NSCAA Soccer Journal Series: Player Development

In the May/June and July/August 2003 issues of Soccer Journal, we offered a special two-part series focusing on player development. As a service to NSCAA members and soccer coaches in general, NSCAA.com has compiled the articles of that series into a special section. Please read the articles below.

"The biggest difference between the Brazilian players and the American players was that the Americans did not demonstrate any understanding of the subtleties of the game. And that affects what coaches do during every training session."

"Subtleties of any game usually are developed “in the sandlot” when the players are young. We all learned how to play sports as we grew up by playing with other kids in the neighborhood. We learned what we had to do to win. If you lost, your team was off the court or field."

Taken from LACKING SUBTLETY an article that can be found below.

* The Craft of Coaching
* Introduction and Phase I of Player Development (U-12)
* Phase II of Player Development (U-14)
* Phase III of Player Development (U-16)
* Phase IV of Player Development (U-19)
* Fitting Practices to Ages
* The Game is the Best Teacher
* Training with an Eye on Detail
* The Progression of a Goalkeeper
* Demands of the Up-Tempo Game
* Making Soccer Drills Work
* From Looking Good to Winning
* Lacking Subtlety
* In France, c'est la Technique
* Trim Down the Training Session

6 year old soccer phenom

6-Year-Old Soccer Phenom | Sports | SPIKE.com

Guided Discovery

By Sam Snow, US Youth Soccer Technical Director

The traditional way sports have been taught is with the coach at the center of attention. The coach told the players what to do {command style} and expected them to produce. With the command style, the coach explains a skill, demonstrates the skill and allows the players to practice the skill. In contrast to 'reproduction' of knowledge in the coach-centered approach, the guided discovery approach emphasizes the "production" of new talents. The approach invites the player to think, to go beyond the given information and then discover the correct skills. The essence of this style is a coach-player connection in which your sequence of information and questions causes responses by the player. The combination of information and question by you elicits a correct response, which is discovered by the player. The effect of this process leads the player to discover the sought tactic or technique. Guided discovery simply means that you raise questions and provide options or choices for the players, guiding the players to answer the questions for themselves because they become curious about the answers. The novice player in a command style setting thinks too much about what they are trying to do, a form of paralysis by analysis. Instead if you guide the players in a player-centered training environment then they gradually become capable of holistic thinking in their soccer performance.

Holistic thought is opposed to the analytical type of thinking. Analysis means to divide the whole into parts which can be studied more closely. Holistic thinking considers the thing as a whole. Soccer performances {training sessions and especially matches} are better suited to holistic than analytical treatment because they involve an integrated set of movements which must all happen at the same time. There simply is not enough time during a match to perform each of the movements separately and then string them together. Holistic thinking has been linked anatomically to functions carried out in the right hemisphere of the brain. The brain has both a right and left hemisphere connected by a bundle of nerves called the corpus collosum. The right hemisphere coordinates movements and sensations associated with the left side of the body and the left hemisphere does the same for the right side of the body. In addition, the left hemisphere is known to control analytical thinking, which includes verbal expression, reading, writing and mathematical computation. The functions associated with the right side of the brain are nonintellectual ones or those having to do with sensory interpretation, coordination of movement, intuitive or creative thinking and holistic perception of complex patterns. This hemisphere can grasp a number of patterns simultaneously.[i]

Sports tradition has emphasized left-side brain functions to the exclusion of the other. We acquire pieces of knowledge one at a time. In soccer, the traditional coach teaches separate points of technique, ignoring the 'flow' needed in actual performance. Some coaches use the holistic approach. In soccer we draw upon right-hand brain capabilities of holistic perception, rhythm, spatial relationships, and simultaneous processing of many inputs. Left brain functions are largely uninvolved. Novice players often go wrong in trying to control their movements with a constant, specific internal awareness. They engage the left-brain functions of analysis and sequence to interfere with holistic coordination of physical movement, which is a right-brain function. Obscuring a player's awareness with too many instructions {over-coaching} will make him or her so preoccupied that he or she can't 'chew gum and run at the same time!' It's called 'paralysis through analysis'.

It is often argued that effective coaching is as much an art as it is a science. Guided discovery in coaching soccer is a balance of the two. In a broad sense our coaching style of the American soccer player must move away from the 'sage on the stage' to the 'guide on the side'.

""I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.""
Confucius

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Barcelona's tradition sets it apart from the rest

The foundation for the club's Champions League triumph was set 307 years ago, in 1702.
By Grahame L. Jones, On Soccer
7:46 PM PDT, August 1, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-jones-soccer2-2009aug02,0,2834168.story?page=2

It's the sort of tale that historians love, the sort that spans centuries and weaves together past, present and future.

It was in Rome on May 27 of this year that FC Barcelona won the European Champions League, but the foundation for the Catalan club's triumph was set 307 years ago, in 1702.

That's when workmen in Barcelona completed a two-story stone farmhouse that still stands today. La Masia, they call it, and it is nothing less than the soul of FC Barcelona.

It was where architects more than half a century ago laid out their plans for the giant Camp Nou, Barcelona's magnificent home stadium which, with a capacity of 98,772, is the largest in Europe and stands nearby.

Thirty years ago, in 1979, La Masia began a new incarnation. It became the primary residence for young players being groomed by Barcelona for future success.

Very young players.

The Barcelona team that defeated Manchester United in the May final in Rome is a virtual blueprint for the way a successful soccer team should be built.

The team's coach, Josep "Pep" Guardiola, and seven of the 11 Barcelona starters that day passed through La Masia on their way to international stardom.

* Defender Carles Puyol, 31, joined in 1995 at age 17. (14 years)

* Midfielder Sergi Busquets, 21, joined in 2005 at age 17. (4 years)

* Goalkeeper Victor Valdes, 27, joined in 1995 at age 13. (14 years)

* Forward Lionel Messi, 22, joined in 2000 at age 13. (9 years)

* Midfielder Andres Iniesta, 25, joined in 1996 at age 12. (13 years)

* Midfielder Xavi, 29, joined in 1991 at age 11. (18 years)

* Defender Gerard Pique, 22, joined in 1997 at age 10. (12 years)

How does Barcelona find such players? What does it look for? Where does it look? How does it persuade their families to allow them to relocate to Barcelona? How is the La Masia magic accomplished?

According to Joan Laporta, the 47-year-old president of FC Barcelona, it all comes down to having a philosophy as a club (Barcelona is owned by its 162,979 members), having a soccer identity as a team, and believing in tradition.

In an interview in Beverly Hills on Friday, Laporta traced the origins of the 109-year-old club's current success to 1973, when Dutch great Johann Cruyff joined the team.

Cruyff, a three-time European player of the year and the ultimate exponent of "total football," changed everything.

As a Barcelona player and later as the team's coach, Cruyff developed "the way that we express our identity," Laporta said, the style that Barca teams employ at every age level.

He created the "dream team" that won the club its first European championship, in 1992. The captain of that team was Guardiola, a gold medal winner for Spain at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and a player who had joined La Masia in 1984 at age 13.

Barcelona's playing style, inherited from Cruyff, is all about possession, short passing, movement off the ball, one- and two-touch attacking soccer, and pressuring the opponent when the ball is lost.

The first team plays that way and so does the youngest of the club's many youth teams.

German national team Coach Joachim "Jordi" Low, in a recent interview with England's World Soccer magazine, recognized the importance of such consistency.

"I was in Barcelona and I saw the under-17 team play a game in training against the first team," Low said. "I didn't see any difference. Seventeen-year-old players from Barcelona with perfect technique, perfect position, perfect speed.

"Of course, maybe they did not have the 100% motivation of the professionals, but I saw something special. They practice in training from the age of 12, 13, 14, so when they go into the first team they know what they have to do."

Most of those who come to La Masia are from Spain, but Laporta said Barcelona employs about 50 scouts worldwide who look for players with something unique.

"In order to express our identity, we have to love football and that means that we understand football in a particular way," he said.

"We are searching for players everywhere, especially in Cataluña, but also in Argentina, Brazil, Africa as well, the countries that are producing players.

"It is important that when they arrive they have a particular talent that would allow them to be a player for Barcelona."

Laporta says he believes Barcelona can repeat its success of last season in years to come.

La Masia virtually guarantees it.

"We think that we can replicate it," he said. "We see that in our youth teams there are players who could be maybe a new Iniesta, a new Xavi, a new Busquets, a new Puyol."

Guardiola concurs.

"There are three, four, five players who are at the top level already," he said.

Those who doubt that assertion should take note of some names. They will be heard from soon.

* Spanish forward Bojan Krkic, 18, who joined La Masia in 1999 at age 9.

* Israeli winger Gai Assulin, 18, who joined La Masia in 2003 at age 12.

* Mexican midfielder Jonathan Dos Santos, 19, who joined La Masia in 2002 at age 12.

The list goes on. The tradition continues.

grahame.jones@latimes.com