Girls Development Academy

outside! said:
You can find future games here:
https://lagalaxysd.com/tv/
This game in particular is
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I only watched the first 20 minutes.
Definitely fast and physical teams with very good skill. Tactically, LAGSD seemed to be patient and move the ball around pretty good.
Blues looked good, but seemed to be looking for the homerun ball. Or when in trouble in the back - kick it far or kick it out.

I noticed there were a ton of throw-ins during that 20 minutes. Not uncommon, especially if the field is narrow (as stated above). Every single throw in went forward into a scrum of players. I didn't see anything that was thrown back. And I didn't see any attempt to play the ball back to the thrower. There are some good tactical advantages to have set patterns on throw-ins. If you only have 2 practices a week with a technically poor team - probably not something to spend a ton of time in during practice. But at this level, even dedicating 30 minutes a month would have an impact.

And pet peeve of mine for all video companies - Why not pan out and show the entire field? The objective for a team to record a game should be to look at off the ball movement during the run of play. Stop zooming in on the 1v1 play in the corner.
 
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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Isn’t this LAGSD HOME FIELD? I don’t think you can blame the fast turf for their inability to connect passes.

Reagarding your next statement of possession soccer vs small fast field. It rarely works if you want to win at this age would be a more accurate statement. I think there are plenty of professional teams that would welcome the high press that you see by both clubs and be more than willing to pass out of it. The win at all cost mentality vs development argument.

Finally, if the players on the field were taught to shield the ball as they dribbled or turn away from pressure while protecting the ball and cross. There was space on the opposite wings.
 
Kicker4Life said:
You need to watch more games. Although there is a directive on style of play, every Club has their own interpretation of that style. These 2 aclu s never have been much for pure possession. They have always been aggressive in terms of play and method of moving the ball up field.
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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.
 
MakeAPlay said:
I know who Marcelo is. Somewhere on the college thread from last season I posted a pic my player and a couple of her teammates took with him when they trained on their field last year.

Is this the mandated style of play for the GDA? I know these are both top 5 in the standings so they are much better than average teams for this age group.
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On the girls side, if you want to see the mandated style of play you are best going to the US Soccer DA website and watching the LAFC Slammers 01/02 vs Sky Blue PDA 01/02. The games aren't supposed to be just the style and devoid of creativity.

The Marcelo explanation wasn't really for you MAP. It was for others that might not know.

I'll point out only the teams I feel play the Mandated DA style well.

1. Beach. Best at it. Ball is on the ground and everyone touches it. They attack the defenses weak spots and the player movement was second to none. It shows as they have multiple girls with multiple goal scoring games and the shots come from the wings, crosses, through balls, give and gos, over the top and on and on. Takes a move athletic team to stymie them and there are a few more athletic teams in the division. Far ahead in executing the concepts.
2. LA Galaxy. Lacking that killer striker like Legends, Surf, LAG SD to really make you pay for their creativity. They will result to long ball when under pressure defensively.
3. Surf West Coast - They spread you out. It is different watching them as they often don't seem interested in attacking as long as they keep possession. They have no problem trying to beat you 1 zip.
4. SC Del Sol - I was surprised to see the ball movement and shape. Especially with more advanced athletes. They can physically play with anyone in the league and the ball movement is good also.
5. Legends *with a lead - They become a completely different team when they get one on the board before the opposition. They really settle down and stop being as direct. Unlike many of the other teams they can actually be successful playing direct and with ball movement because of the athletes they have. They have one of their top attacking mids back and that will give them rhythm and life, but their best CB moving up to 01/02 has dampened their creativity a bit. She early committed to Cal for a reason.

The rest have catching up to do when it comes to playing the style.

Blues is the most direct team I have seen or we have faced including the showcases. Their goal tally shows that. It's basically the young lady version of Liverpool right now. They are just a different team without their left back who is their true creator. I'm actually ashamed she isn't on the US YNT.
 
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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Scoring goals in bunches. There is a reason the stats don't show assists (which is total crap). They care about scoring.
 
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'm glad that you said it and not me. I would have been villainized for it.... I thought that it was weird to have a GK at U15 not take their own kicks and I can't remember seeing one ATTEMPT of passing out of the back by a GK off of a goal kick. I agree that their are some individually talented players but I can say with 100% confidence that not one player in that game is ready to play sophisticated possession. It needs to be taught at the club level or nothing will change.
 
outside! said:
Only for games. They practice at Poinsettia which got new turf within the past couple of years.
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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.
 
chiefs said:
At the 03 DA age group for the SW division, all the teams have different styles and matchups each and every week. The Girls just need to be ready to play whatever style is thrown their way. Wins and Loss records dont reflect style of play. While Blues and LAGSD play direct and extremely physical, West Coast and Beach play out of the back, and for the most part dominate possession, spacing and shots per game. You should look up videos on these two teams and im sure your opinion would change.
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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. Some teams do try and play a good brand of soccer at times sacrificing results for development and some play to win regardless of what that style looks like. This was true before DA was around and from what I’ve seen it hasn’t improved. With the dilution of talent and the higher level more technical players spread over more teams, I would argue that it has gotten worse. It’s hard to play good soccer when half the team doesn’t yet possess the technical ability to facilitate that play.


To be fair to the “direct style” of play, what I saw on the video wasn’t that. The direct style of play isn’t a panic under pressure and kick the ball in the general vacinity of a teammate and hope they can out muscle the opponent off a 50/50 ball. The direct style of play is a style that is used throughout the world. It’s a style that can flip a field and shred a back line with a series of 3-4 surgically placed passes. This style requires not only athleticism but a very high level of technical skills. It gets a bad name here in the states because it is often associated with kickball. The two couldn’t be anymore different.
 
Sons of Pitches said:
Isn’t this LAGSD HOME FIELD? I don’t think you can blame the fast turf for their inability to connect passes.

Reagarding your next statement of possession soccer vs small fast field. It rarely works if you want to win at this age would be a more accurate statement. I think there are plenty of professional teams that would welcome the high press that you see by both clubs and be more than willing to pass out of it. The win at all cost mentality vs development argument.

Finally, if the players on the field were taught to shield the ball as they dribbled or turn away from pressure while protecting the ball and cross. There was space on the opposite wings.
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If this is the LAGSD home field, that's unfortunate and hopefully they don't use this for any groups older than U15. But I don't know, I just know my son's U16 team played on this field last summer. Nice stadium/stands, but small fast field that is definitely not appropriate for boys or girls playing at a level higher than Flight 3/Bronze.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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