Soccer America: Youth Insider

Former U-17 coach Roy Rees: USA should be further along
article can be viewed at www.SoccerAmerica.com

By Mike Woitalla

How many players on the U.S. team currently competing at the U-17 World Cup will make a significant impact on the full national team?

Judging from the average of the previous 13 U.S. teams that have competed at each of the biennial world championships since 1985, the answer would be one.

Roy Rees coached the USA at four U-17 World Cups, from 1987 through 1993. He guided the young Americans to historic victories over Brazil in 1989 and Italy in 1991. After the USA, led by Claudio Reyna, beat Brazil, 1-0, in 1989, Brazil’s coach Homero Cavalheiro said, “The United States deserved to win today. They were better as a team; they were better individually.”

Asked how he imagined the future of American soccer two decades ago, Rees says, “I would have expected it to be further along than it is now. They've done well but could have done much better.

"They have developed a whole bunch of very average players but not the great players you need to get that little bit extra. There's a lack of creative players."

Mike Burns and John O'Brien, who played for Rees in the 1987 and 1993 tournaments, were also among the U-17 alums who had the most success with the full national team.

Rees was succeeded by Glenn Myernick (1995), Jay Miller (1997), John Ellinger (1999, 2001, 2003), John Hackworth (2005, 2007) and Wilmer Cabrera (2009, 2011).

Ellinger's 1999 team, which was the first that went into full-time residency in Bradenton, Fla., finished fourth and remains the only squad to win a knockout stage game. It included Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Oguchi Onyewu and Bobby Convey. That class proved to be an aberration.

Miller’s 1997 squad included Taylor Twellman and Danny Califf, who went on to long pro careers but had limited success with the full national team. Ellinger’s 2001 and 2003 squads included Eddie Johnson and Jonathan Spector, respectively.

Hackworth’s 2005 team included Jozy Altidore and Neven Subotic, now one of the top defenders in the German Bundesliga, but he plays his national team ball for Serbia.

Rees, a Welshman who served as an English FA staff coach and worked for FIFA as an international coaching instructor before taking over the U.S. U-17s, cites many reasons why the USA hasn't made more profound progress in producing exceptional players. Topping the list is an emphasis on athleticism rather than on skill and understanding the game.

"America had the reputation of being better athletically than everyone else, because at the Olympics they ran faster, were stronger, and threw things farther,” he says. “Those are things that have nothing to do with soccer. At the youth level, big, strong and physical may win games. But the smaller players develop skills to combat the big and the physical, and when they get the growth they’re the ones who get the results."

He also warns of the perils of advocating an orthodox approach to player development:

"It was, 'Coach this way, or get out.' There are different ways of developing players, which is obvious when you see how great players have emerged from different countries."

He says that the insight into the game that great players acquire is something that they develop naturally when they're young, not from being told how to play, but by being given the freedom figure the game out.

“What matters is being able to perceive the game, to predict what happens next," says Rees. "They need to be placed in a situation where they can see it for themselves rather than having it laid out for them. That needs to happen at the youngest levels. They need to be allowed to express themselves and not be tied to the coach’s instructions, or they’ll play like robots.”

Now retired and living in Southern California, Rees is watching this U.S. U-17 team on TV. Not judging it by the scorelines, but whether there are within the group some players with that little bit extra that hints of greatness.

* * * *
The USA opened its U-17 World Cup campaign with a 3-0 win over the Czech Republic on Sunday with goals by Alejandro Guido and Esteban Rodriguez and late sub Alfred Koroma. In their second Group D game, the Americans face Uzbekistan on Wednesday (4 pm ET, Galavision, ESPN3.com).

Uzbekistan lost its opener, 4-1, to New Zealand, which got a hat trick by Stephen Carmichael. Carmichael, making his first start for the Kiwis, hadn’t been part of the squad during qualifying nor for a pre-tournament tour to Qatar.

Go HERE for U-17 World Cup results and schedule.

(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, coaches youth soccer for East Bay United in Oakland, Calif. His youth soccer articles are archived at YouthSoccerFun.com.)

Teach Principles, Not Aspects

by Travis Clements

Travis Clements has been coaching in Cache Valley for the past eight years. Travis admits that when he first started coaching that he was the classic screamer, yeller, win at all costs coach. After his first season with coaching youth soccer he took the USSF D license and recognized the long term affects of how he was coaching were not good. The process of change began. He implemented the E and D license courses into his coaching and, more importantly, attended the USSF Youth in 2006. Five years after this course and three years in to training "the Infinity SC way" he wrote this article. Travis currently coaches very skilled u9 and u10 girls teams and is continuously looking at ways to improve as a coach and a trainer.

As a coach and trainer, there are only so many hours in a day, and only so many hours we have with our kids to teach them how to play soccer. If we want to maximize our time and get the most out of the sessions we have, those sessions need to be age appropriate and centered around universal concepts, which I will call “Principles” of the game.

When we see the professional game on a Saturday, what are we impressed with? As adults, we are naturally drawn to the tactics of the game, the formation used, attacking patterns, spacing and spectacular feats of skill and athleticism. We also have an appreciation of team chemistry, the melding of complimentary players and the unity of the squad. It’s a fallacy to project these aspects of the professional game into youth soccer if we hope to develop players into what we see and admire on the weekend. If we spend our time on these aspects of the game, our players will never get there. Why? They will never develop the foundation of skill and understanding of the game needed to play it at a high level.

Unfortunately the novice coach, as well as the coach who’s focused on immediate team success, invariably chooses to spend their time addressing “aspects” of the game. Aspects of the game are concepts or features of play that are not always true. The most common of these aspects is positional play. Information taught to a player to help them play a certain position, like Goalkeeper or Wing, is not very useful if they aren’t playing that position. Youth players need the efficiency of being trained principles that are *always* useful, saving specialized topics for when the basics are mastered. Common examples of narrow, inefficient training topics include the popular “Through ball.” At youth levels it is more accurately described as a “kick into space” because the players lack the technique and tactical understanding to make it otherwise. Some choose to spend all their time with set plays, restarts, and creating patterns of play in the mold of typical “American” sports. These methods don’t advance the development of players in a positive or efficient way. Some are worse than teaching nothing at all! Consider on defense, teaching players to kick the ball out of bounds to be “safe.” It conditions players to not read the game, to not trust their ability on the ball and confirms a lack of faith in them from coaches, parents, and teammates alike! They are denied the chance to execute technical skills under pressure. Those players become mindless robots, predictable and unable to think quickly or solve problems on the fly. They lack creativity, imagination and flair. How ironic that those traits so valued at the elite level are being systematically trained out of our players in youth soccer!

It’s easy to stand at a distance and be critical, point fingers and detail shortcomings. What is the solution? If we are holding the kids back by spending so much time teaching aspects of the game, what do we do to fix it?

In youth soccer the players must first be taught the founding principles of play. This takes years. Shortcuts taken during this stage of training will haunt the players for the rest of their playing career. Just like we teach addition and subtraction before taking on multiplication and division, (let alone fractions and variables!) we need to lay a foundation of basics before expanding and specializing. Technical skill is universal to the game and is only acquired, refined and mastered through constant contact with the ball. If we want our players to have ball skills and to be comfortable and calm on the ball, we must teach possession and dribbling before we teach passing. Good decision-making is a universal skill that is only acquired, refined and mastered by players when they are placed in situations that require it. They must be allowed to play without fear of failure, a master of their own environment, where the competition of the game and their internal motivation to win drives them to find ways to achieve success. A player who is expected to listen and obey during play is not learning to make decisions or solve problems.

Teaching players to play in positions is not necessarily bad. The correct teaching of positional play needs to begin at its most basic elements, its principles, with every player exposed to every position. It begins with attacking and defending individually, and then expands to include a teammate, then eventually teammates. It’s not about Forwards, Midfielders and Defenders. Good positional play is derived through players addressing questions posed by the game, not in relation to a painted line or an area on the field. Players need to be trained in ways that help them recognize space, pressure and support, regardless of their assigned position. Don’t teach them to play a position; teach them to play soccer!

Shortcuts to immediate success on the scoreboard have unavoidable long-term consequences. We must have the maturity to set aside our egos and adult competitiveness to benefit the kids. The topics needing attention by our youth are seemingly endless: Dribbling, Passing, Movement off the ball, overlapping runs, receiving the ball, first touch, checking into and out of space, communication, attacking the ball in the air, ball striking technique…

Teaching soccer through the principles of the game is a slower, deeper approach that requires patience and a long-term perspective of player development. It requires commitment and humility. It demands that coaches remain a student of the game as well as the craft of coaching. Kids need to develop in a system that is firmly committed to the individual's progress, NOT expected to learn to play a system and sacrifice themselves and their development for the sake of the team.

Travis L. Clements

Infinity Soccer u12 Premier Boys with guest coach Rob Karas: Possession with a Purpose

Coach Rob Karas, Real Salt Lake's Youth Camp Director, visited Logan and ran three sessions for different Infinity SC teams on Wednesday, May 11th. The first was the following Session with the Infinity SC u12 Premier Boys. Infinity SC coaches were on hand to take notes, get some new ideas and take advantage of the opportunity to work with Coach Karas.

Infinity Banquet: Female Player of the Year, Caitlin McCuskey

Infinity Banquet: Male Player of the Year Award, Kyler Erickson

Infinity Banquet: Awards Ceremony

Infinity Banquet: Male & Female Player of the year, Newcomer Coach of the Year, Male & Female Coach of the Year and Administrator of the Year Awards

From Infinity SC Banquet May 9, 2011

Infinity Banquet Video: Meet The ODP Player

Slide show for 2011 Infinity Soccer Club Banquet

Letter from the Technical Director

Club, a focus on players

Generating individual players is a top priority in our club. It is what sets us apart from other soccer teams/groups in our community. Even though team success is very important, what’s truly significant is what is happening with each individual in the club that truly makes Infinity SC special.

The ongoing process of developing people over a long period of time is something that the ordinary person understands. We are used to having a curriculum in our education program, piano lessons, scouting programs, skiing and snowboarding programs. If a student is excelling in the second grade, he/she is likely going to be tested to see if they can perform at another level. If an alto sax player is performing poorly at the start and is sitting third chair and suddenly improves they will move up to second and possibly first chair. If child moves from an orange belt to a green belt in Tae Kwon Do, we acknowledge the accomplishment without making his/her peers move up prematurely. In all of these examples, the focus is on the individual, not their group, and each individual is rewarded for their abilities within a curriculum. Why don’t we embrace the same patient scheme with youth sports?

The beauty of our club philosophy, enabled by having multiple teams, a technical director and licensed/experienced coaches, is that we have been through the bumps and bruises of forming teams, enjoying success, only to dissolve (in quality and/or quantity) as the teams mature in age. We understand that players may find themselves jealous of the teammate that moves up a team because they are excelling faster, questioning what their team is going to do without them. Or that also that parents may find their child moving up to be challenged more because all of the sudden they are no longer the star of the team. However, our club is focused on placing each player in the most ideal environment for their development as a soccer player. This, for some reason, is very difficult to grasp and it is our mission to educate and change the culture in our community. We want a club that focuses on player development first, and team success second. I say this openly, knowing very well that winning is important, and that we should be striving to win every time we are placed on the field, but not at the cost of our players development. Winning is secondary to each player’s skill development and decision making abilities. I will not go in to detail about this, but feel free to check my blog for articles that support the philosophy (www.coachginn.blogspot.com).

On Tuesday, March 12th I received a phone call from one of the u11 girl’s parents around 12:45pm. They were stumbling around the District 7 web site and recognized that we had a game in less than five hours. Due to the chaos the weather had brought, we had a game rescheduled without any notice at all. The next six hours were insane, but the commitment to the players that coaches and parents showed was more than just synergetic. We acted like a club determined to make things work, not just for this newly scheduled game, but for each player throughout the club that was affected by this added match.

The scenario was this: two of the u11 girls were already committed to play with the u10 boy’s team at the same time as their new game because the u10 boy’s team had a couple of injured players and a couple of absent players. They needed players, so as a club we provided two u10 girls that were “playing up” at u11 to play with the boys. These two girls helped the boys to a 9-2 win and contributed by scoring two goals and 2 assists. The comment from the u10 coach was that it was nice to be able to plug two players, regardless of gender, and be confident that they will be able to contribute due to similar training and playing styles. The girls train often enough with the boys that the boys are comfortable playing with the two girls while the girls were confident that they could play with the boys as well.

As the u10 boys kicked off so did the girl’s teammates (the u11 girls). They are playing in the u11 boys league this season to be challenged more after running the table in the girl’s league. The beauty of this game was that although they were missing two stronger players (the players that were playing with the u10 boys,) two players from the 2nd u11 team (u11 select girls) were invited. Even though the girls were down 2-0 at the half, the two select girls started over two of the premier girls, they fit in, contributed, and there was no drop in play. The two select girls contributed in an eventual 3-2 win over a very fast and physical independent u11 boy’s team. They train with each other, they compete with each other and they plan to play with each other when they move to 11v11 next year when they are u12 players. It is fun to be involved with these players, teams and coaches. Although the circumstances may not always be ideal, and that the team may suffer on game day at the younger ages, we are seeing individuals nurtured to become quality players that are comfortable playing in every position, on any team, under any circumstance and team players who openly accept the guest players and work with them.

The other amazing part in the chaos of that day was that every player made it to the game with only three hours notice. The parents and coaches among the three teams were great at tracking down player passes, doing the online paperwork to allow the players to use the developmental pass and simply making things happen. When we place the needs of the kids above our own needs, we find out that little miracles happen. Raising a soccer player these days requires players, coaches and parents (especially) to make some major sacrifices. It is not convenient at all to have kids running around. But if anyone saw the girls smiling at half time while they were down 2-0 they will admit that it is all worth it. The girls knew that they had out possessed and out played their opposition. They wanted to be winning, but they knew what they were accomplishing as individuals and as a group. This highly competitive group of players was smiling ear to ear, happy with the way they were playing. They regrouped at half time, were guided in a conversation on how to improve their attack and before we knew it, the opposing side was stunned with a 3-2 loss being handed to them.

On the very same day, another shining moment occurred. I had a training session planned for three other teams at the exact time of these games, but due to the field closures, I had to change it to a street soccer session. I asked a coach that I have been mentoring to help out. He gladly accepted and made it happen. The club unity and synergy was amazing. During this time the u12 Premier boys were training with the u12 Select boys, and the u9 boy’s team impressed everyone watching with their skills and decision making in a loss to a much more physical team.

We often hear the phrase, “it takes an entire village to raise a child,” and in similar fashion it takes a club to create a culture that will develop a player. Over the last three years we have overcome many hurdles in an effort to build a quality premier club for our community. We have changed the culture of youth soccer and continue to be constantly on the cutting edge of U.S. Youth Soccer Association philosophy and curriculum. In an effort to improve our coaches, players and educate the soccer parents we have followed and will continue to follow U.S. Youth Soccer’s BEST PRACTICES manuel while improving our services to our community. We have taken the approach of thinking and researching globally while serving locally. Our community is unique in that we can rally together and build something together if we understand what the potential outcome can be.

We believe that as we all work together, like in the examples above, and help our kids get the appropriate training, our coaches will receive opportunities to continue their coaching education and the club members find ways to volunteer (even in the smallest of ways) that we will continue to lead the charge within our community.

Understanding the many sacrifices it takes from everyone in the club, I am very grateful for the board members that serve diligently to represent the parental and administrative side of our club. They are priceless, and sacrifice countless hours to improve the experience of the players and their families. The coaches are the lifeline of our club; the sacrifices that they make to be on a field with your child are amazing and frequently taken for granted. As parents of the players, you have been outstanding with adapting to the many schedule changes due to weather this spring, and in general our parents make many sacrifices for their children and I applaud them for pulling it off. I can’t even imagine how strenuous it is to get your children everywhere. Last, but not least, the players- all of you work hard, play hard and train hard. I enjoy being part of your development on the soccer field.

As mentioned at the start of this letter, it is Infinity’s goal, as well as mine, to help you fall in love with the game while learning the game. However, I hope that you are learning important life lessons during your experience with Infinity SC that will help you be quality citizens now and forever.

Forever Futbol,

Coach Jeff Ginn, Technical Director