This month newsletter featured the following, see below for more details and information from the December newsletter.
Supporting the Community
Supporting the community is incredibly important to us. Our club values firmly believe in the importance of giving back, and that sports clubs are a pillar of the community they are in, sharing their identity, and serving the local population.
A massive thank you to everyone who donated to this great cause in helping provide food for those in need.
Throughout the year we expect players and members to give back to the greater community and their club community, being role models and being actively involved with the younger players coming through.
Working with the Best
Fremont YSC is structured through a commitment to modern coaching methods, with frameworks for player development under pinned by evidence informed research in youth sports development. Along with our expertise through academia and youth development experiences, we continue to engage with and consult with some of the best minds in the world, ensuring we are always on the right path.
We continue in our relationship with Frans Hoek (Netherlands, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, to name a few), in sharing ideas and constantly evaluating the operations at Fremont YSC.
Our most recent session included discussions about the current culture of youth soccer, the challenges we face, and how our player development pathway continues to benefit the individual player and support their ambitions and growth.
Denmark 2024, HB Koge
The club visit was courtesy of sports brand Cappelli, giving full access the operations and structures of the Danish professional club. Firstly, incredibly thankful for the hospitality and access we were provided, and for the experience and memories we can now share with others. Our access included watching both the men’s and woman’s Senior teams train, a rare opportunity provided by clubs, and even the experience of sitting in on the woman’s team talk ahead of their game. Training followed a periodized plan, with the youth program in alignment with the clubs game model for youth players to seamlessly fit into the Senior teams when ready to make the big jump to Senior football.
Youth
A highlight was to watch the U13 Academy in action, playing in a league game. First, we were treated to a presentation from the Academy Director, Steen Knudsen. As with all trips and visits to academies across the world (outside of the US!), the focus was on the process, the priority of developing the human ahead of player, and the concentration being on the player and their learning experience. Results were not of importance, but constantly aligning their training and game objectives to their player development plans, the process was key, and not the outcome. This was the first stark contrast to the situation in the US.
Moving on to the game, it was very different to what we see on our fields. The focus was not on the facilities (providing canopies, water stations, full referee crews), but the game experience for the players to learn within. The field was outlined with cones, no lined penalty area just markers, and one central referee only; but the best part was seeing U13’s still playing in a small sided games structure, 8v8. The game was about the kids, where coaches were comfortable to rotate positions, give playing time to everyone, and remain in a state of coach emotions and behaviors to support the players needs and not coach ego. The parents did not shout instruction, big challenges went in without screams of foul, and coaches didn’t say a word to the refs. This was reflected in the players actions on the field. The whole game day experience was different to the US, and this is an actual academy of a professional club, not a self proclaimed ‘elite’ club.
The game ended with a bad referee decision, which allowed the opponents to tie the game with the last kick, and while for the first time the coach got animated, the Academy Director was there to remind the coach about leading the kids and how the result is not important. Incredibly refreshing, but also a result of a process driven development structure, and not a business model around team outcomes, and ego’s of the alphabet soup of playing leagues!
What is Learning? Why Winning Isn’t an Indicator of Success
The culture of youth soccer has now turned to performance and outcome, created through the role of ‘elite’ playing leagues, or what are also known as the alphabet soup of playing leagues all battling to be the top ‘competition’. The problem with is, the kids suffer from outcome becoming I priority, and within a sports business model of pay to play and a massive industry worth billions, the importance is again placed on winning.
This challenges the coaches into a methodology to support winning, which one of performance, this being a different environment to what a learning environment will provide. The contrast in coaching styles and methodologies are outlined on the post to the left from Sports Psychologist, Dan Abrahams. Performance is achieved through a high repetition of recognizing patterns where the focus is on speed of task completion. This is fantastic at professional level, but detrimental for the youth. The youth player needs time in chaos to understand the relationships around them in a dynamic setting, offering opportunities to experience different situations to which they can learn at a deep level. This is achieved through play activities, which provide a realistic playing experience to a game day. To perform, the process of deliberate practice takes over, which is shown when at youth levels is detrimental to the learning, enjoyment, and engagement of the player as it becomes specialized too soon in a youth players process of learning.
To learn more, here is a great podcast which explains the difference between learning and performing: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/261-prof-mark-williams-prof-nicola-hodges-a-skill/id1434313037?i=1000637382808
When winning becomes the priority in a youth sporting contest, we lose sight of why we play as kids. It removes us from the values which guided us towards sports participation. There is no problem with winning, often people believe we have no interest in winning but that’s not true. The importance is on competition, competing with yourself to be better and constantly challenging yourself to improve, and also competing as a team where we support each other towards a shared goal. Competition and challenge is important for kids, but it has become misconstrued due to youth sports business to where it has translated into winning (the outcome) as being most important. The following video is a great lesson from someone who has been there, and shares their experiences of what’s become a must win culture.
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