Paco just joined the forum. Let's all give him a warm welcome. The fact is the Docs and guys like Coach Paco say they can develop players to be elite, which is complete bullshit. One liar told me to my face that if my kid plays HS Soccer, she will be taken off the list. I told him to take a hike jack. Dude laughed at me, told me I'm making a big mistake and will regret not forcing my daughter to play year-round soccer. My kid went on and lettered all 4 years, played Volleyball, ran track and most importantly, she had fun. Was it worth it? Hell, ya it was. Was it dangerous at times because the refs suck in high school soccer, yes. These coaches sell this lie, and some make close to $200K a year by selling parents 24/7 soccer, 365 days a year with elite private practices for those who can afford it. $25K a year if your team is lucky to make the playoffs. 90% of these kids are not elite in the true sense. Their just good players and some can hang. I played basketball and the basketball gods don't lie to kids like me. 5 5' as a 10th grader. I did grow to 5 9'. High School sports rock. Now, if you are one of the special players we some high level skilz, then maybe it's not best to play high school soccer. Fix the ref issues, get some funding, some good coaches and you can have serious fun and good soccer.
Get ready folks
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Paco Amigo
BRONZE
Warm welcome received.
I don’t disagree with the assessment of US Soccer. And the point I’m making if still stands, different era, different pathway. Not saying we have it figured out. BUT, the old HS first pathway of Donovan’s era sure wasn’t it. And our current pathway is closer aligned to the British pathway, but obviously still not close enough.
What I would suggest is that the next big milestone for US Soccer is actually coaching knowledge and experience. US Coaches are, on the whole, awful and ignorant. We need richer, deeper, more experienced coaches up and down the ladder. I think the hiring of Emma and Mauricio are great steps, even if they don’t work out, I’m hopeful that the desire to bring and pay for better coaching at the top creates a waterfall down to the youth level.
Hahaha.Warm welcome received.
I don’t disagree with the assessment of US Soccer. And the point I’m making if still stands, different era, different pathway. Not saying we have it figured out. BUT, the old HS first pathway of Donovan’s era sure wasn’t it. And our current pathway is closer aligned to the British pathway, but obviously still not close enough.
What I would suggest is that the next big milestone for US Soccer is actually coaching knowledge and experience. US Coaches are, on the whole, awful and ignorant. We need richer, deeper, more experienced coaches up and down the ladder. I think the hiring of Emma and Mauricio are great steps, even if they don’t work out, I’m hopeful that the desire to bring and pay for better coaching at the top creates a waterfall down to the youth level.
You sound exactly like DA when it first hit the scene.
Coaching doesn't matter when youth clubs and USYNT play with substitution rules while colleges play with unlimited subs. The different styles of play force coaches to recruit different types of players and coach teams in different ways.
You can't arbitrary "teach" coaches how to coach and expect them to do things that don't translate to wins.
if you want to see soccer in the US improve all the different leagues and levels need to play the same game with the same rules. When this happens coaching will align and players that move forward from a young age will always be the best for a certain style of play.
Thatonedad
SILVER
As a parent getting a knowledgeable coach with experience sounds expensive. How many families can afford that.Warm welcome received.
I don’t disagree with the assessment of US Soccer. And the point I’m making if still stands, different era, different pathway. Not saying we have it figured out. BUT, the old HS first pathway of Donovan’s era sure wasn’t it. And our current pathway is closer aligned to the British pathway, but obviously still not close enough.
What I would suggest is that the next big milestone for US Soccer is actually coaching knowledge and experience. US Coaches are, on the whole, awful and ignorant. We need richer, deeper, more experienced coaches up and down the ladder. I think the hiring of Emma and Mauricio are great steps, even if they don’t work out, I’m hopeful that the desire to bring and pay for better coaching at the top creates a waterfall down to the youth level.
It's $25K now a year to get this kind of coaching and access to what coach, the Doc and club can get your child. I know many of the British Docs arrived back in 2015. They came by the plane load and got jobs in youth soccer because of their accent. I dealt with two of them. I'm not saying all, but many came because of the pay, the power and the ladies.
I don't disagree with much of what you have to say, particularly about the quality of coaching. Although I'd say arrogance is their biggest problem. (Ironically, they may be US coaches, but many are foreign born). When we're talking about "elite" players that is an incredibly small number of players. I'd say in SD County that's probably 1-2 kids per age group (I'm talking boys), I can only think of one in the 2007 age group. Why prevent the majority of other kids from playing High School soccer? An MLS Next kid by the time they reach 15 has most likely been playing year round soccer for at least 5 years and many for 9 years. Playing 3 months out of the year with your HS friends isn't going to set back their development, and actually might be a welcome break from the club grind.Warm welcome received.
I don’t disagree with the assessment of US Soccer. And the point I’m making if still stands, different era, different pathway. Not saying we have it figured out. BUT, the old HS first pathway of Donovan’s era sure wasn’t it. And our current pathway is closer aligned to the British pathway, but obviously still not close enough.
What I would suggest is that the next big milestone for US Soccer is actually coaching knowledge and experience. US Coaches are, on the whole, awful and ignorant. We need richer, deeper, more experienced coaches up and down the ladder. I think the hiring of Emma and Mauricio are great steps, even if they don’t work out, I’m hopeful that the desire to bring and pay for better coaching at the top creates a waterfall down to the youth level.
aong cangkol
SILVER
If you don't have time, the first 10min have spot on observation on US youth soccer problems.
It's amazing that these foreigners can understand US youth soccer scene.
Maybe it is not that complex after all. There is no intention to fix it at all from the leadership and definitely not from the clubs.
UK is a capitalist society, but English FA seems to always involve and really try to improve youth soccer development.
They basically sum up the problem in one word with out saying it explicitly, "joysticking".
What they claim in the first 10 minutes describes the problem being the pay to play win only & structured/Joysticking type of training that we have in the USA along with the lack of a pickup culture which looks for athletes first and this structure aims to create robotic non creative players. They highlight the fact that in the USA we use an American football type of model with cones to develop players vs a free flow soccer model that South American countries use with pickup soccer. The increase of American football coaches/trainers trying to teach a sport they never played themselves using American football tactics & techniques to teach soccer has become a problem. The other part is a culture problem. We do not have a pick up soccer culture like we do in basketball. If we were to fix these few things we would potentially start to fix things.
I wonder how much influence the "pay to play" model has on the "win now" and bring home "trophies from tournaments" mentality?
Karlton Athletic
SILVER
Really interesting video, especially as someone who grew up playing in England (and for a few years, South America), but have my own kids now growing up in the US. I'd often wished I'd had the tactical coaching my kids are getting, but at the same time I had this nagging worry that they never got to play for fun - to express themselves without being shouted at by a coach, something this video really reinforced.
My solution (alongside them playing at school lunchtimes) was a futsal league, and now they're a little older, to join my pickup game with grownups (because my love of the game wasn't coached out of me, LOL) and its now their and my favorite day of the week.
This is the perfect example of what’s wrong with USA training… here you have a football 
trainer trying to teach kids 
️ the comments in this post say it all 
trainer trying to teach kids ️ the comments in this post say it all I think this also plays a major role because like they claimed in this video… If kids do not know how to play 3v3 how then do they progress and learn to play 5v5, 7v7, 9v9 & 11v11 ? If we only focus on winning when they are young how are we teaching kids the fundamentals. If you look at most players in the pay to play system they do not have the fundamentals down.
Kidneys go for a couple hundred a piece. That's why there's so many Porta-Potties at Surf & Silverlakes.
This is also part of the problem. Getting knowledgeable coaches and trainers I would add. The one thing I noticed in Texas was the poor training they offer there. It’s basically football
coaches trying to teach soccer. One of the reasons we moved to California was for better training but it comes at a cost 
if your kids not doing work like this they are missing a good piece of being the best athlete they can be. Your obviously not going to a trainer like this to learn soccer. Maybe I'm missing something here?This is the perfect example of what’s wrong with USA training… here you have a football
That’s my understanding.
Even if they go to “school year”, you still have a few whose school cohort doesn’t match their soccer cohort. Redshirt kids will be one grade lower at school. Kids who skipped will be one grade higher.
I think it’s a small fraction of kids, though.
There is a certain way to train for soccer agility and it involves different drills that do not involve track or American Football movement dynamics. For example the dynamics of running Track, American football and soccer differentiate quite a bit. Soccer you need to run with arms sideways because of maintaining proper balance. Also in soccer you do not need to focus on straight line running like in track. A track player does not train the same agility exercises as an American football player. Same goes with soccer. Seems like he is teaching a mesh of Track, American Football with these specific drills, sprinkled with some final dribbling around poles for a shot at the end. Doing the wrong drills will build bad habits because you are working on the wrong dynamics when it comes to soccer. While sure these drills will make you a better athlete, you want to do the ones specific to soccer strength & agility. I see many athletic trainers using the wrong dynamics for soccer. I saw this especially in Texas. In CA its a lot better.
A lot of clubs (particularly if the kid plays at a high level) wouldn't be cool with playing adult pickup....too many injuries....some clubs allow players needing higher level challenges (if they aren't playing in the top top tier, MLS Next on the boys side), to play UPSL. Though pickup games can only get you so far. The Mexican clubs for example do recruit out of Latino League here in the US. But there's slim pickins....if a Latino league player isn't playing higher level ball by age 12 the chances of being able to play at such a high level are very slim and most kids who can't afford club and aren't picked by an academy by that age are done. While my kid appreciated the extra scenarios he got playing Latino league, he found the level of play frustrating, especially given that as a GK he was still the best one with his feet on the field.
Goalkeeper training especially once they are teens does typically involve isometric exercises. It's the only way you are going to get your leap height. Though even then no goalkeeper coach would do an isometric exercise without the ball being incorporated and some of the movements aren't helpful even for a GK. It looks similar but not quite.This is the perfect example of what’s wrong with USA training… here you have a football
The key difference though is that in England kids are recruited into academies very young. So they are put into an environment where they can get the feed back learning (their scenario 2 in the video) from an early age (much earlier than our kids are put into academies). They are surrounded by the best players with the most potential (and not lower potential players to drag them down). Our coaches are concerned about winning, because that's how the parents judge them, because the parents are shelling out the $$ for pay or play, so they are incentivized to make sure the kids don't make mistakes (since soccer is a game all about mistakes creating goals). The other scenario they mention is the Brazilian street play, but as they point out, they have highly knowledgeable coaches....our AYSO and Latino league coaches (even those from Mexico) are not so knowledgeable, and even then both countries (USA and Mexico) have a culture which is obsessed with winning over development.