“Beyond the Cones: Revitalizing U.S. Youth Soccer Technical Training"

[Grace T.]

TFA playing direct hmm? Maybe that one game and I wouldn't say direct maybe they countered. They play possesion 99% of the time. What they are saying on the video is the fact we don't have a pickup culture makes for a lot of robotic players. There is a reason why we don't develop super star players. US has made a great improvement in the last 20 years but there is still more work to do. Culture needs to change. We have a pickup basketball culture and that's why US is on Top.

Oh I had a fall work stint in Spain and a summer sting in England and kiddo came along for part of the trips. They don't have pickup games in at least those 2 European country. The reason in the UK is pretty much everyone is in a league and they want to do other things once they are out of their league (don't know about the schools as kid wasn't in school since it was out for the summer). In Spain, the problem is there aren't a lot of fields They are highly restricted. We were members of the local YMCA type club in our hometown and they had a beautiful field they wouldn't let him touch even for private lessons (it was the only one in town)....I've told the story before...his cousin's rec club played on a dirt field worse than anything we've seen in Los Angeles. Where they do get pickup games is that almost every elementary school has a basketball type court that's used for futsal instead of basketball (though that balance is changing too). But then, it was the exact same system at kiddo's school here and he'd alternate between soccer and basketball at recess. The pickup games thing is a canard and the amount they learn without technical instruction is limited.

There are three reasons. One, the parents who have football in their eyes for the kids have the ball at their feet when they are 3 and push the kids (flamenco BTW works the same way...my gap year and my master year in Sevilla I danced in clubs where the flamenco parents took their kids to dance at an early year...they were all better than I was and I was on my college's ballroom dance squad)....they are football families like Ronaldo's or Zlatan's kids. Our elite basketball families work the same way. Second, they watch it a lot more than our kids...I know for example there are kids on kiddo's Latino league team who love to play but can't be bothered to watch....and they do it in person and local b teams the way we used to watch here AA and AAA baseball. And even the hometown C team is more exciting than most LA Galaxy games. Most importantly, however, the European academies have been pushing younger and younger and once you are in an academy you are a. off the academic track, and b. have enough football that you don't need pickup games. That's the biggest issue we have: our kids attention is split between school and sports; in Europe you have to chose which track you are and football families roll the dice on football and they do it early (last I checked Spain was U9 but it may be earlier now). That's why we don't have superstar players like Ronaldo. But our academy system is now good enough to produce elite soccer players at least up to U20 which is where the problem is.

 

[whatithink]

I found this article interesting - selective quotes

"Thirty players at the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar were born in the vicinity of France's capital. Compare that to two other hotbeds of youth football: Sao Paulo provided 12 World Cup players and Greater London eight.
There were 11 Parisians in the France squad that lost to Argentina in the final, with the other 19 spread across eight national teams: Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Portugal, Germany and Qatar.
And then you have the icons of the recent past. World Cup winners Thierry Henry, N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba all grew up in the banlieues(suburbs) of the French capital, as did Kante's former Leicester team-mate Riyad Mahrez.
How has Paris become a city that churns out more football talent than anywhere else?"

"A local government policy of building high-quality football facilities in every Paris banlieue, partly to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble, has been fundamental to making the sport cheap and accessible to all."

"The Ligue de Paris Ile-de-France has more than 1,000 clubs and 270,000 players. It's such an important organisation that it has an office in the picture-perfect Place Valois, a well-struck free-kick away from the Louvre museum, right in the heart of Paris."

From Paris to the world - football's hottest talent factory

How people, policy and the shortcomings of the city's premier club have helped Paris export players in a quantity and quality unmatched anywhere in the world.

www.bbc.com

 

[sockma]

I found this article interesting - selective quotes

"Thirty players at the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar were born in the vicinity of France's capital. Compare that to two other hotbeds of youth football: Sao Paulo provided 12 World Cup players and Greater London eight.
There were 11 Parisians in the France squad that lost to Argentina in the final, with the other 19 spread across eight national teams: Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Portugal, Germany and Qatar.
And then you have the icons of the recent past. World Cup winners Thierry Henry, N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba all grew up in the banlieues(suburbs) of the French capital, as did Kante's former Leicester team-mate Riyad Mahrez.
How has Paris become a city that churns out more football talent than anywhere else?"

"A local government policy of building high-quality football facilities in every Paris banlieue, partly to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble, has been fundamental to making the sport cheap and accessible to all."

"The Ligue de Paris Ile-de-France has more than 1,000 clubs and 270,000 players. It's such an important organisation that it has an office in the picture-perfect Place Valois, a well-struck free-kick away from the Louvre museum, right in the heart of Paris."

From Paris to the world - football's hottest talent factory

How people, policy and the shortcomings of the city's premier club have helped Paris export players in a quantity and quality unmatched anywhere in the world.

www.bbc.com

We could definitely do this in Southern California while saving money, saving travel time, and have the scouts come. For some reason, parents are choosing "national championships" and "elite leagues" over all these other things.

 

[crush]

We could definitely do this in Southern California while saving money, saving travel time, and have the scouts come. For some reason, parents are choosing "national championships" and "elite leagues" over all these other things.

I've been sharing about this for years. The very rich that have elite players (according to the Doc & coach) love to travel all over the country in 1st class. I still remember seeing teams from SoCal in that failed GDA league beat the crap out of teams 14-0. Little Elite Susie scored two hat tricks in one game. SoCal needs to be the Li Liga of Spain. Maybe add NorCal as well and we got a Super League. Teams from all over the country would fly to us and not the other way around. My buddy told me privately that he spent over $15K in one year chasing the dream for his dd. She did get a deal to a college team in NoCal and is doing real well

 

[focomoso]

We could definitely do this in Southern California while saving money, saving travel time, and have the scouts come. For some reason, parents are choosing "national championships" and "elite leagues" over all these other things.

Maybe, but if the national teams are pulling from the entire country and we're doing our own thing in LA, a bunch of LA talent will get overlooked. If you look at the national teams selections (both youth and men's), the fact that they're so evenly distributed is a sign that they're trying to spread the love. That usually doesn't happen naturally. It's a lot easier to justify having a national team coming almost entirely from one city if that city is Paris or London because they're the only real cities in their respective countries.

Now... if we had state v. state competitions the way Europe has country v. country competitions, that would be interesting. Not "the best club team from each state", but a "State Team" similar to the National Teams in Europe. The CA team would dominate and be made up of mostly LA players. And even if they decided to split CA into north and south, SoCal would still dominate. That would incentivize every state to develop their own talent and you'd get poaching from CA, like, "Oh, his Grandfather was from Montana, so he can play for the Montana team..."

Obvs. this would only work if people took it seriously and it got funded, but fun to think about.

Maybe we should have every state enter the Gold Cup (including the Mexican States and Canadian Provinces). That would make it more even.

 

[Yak]

It's a lot easier to justify having a national team coming almost entirely from one city if that city is Paris or London because they're the only real cities in their respective countries.

Manchester and Birmingham would like a word.

 

[whatithink]

Maybe, but if the national teams are pulling from the entire country and we're doing our own thing in LA, a bunch of LA talent will get overlooked. If you look at the national teams selections (both youth and men's), the fact that they're so evenly distributed is a sign that they're trying to spread the love. That usually doesn't happen naturally. It's a lot easier to justify having a national team coming almost entirely from one city if that city is Paris or London because they're the only real cities in their respective countries.

Now... if we had state v. state competitions the way Europe has country v. country competitions, that would be interesting. Not "the best club team from each state", but a "State Team" similar to the National Teams in Europe. The CA team would dominate and be made up of mostly LA players. And even if they decided to split CA into north and south, SoCal would still dominate. That would incentivize every state to develop their own talent and you'd get poaching from CA, like, "Oh, his Grandfather was from Montana, so he can play for the Montana team..."

Obvs. this would only work if people took it seriously and it got funded, but fun to think about.

Maybe we should have every state enter the Gold Cup (including the Mexican States and Canadian Provinces). That would make it more even.

No idea on US Soccer purposely "spreading the love" to select the men's teams, that doesn't seem correct based on the current roster.

The rise of Paris as a soccer nurturing source is due to specific conditions, outlined in the article. Its not because its the biggest city except insofar as it is a main destination.

We have a state v state competition, ODP, which was the pathway once upon a time.

 

[aong cangkol]

Now... if we had state v. state competitions the way Europe has country v. country competitions, that would be interesting. Not "the best club team from each state", but a "State Team" similar to the National Teams in Europe. The CA team would dominate and be made up of mostly LA players. And even if they decided to split CA into north and south, SoCal would still dominate. That would incentivize every state to develop their own talent and you'd get poaching from CA, like, "Oh, his Grandfather was from Montana, so he can play for the Montana team..."

Good idea, I hope US soccer will do this one day. But US soccer us too weak or no aspiration to control youth leagues (unlike France or UK).
If you watch "Soccertown" documentary, that is how one city can contribute so much to US national team. If things go right, Greater LA-SD should be the major contributor to national team.

 

[focomoso]

Manchester and Birmingham would like a word.

They're going to have to speak up because I can't hear them over all this London traffic.

 

[focomoso]

No idea on US Soccer purposely "spreading the love" to select the men's teams, that doesn't seem correct based on the current roster.

The rise of Paris as a soccer nurturing source is due to specific conditions, outlined in the article. Its not because its the biggest city except insofar as it is a main destination.

We have a state v state competition, ODP, which was the pathway once upon a time.

I was talking more about the youth teams which seem very much to favor geographic diversity.

I actually forgot about ODP (which isn't a good sign about its relevance...). But Here's the 2007 West roster by state. Seems suspiciously spread around to me. Actually, looks a bit too UT centric until I saw the head coach is from UT Tech...

 

[crush]

One of my dd old coaches told me, "If you want to get to the next level, you need to do "extra private$ with me." Basically, this dude is a fraud and is all about making a buck off daddy and mommy. What he was really saying is if you want to play in the game and get my endorsement to a college, you need to pay me extra $ucker. I never paid extra for privates, and it cost my dd, oh well.

 

[sigmabody]

My son's current coach has told me that the best thing for his advancement would be to do extra training outside of the team practices. He's a reasonably good player on his club team, but it's not the not top tier team, and my son isn't independently driven to practice.

I could push him, certainly, pay for extra training, etc., and probably get him into the top tier team, and maybe some additional visibility, but I'd really question if that's the best thing for him in the big picture. He doesn't have the obsession with the game that I'd expect to see in someone who might have a chance to get to the highest level; that's the reality. I think as a parent, you need to be realistic about what your kid's realistic development trajectory is (academic, athletic, etc.), and plan accordingly. My goal is to support my children in their developments paths, not push them into anything.

 

[crush]

My son's current coach has told me that the best thing for his advancement would be to do extra training outside of the team practices. He's a reasonably good player on his club team, but it's not the not top tier team, and my son isn't independently driven to practice.

I could push him, certainly, pay for extra training, etc., and probably get him into the top tier team, and maybe some additional visibility, but I'd really question if that's the best thing for him in the big picture. He doesn't have the obsession with the game that I'd expect to see in someone who might have a chance to get to the highest level; that's the reality. I think as a parent, you need to be realistic about what your kid's realistic development trajectory is (academic, athletic, etc.), and plan accordingly. My goal is to support my children in their developments paths, not push them into anything.

100%. I know a parent that told their kid if they use soccer to get into college, they will get a new car. Poor thing was "forced" to do privates with a very mean coach who yelled at her for years. As soon as she got to college, she quit but has a very nice new car.