Club or School?

If your expectation was to read my thoughts on the battle between high school and club soccer you might be disappointed. I am going to take this to the grass roots level. Where I live, each school district has a youth soccer program for children K - 8th grade.  The club scene is rather muddled - they come and go with the exception of Grand Lake United which has been around seemingly forever.

One of the newer clubs on the local scene is making a big push for youth players to abandon their school oriented soccer programs and play only for their club. I believe this is a huge and monumental mistake. They are asking children to specialize in a single sport at an age when they should be exploring all sports ... and other avenues of interest as well. They need to be kids, not little future college athletes in training.  Trust me, for the overwhelming majority of these kids will never receive a scholarship to play in college.  See here:  College Soccer Scholarships: The Facts

(Hit the jump for the rest of the article)

Teamwork

I cannot begin to count the number of pickup games I have played over the years.  Basketball, baseball, soccer, football, kickball, whiffle ball: we learned early to pick sides and play. My wife always marvelled at how I could find a group of complete strangers playing a game at a park and in no time be a part of the action. A quick introduction during a break in the action and when play resumed I had a new set of teammates and more often than not new friends as well.

As I watched my son and his friends participate in the Ohio South ODP College Showcase event this past weekend I was struck by how quickly the players established roles on the field. These were basically pick up games involving 70 of the best 16 year old soccer players in Ohio South. There was potential for a lot of selfish play to present itself, but on my son's "Ireland" team this never became a problem.  From the very beginning the individuals shared the ball with the passing being quite good. It was much the same on the defensive side of the ball as players instinctively worked together.

Yes, there was some individualism that reared its head but the kids took care of that themselves and did so in relatively short order. I have seen this through the years and it never ceases to amaze me.  If you won't pass the ball, soon you will not be passed the ball either.  If you pass the ball and in doing so help your teammates look good, they will generally return the favor or will find themselves being isolated from play.  If you play defense, you immediately earn the respect of your teammates. If you don't defend, your team will work to isolate you so you are not involved in defending.

The boys were allowed to call off the player they wished to substitute for and by the end of the first session it was clear which players were earning the trust of their teammates and which were being subbed off on a regular basis. The best teammates played the vast majority of minutes in these games. Not always the best players although that pecking order was being established as well, but the players that played best with others.

As a coach, I am always conscious during training of the player(s) who constantly breakdown an activity. Who are the players whose decision making is most questionable, who take excessive touches, who are always losing possession of the ball or are the weak link defensively.  Even in training, as the competitive spirit comes forth, these players will be isolated from play. I observed the same thing happening at the ODP event this weekend.

I remind the members of my teams constantly that every time they step onto the field it is a tryout. Not only a tryout in terms of soccer but also in terms of life. You never know who is watching: a college recruiter or a possible future employer, someone you might call upon as a reference, the young lady you might want to date or even marry might be watching you.  First impressions as crucial. This was evident at the ODP event this weekend as well.  If your first touches on the ball involved poor decison-making or selfish play, it set the tone for your weekend. If your first opportunity to defend involved poor or little effort, it set the tone for your weekend.

These were lessons I learned early in life.  Scoring the basketball was always my strength, but sometimes that was not the role I needed to play for my team. In those pickup games of my youth, there were often older established players or perhaps scorers who were better than I or merely more familar to the group I had joined. I filled other roles until I earned the right to score the ball by taking advantage of opportunities through the run of play. Defending and passing the ball are excellent ways to establish trust with new or familar teammates. Making hustle plays endears yourself to teammates - rebound goals as opposed to the primary shot or winning / saving a loose ball to a teammate instead of waiting for someone to do so for you.

I became a very good defender by choice.  In pickup games almost no one wants to defend the other teams best scorer. It involves hard work of both mind and body. I always took the other teams best scorer.  I gained immediate acceptance in any group by doing so. And it led to opportunities to do what I liked to do best - score the ball. That approach helped earn me my first job in corporate accounting for an international retailer before I ever graduated from college.

As I watched the play this weekend one thought was constant in my mind: the kids that were showing well all played with an attitude of "what can I do for my team" while the ones that struggled were seemingly all about "what the team should do for me".  Pickup games are often like that, but so too is life. As a coach I look at a players decision-making abilities as the key consideration in any evaluation of their play.  This lesson was learned from playing (and observing) countless pickup games over the years. The ability to identify players who make good decisions with, AND perhaps especially without, the ball are the ones I want on my team. 

Next time you ask players to choose up sides or are involved in a pickup game yourself take note of when players are taken.  The ability of being a good teammate is highly prized often times even over playing ability. There's are reasons for that.

The Starting Point for a New Development Model?

For those of you in the United States, have you ever seen a soccer scout?

Think about it for a minute.

Baseball scouts taking in a high school game?  Yes.

College football coaches coming to your local high school? Yes.

Basketball coaches coming to your school or watching AAU games? Yes.

A recent article about Boston Celtics assistant GM  Ryan McDonough details his contributions to their scouting department. Of note is his tracking 750 - 1000 professional, college and high school plaers at a time. The articles provides an example of a recent scouting trip where he takes in 4 games in 4 different cities in 4 days. Such are the lengths the Celtics go to in search of players.

In almost 15 years, I have seen exactly one college soccer coach at a high school match evaluating talent. This despite some excellent high school programs producing student ahletes who go on to play in college. I have never seen a "professiona" scout at a high school soccer match.  In nearly 20 years I have never seen a college or professional soccer coach evaluating talent at a club team league game. College coaches can be seen at a handful of major tournaments and at the popular showcase events where they invariably track the players on "elite" club teams.

For the most part, soccer clubs expect you to come to them. There is "poaching" of players from other clubs with each new tryout season, but even those players are usually identified by a team having played against them the prior year. I actively scouted nearly 100 players last fall for a spring roster of 18-20. I felt compelled to if I wanted to assemble a quality team.  I've been wondering for months why clubs, colleges and US Soccer does not scour the ranks of youth soccer to identify young players?

Let's pick on ODP for a minute.  If you coach or play club soccer ODP officials will use your contact information for a mass emailing announcing the ODP tryout and training schedules.  I do not know of anyone who has ever received a personal invitation to the initial process. They expect you to come to them. I have taken part in this process and it is ridiculous. Anyone from the lowest level of recreational play to eventual state or even national team players show up in droves. 

If we want to change the development model I feel strongly the place to start is with a scouting department in each "state."  We need scouts on the local level indentifying taent and reporting to a state level scout who comes out to the local pitches and scouts individuals more in depth. That state levl scouting director should be tracking a thousand student athletes each year in order to identify players with the potential to play on state and national teams. No stone should remain unturned in pursuit of talented players.

It's simply time for the tail (clubs) to stop wagging the dog.  Instead of parents paying for their children to play club soccer, clubs should be scouting / identifying players and then funding their development.  This is how it is done in baseball (college and minor leagues), in basketball  (college, D-League, overseas) and football (college). Youthful players are scouted, recruited and provided an education, room and board or are paid while they develop their game.  In soccer we expect people to pay to be developed. That's not working out real well for us, is it?