I agree, but there hasn't been any announcements from clubs like FC Dallas and De Anza Force. Like you I assume they would put their first team in MLS and second team in ECNL. FC Dallas as an MLS Club is a no brainer but how does a club like De Anza go back and tell ECNL the first team will be MLS and will ECNL kick them out again?
MLS youth league
- Thread starter Zvezdas
- Start date
MacDre
PREMIER
Based on my limited personal experience, I’m not sure this is all US Soccer’s fault. I’m not sure if the Quakes academy is indicative of a typical development academy in the US, but if it is, the problem is skill and game IQ. The boys at the Quakes are substantially behind the boys at Xolo’s technically.
vegasguy
GOLD
@MacDre So you are saying Weston McKinnie, Danny Leyva, Dante Sealy, and Chris Richards are 20yrs behind LigaMX? You have a daughter and not a son so I am assure you are not aware of the men players moving from MLS to Bundesliga and other leagues at a young age before they sign the homegrown or pro contract. MLS to Europe is a greater pipeline right now.
Quakes are not typical or the pinnacle of MLS development.
Freaking brothers every way like M.J.
I can't believe, today was a good day
Quakes are not typical or the pinnacle of MLS development.
Freaking brothers every way like M.J.
I can't believe, today was a good day
MacDre
PREMIER
No, I’m saying that it’ll take 20 years or more until there is a FCD type academy in Vegas and similar ignored areas. It’s also going to take some time for weaker programs like the Quakes to come up to speed.
So is the Quakes academy middle of the road or bottom of the barrel? They looked really bad!
Did anyone listen in on the conference call?
They are still hammering out the details, but it appears MLS teams only have to carry U15 and U17 teams. U19 might be optional even for the MLS teams. That is not ideal. If that is the case, players will have to find different clubs to play for during their HS senior year.
They are still hammering out the details, but it appears MLS teams only have to carry U15 and U17 teams. U19 might be optional even for the MLS teams. That is not ideal. If that is the case, players will have to find different clubs to play for during their HS senior year.
I agree there is no shortgage of great atheletes playing in the US. We have more youth playing soccer than any other nation, the only other nation remotely close is Germany I believe. I'm going to divert a little bit from your opinion, but yes we focus too much on size and raw athleticism. I also believe coaches in the US favors the 1v1 player and creative dribbler too much, at the expense of other skills. What US coaches don't seem to understand is that the ball can travel much faster than one can run and that one can dribble. Soccer is primarily a decision making sport (aka Soccer IQ) and speed of play is critical. We're very poor at decision making, particularly at speed. Its a tremendous skill to be a creative dribbler but it has to be combined with Soccer IQ other wise you're just slowing down the game. It seems we make our decisions after we receive the ball and were not proactive, ie we lack field vison and awareness, or the technicall term is "scanning".
'Football vision' as important as ball skills, experts reveal
Learning to read the game is as important to young footballers as kicking a ball. A new study, which highlighted Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard as stars who incorporated the technique into their gameplay, calls on coaches to spend more time training young players to scan the field and less on...
www.sciencedaily.com
I also believe we've distorted what it means to be a great 1v1 player. Its now been boiled down to someone that can beat someone on the dribble...actually its evolved into someone that can sometimes win a 1v2, 1v3, 1v4. In my mind, a 1v1 player is one that can defend the dribble, win 50/50 or less balls, can out position or outsmart their opponent to receive the ball, etc. These "new age" 1v1 players that take on two or more players are not only slowing the game down but they are also not taking advantage of their teams numerical advantage that has been created. That's something else I don't see very often is coaches teaching the importance of gaining a numerical advantage where play is occuring. Coaching of movement off the ball is improving but we still have a lot of room to improve.
I guess my conclusion is that coaches don't seem to favor Soccer IQ, whereas I don't think Soccer IQ can be overrated. Maybe coaches think they can teach Soccer IQ to the physically dominant players...I just havent seen much of that occuring.
Kante
PREMIER
for the non-mls clubs, sounds like many will be still stuck at u13/u14. likely not Barca or TFA, maybe not LAUFA, but the rest.
for those u13/u14 non-MLS clubs, new MLS league seems like window dressing. better, more honest option for those clubs' families would have been to play in leagues where there would be pro/rel now, which is what their option will be at u15.
Sounds like the same deal as the old USSDA.
Yeah that would be fantastic if a kid can sign a MLS homegrown contract or play in Europe by 16. There are only a small handful of those though.
MacDre
PREMIER
I 100% agree with your assessment but my experience is limited to the Quakes academy. @vegasguy seems to think the Quakes aren’t a top club and the US soccer landscape is full of great talent going to Germany for a promising future. How prevalent is this lack of soccer IQ that you and I speak of in the US soccer landscape?I agree there is no shortgage of great atheletes playing in the US. We have more youth playing soccer than any other nation, the only other nation remotely close is Germany I believe. I'm going to divert a little bit from your opinion, but yes we focus too much on size and raw athleticism. I also believe coaches in the US favors the 1v1 player and creative dribbler too much, at the expense of other skills. What US coaches don't seem to understand is that the ball can travel much faster than one can run and that one can dribble. Soccer is primarily a decision making sport (aka Soccer IQ) and speed of play is critical. We're very poor at decision making, particularly at speed. Its a tremendous skill to be a creative dribbler but it has to be combined with Soccer IQ other wise you're just slowing down the game. It seems we make our decisions after we receive the ball and were not proactive, ie we lack field vison and awareness, or the technicall term is "scanning".
'Football vision' as important as ball skills, experts reveal
Learning to read the game is as important to young footballers as kicking a ball. A new study, which highlighted Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard as stars who incorporated the technique into their gameplay, calls on coaches to spend more time training young players to scan the field and less on...www.sciencedaily.com
I also believe we've distorted what it means to be a great 1v1 player. Its now been boiled down to someone that can beat someone on the dribble...actually its evolved into someone that can sometimes win a 1v2, 1v3, 1v4. In my mind, a 1v1 player is one that can defend the dribble, win 50/50 or less balls, can out position or outsmart their opponent to receive the ball, etc. These "new age" 1v1 players that take on two or more players are not only slowing the game down but they are also not taking advantage of their teams numerical advantage that has been created. That's something else I don't see very often is coaches teaching the importance of gaining a numerical advantage where play is occuring. Coaching of movement off the ball is improving but we still have a lot of room to improve.
I guess my conclusion is that coaches don't seem to favor Soccer IQ, whereas I don't think Soccer IQ can be overrated. Maybe coaches think they can teach Soccer IQ to the physically dominant players...I just havent seen much of that occuring.
This is what someone said about the U17 women's performance at the 2018 World Cup and the author seems to apply to all the YNT's. Whether the author was applying it to the boys IDK, but based on what I have seen it does apply.
"It does seem apparent that YNT coaches have emphasized finding players who are quick, have good feet, and look first to attack 1v1—and that these selectors have cared less about on a player’s awareness, off-ball movement, or willingness to pass cleanly into pressure and receive and return cleanly under pressure. And it also seems apparent that the YNT coaching staff has struggled mightily to fit the players they do find into a coherent, mutually supportive tactical structure.
The result? Failure. Repeated, consistent, failure."
Why it matters that the U17 women’s national team lost again
This is just the latest in a string of failures by US Soccer’s youth program.
www.starsandstripesfc.com
whatithink
GOLD
IMO, you change the age grouping back to the pre-calendar year one. You have the Aug-Jul date range with the Aug-Dec playing with the Jan-Jul. Generally, they are then same grade & peer group, which is positive. The Jan-Jul kids are being challenged vs older kids - which has always helped when being selected based on the FIFA rule (calendar) and the Aug-Dec kids who are late developers have a shot. Today the top teams are dominated with Jan-Jul birth dates.
There was a study I read, and this was youth sports, not just soccer, and it had something like 75% or more of elite players in youth sports were Jan-Jun and only 25% or less Jul-Dec. There was an extended finding that something like 30% of the Jan-Jun played elite after while 80% of the Jul-Dec did. Basically, early developers always get the nod. Big, strong, fast & athletic always trumps technique, brains etc. in a push - its like buying IBM back in the day from a coach perspective. The clubs & coaches will never change this.
whatithink
GOLD
From what I've seen I can only agree. I've heard coaches saying some really dumb stuff and reject players with clearly superior IQ, awareness and ability to execute for athleticism because they can teach the athletes the rest.
Take some players who never were 1v1 specialists or "athletic" or fast and think what could/would have happened to them in some of the top US clubs/academies, like Iniesta or Xavi or Pirlo ... would they have made it? I'd hope so, but ...
Kante
PREMIER
yup, usa had two cycles - the school year for domestic play and then the calendar year for international play.
was an advantage we had that we gave away.
brilliant.
vegasguy
GOLD
The Quakes are not Top Quality and others are.. NYCFC is becoming top quality.. but maybe Columbus FC is not. Xolos maybe but Tiburones may not be. We do have a ton of talent moving abroad. That is not to say our IQ is lacking but we thirst to jump to more competition and honestly we skip Mx to go to EU. MX and US development is on the same curve line. It isn't 20yrs.. it is 2yrs and we are pushing to Europe as Mex stays pat. As Bobby Brown said, That's My Prerogative.
Again @MacDre look at the players. They want US not Mex. Men and Women at apples and oranges but the game evolves too.. Look how it is played.. look at pace and style.. There will always be a Marta, a Messi, a Ronaldino but the game evolves and they move within it. Even the Triangle has gone away.
vegasguy
GOLD
We all agree DA did not meet the objective. But within the scope, there were great successes.
MacDre
PREMIER
NYCFC's Andrea Pirlo: MLS has too much running, too little play. Former Italy midfielder Andrea Pirlo said that U.S. players are not taught technical skills at an early age and that ultimately affects the quality of play in Major League Soccer. ... "It's a very hard league to play in.
IDK if its so much that our youth are not taught technical skills, its that they aren't learning how to use the appropriate skill for a particular in game decision.
texanincali
SILVER ELITE
"Skills" is such an overused term in today's soccer. To 90% of people, having skills has turned into doing stupid tricks. In reality it is such a broad term and encompasses many parts of the game. Very few of our youth know how to strike a ball properly, with the correct weight. That is a skill. I don't see many being able to turn with the ball into space. That is a skill. I don't see many being able to find that extra half yard of space to receive the ball. That is a skill. I do think the US youth league probably lead the world in step overs performed in a match, but we can't do the other things well.
I'm not sure "stuck at" is the right term. In DA, they were out of the league at the higher age groups. In the MLS league it sounds like they will still be in the league, but they will just have fewer opportunities to play the MLS teams (but still some, especially in SoCal, where there are two teams and they want to get lower cost games).
And, I'm not sure "honest" pro rel actually exists in Socal youth soccer. ECNL doesn't even pretend to have it. There's a reason why "club" is in the name. Definitely not SCDSL, which mostly doesn't have it and where the big clubs influence what they do have because they run the league. Coast says it has it, but SCDSL's presence has put pressure to limit it over the years and Premier is by application and isn't automatic.