the ball is in the air all the time. It's why they lost to us and I'm not bragging.

Heck, it's why we don't win a lot more. We could be .500 if we connected.
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I agree.
 
C.A.M. said:
I agree and can happily say this is not the only style. Notice my original post on watching the game the adjective I used was competitive.

We have some teams playing really nice, complex and beautiful soccer. Too bad LAGSD hasn't played Beach at home yet. I didn't look for West Coast on the list.
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They have. It is on YouTube. And beach does pass and connect more. It is more pleasing to watch and more in line with a he mandated style.
 
MWN said:
Some things to consider when watching the game:
  1. Both teams played aggressive defensively, marking well and leaving little space. It was easier to do this because of No. 2.
  2. The game was on a very small, fast field. The Army-Navy Stadium in Carlsbad is only 63x115 yards wide (15% narrower than a typical field). Games at this level should be 75 yards wide x 115 yards. Stripping off the extra width made defending 15% easier and finding space 15% harder. It also renders a possession style much harder because the space is rarely to the sides, its forward and backward.
  3. This field played fast (I think the turf is a little worn-in) so the ball rarely died and often ran past the passee.
Possession soccer against two defensively aggressive teams that mark well will rarely be successful, especially on a small, fast field.

The Blues keeper has a weak leg and did not take all of her own goalkicks, which makes playing out of the back even more difficult because you have 1 fewer option. I suspect this weakness transcends other elements of her game, thus, her teammates don't trust her.
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My player's team can play possession on any sized field. My player's club team never finished higher than 4th place in their division in ECNL and they coach emphasized style of play over anything else. Her coach could have put my player and one other girl at UDub up top and played direct to them all game in order to win. Instead, my player played defense, her best position, and the group learned how to play a more sophisticated game. They lost some games that they could have won but at the end of the day it turned out to be the best move for the individuals on the team. Had it not been for this coach and his emphasis on learning to play the game the right way, my player would never have fit in so seamlessly with a top 10 team as a freshman. If the coaches at Beach can teach it why can't everyone?

Good luck to you and your player.
 
I was very disappointed after watching the game. Not at the players. I was upset at the coaches and parents. The coaches for teaching the teams to play advanced kickball and the parents for cheering for it and writing the checks. I would never have let my player play for either of those teams for more than one season and if it was the Blues it would have been a mid-season move. There were enough talented players to at least attempt to pass out of the back.
 
Pitch pop said:
I think this is kind of the point. There shouldn’t be the vast difference in styles. One of the big goals of the DA was to begin to develop youth players under one system and curriculum put forth by the USSA. What we are seeing is just more of the same with a different patch on the players uniform.
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Actually the DA guidelines allows for different styles. What they want is the techniques used no matter what style you use and they have 2 or 3 formations you have to play out of once you are U15.

So they want to see players making different runs, keepers playing out the back, creativity on the ball and with the passes and teams keeping shape no matter what formation and style you play. They don't encourage the direct style of play, but want goals to scored and clearly are rewarding the players who put the ball past the goal line.
 
Real Deal said:
Yet these two teams account for 3 of the girls called up to the U15 YNT national camp, so they must be doing something that is being sought after.
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I am not trashing the kids. Be very clear about that. These are talented, gifted young ladies that work hard and make sacrifices. I just
MakeAPlay said:
Please post a link. I know that the coaches at Beach do a good job with style of play.
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oops sorry. It was Surf not beach. It was still more pleasing.

 
C.A.M. said:
Actually the DA guidelines allows for different styles. What they want is the techniques used no matter what style you use and they have 2 or 3 formations you have to play out of once you are U15.

So they want to see players making different runs, keepers playing out the back, creativity on the ball and with the passes and teams keeping shape no matter what formation and style you play. They don't encourage the direct style of play, but want goals to scored and clearly are rewarding the players who put the ball past the goal line.
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None of which was present in this game.
 
MakeAPlay said:
I was very disappointed after watching the game. Not at the players. I was upset at the coaches and parents. The coaches for teaching the teams to play advanced kickball and the parents for cheering for it and writing the checks. I would never have let my player play for either of those teams for more than one season and if it was the Blues it would have been a mid-season move. There were enough talented players to at least attempt to pass out of the back.
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THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

My anger is sooooooooo high at watching some of these girls team play that I am a perpetual grouch. It freaking drives me crazy!!!!! Parents in the stands telling their girls "Great Pass" for creating 50/50 balls from long balls instead of just passing to the open girl 15 yards from them or for taking a shot when double teamed instead of making the simple pass to a runner who is wide open on an empty net or passing the buck to other players when they don't go get the ball back when they lose it, etc... Let's not get to the "yeah girls" that come when a player does all these unnecessary skills and the defender just takes the ball off her feet or the pass is 7 yards behind the intended player.

Then coaches emphasizing it's the thing to do by granting these players more game time like WTF???? My head is going to explode.

What makes it worse is comparing these games to our boys U11/12 DA combo team and their competition as they execute these principles at a efficiency level that is 200% higher than what we are seeing on the girls side. IN FACT, they haven't played one team all season that played kick ball or ultra direct. Not one. Even the ones we beat down 12, 13, 14 to very little. One team had their keeper punting the first time we played them and the next time the team just suffered through the mistakes all our keepers make when learning to play out the back.

If we can get the girls to play half as good as the younger boys are, we will all be in a better place and I hope the DA system can get that done.
 
Has anyone heard anything about a "coming huge DA exodus".....? Not being cryptic but is there any traction to this rumbling?
 
jose said:
Im not a huge soccer guy so I don't really know what to watch tactically. I was there just watching and thought the same thing. LAGSD looked much more like playing with a plan the other was horrible.....my 2 pesos
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My DD’s team faced the same issue last weekend! The other DA team “athletes” changed their style and started to play kick ball. Could this have been encouraged at half? Maybe, because at half they were loosing 2-0 and for the entire 2nd half their coach did not stop shouting at them. It appeared that the win at no cost mentality ruled for this game.
 
SoccerFan said:
My DD’s team faced the same issue last weekend! The other DA team “athletes” changed their style and started to play kick ball. Could this have been encouraged at half? Maybe, because at half they were loosing 2-0 and for the entire 2nd half their coach did not stop shouting at them. It appeared that the win at no cost mentality ruled for this game.
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I think Al Davis said it best,.................
 
GoWest said:
Has anyone heard anything about a "coming huge DA exodus".....? Not being cryptic but is there any traction to this rumbling?
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I have heard that parents feel that 4 days a week is crushing their kids.
I have heard some incoming g05 DA players/parents say "We want to play High School. So since these girls will be in 8th/7th grade next year, this is a year for us to try it." I'm sure some 04 players felt similar last year or are thinking more about it now that the season is coming to a close.
 
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