Playing Brackets and Winning

In its purest and honest form, playing brackets are a great way to have even match ups between teams. Unfortunately, playing brackets have been swept up in the youth soccer madness.

One of the advantages of having such a populous region, with multiple clubs within a close geographical area, is that playing brackets can be set up between cities in short traveling distance. The idea of these brackets is so teams of similar ability can play in competitive games. Sadly, the playing brackets have become a false indication of a player/team’s actual ability. Promotion/relegation is the adult’s world where we live by results orientated work (ironically US professional leagues bypass this, but that’s an entirely separate issue). A player’s development is not correlated to wins and losses, but how they are progressing in each of the four pillars of player development.

Firstly, there is no promotion or relegation, and brackets are decided upon by the directors and coaches of clubs. There are a lot of changes that take place not making promotion and relegation feasible, so accurate brackets rely on the integrity of the clubs, and this is where the importance of brackets starts to diminish.

Brackets are now used in two ways.

Brackets to Win

Clubs/Teams will now enter certain level brackets, so they can win, or increase their chance of winning. All too often as coaches we speak to other teams and we hear they chose to enter a ‘lower’ level bracket as they lost one game the previous season, games should be evenly matched for competition, losing a game is not a negative, it’s a chance to learn. To use winning as the barometer of success in youth sports does not correlate with a player’s level of development, this effects the decision making of clubs and teams. Not only does this need to win service the ego of the coach, but it also conflicts directly with those who are trying to develop players appropriately. Youth games should exist where coaches speak before the start of the game, and ask what they would like to work on, where the opposition then plays in a certain way for the period of the game, so coaching can take play, with both teams accommodating each other’s area of development. Ultimately, you then find these teams chasing wins get their 1st place news straight on the website, and spreading through the community, using it to recruit players.

Brackets to Recruit

The flip side is clubs and teams entering brackets to advertise and entering ‘higher’ brackets. The brackets follow the metals, just like in other sports, gold, silver, etc. Teams who rely on winning, who do not provide player development, will apply for and advertise their participation in the ‘higher’ bracket. Immediately this sets off ‘Fear of Missing Out’, and this must mean all the best players are on that team. What this does is draw in players to the program because parents are fed that their kid will get ‘more exposure’, and they need to be in these brackets. Then the importance of winning takes over with new recruited players, and development is again over looked.

We have all been involved in a game where there is a clear mismatch, whether its the whole team, or one individual that dominates a game, and quite often through their physical maturity.

The emphasis placed on winning effects a coach’s decisions on playing time, rotation of players through positions, and prevents players from taking the risks and making decisions on critical problem solving and creative thinking on the field.

Competitive is the worst word that could be used for a youth program. There is always competition when two opposites play against each other, in any activity. It is the focus on must win that derails development. All games should be competitive, but it relies on the integrity of the clubs

Some Interesting Articles

Coaching to Develop Players vs Coaching to Win

http://m.teachlikeachampion.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fteachlikeachampion.com%2Fblog%2Fcoaching-and-practice%2Fcoaching-develop-players-vs-coaching-win-examples%2F&dm_redirected=true#2729

What’s wrong with winning?

http://keepitonthedeck.com/blog/2016/9/20/what-is-wrong-with-league-tables-and-winning

Identify Success When Losing

http://devzone.positivecoach.org/resource/article/identifying-success-one-win-season

Higher Purpose than Winning

http://changingthegameproject.com/a-higher-purpose-than-winning/

Tony Strudwick, Biggest Mistake in Youth Soccer

http://goalnation.com/tony-strudwick-on-the-biggest-mistake-in-youth-soccer/

Cost of winning in youth sports

http://goalnation.com/high-cost-winning-youth-soccer/

Tournaments and Trophies

One of the hot topics which I have been very passionate about for many seasons. The USA are the only soccer nation that has tournaments where kids are playing 4 – 6 games over a 2-3 day period.

‘Youth players in America are regularly required to play as many as six competitive games in three days during weekend tournaments’ USC Soccer Journal, Dr. Jozsef Fabian

You will never see a full professional playing two games in two days, let alone playing two games in one day. The effect of this is an increase in the incidence and severity of injury, along with a significant drop in the playing ability and skill level of the player. In an education weekend on fitness and performance presented by Raymond Verheijen, he was disturbed at what youth players are put through, and made coaches complicit in allowing this to happen and ending playing careers of youth players due to ligament injuries, largely serious knee injuries. The education, research, and knowledge is there for all of us, yet we ignore this and still continue to make tournaments longer and more intense while knowing the incidence of serious injury increases. Showcase Tournaments being the biggest culprit, using ‘exposure’ as a selling point to playing 6 matches, even though a players skill level will be diminished by the final game of the 3 days.

‘The ability of soccer players to sprint, jump, and perform repeated intense exercises is impaired when they have to play two competitive matches a week’ Ian Rollo, Loughborough University 

‘Players who play two matches per week have a six times higher injury rate, including a five times higher rate in the incidence of severe injuries, than those who play once a week’ Gregory Dupont, Lille 2 University

Tournaments serve a purpose for generating an income stream for clubs and organizations, and an opportunity to splash trophies across their web-page and social media outlets. We are just as guilty, hosting 3 tournaments throughout a season, for the purpose of generating funds to keep training fees low. However, we have been very consistent in not entering teams in to tournaments outside of Fremont. Additionally tournament play goes against the development model, development and winning cannot co-exist, when winning becomes the focus the coaches decisions are no longer based on the welfare of the player, but on what will get them the win. Players are put in to dangerous situations of getting injured as they are the ‘best’ player so will not be subbed off. Lower level players get far less play time if any. A style of play and focus on comfort on the ball, the proper mechanics being performed, and the enjoyment of the game go out of the window; but in come the fear and pressure on players of making mistakes.

Attending tournaments then becomes the advertising machine for clubs, as they will travel out of state and over hundreds of miles to play in a tournament, adding to the perception that they must be a high level team due to the needed travel. This only serves the purpose of putting families under a financial burden for travel, difficult decisions on missing family events, youth players under pressure to win over developing their game, and strokes the ego of the coach lacking in education and knowledge. This has lead to a downward spiral getting out of control with teams going to even more tournaments and traveling even further.

This bleeds in to the Fear of Missing Out, no longer making youth sport the player-centric environment it should be.

Local teams will always be a challenge for any team, and if a team is that much more developed, then the coach should have the skill set to be able to add targets and competitions within the game to further develop and challenge the player.

Some Interesting Articles

http://time.com/4757448/youth-sports-pay/

https://devzone.positivecoach.org//resource/video/reasons-rise-acl-injuries

http://changingthegameproject.com/will-know-change/

http://changingthegameproject.com/the-adultification-of-youth-sports/

Great meeting this past Wednesday evening with Jamie from World Strides. We can’t wait to get this UK Tour all finalized and confirmed in the diary, it’s going to be a great experience for the Fremont players. No better way than living and breathing soccer for 10 days at the home of the Premier League.

Everyone at Fremont YSC is wishing McKenna a speedy recovery from her unfortunate injury over the weekend. We look forward to seeing you back on the field.

Parents always get the rough end of the blame game when sports organizations talk about the current environment in sports. It is not a fair reflection of the current adult focused youth sports environment, and organizational leadership and coaches are just as much to blame.

I am proud of the Fremont YSC Player-centric approach to its program, in both Comp and Rec. There will always be pushback if there is no education in to the process of a clubs development pathway, and if anyone ever has a question about what we are doing I am always available to chat.

Please see the following great article on how we can all make a difference – http://changingthegameproject.com/youth-sports-serve-needs-of-youth/

2017 was a great year for Fremont YSC, with its revamped tournaments, games returning to the Recreation program for U10 and older, and the staff coaches all further developing their soccer knowledge and coach education. Fremont YSC was also heavily involved with the community, supporting the Chamber of Commerce with its participation in the Annual Arts Festival, and present at the Fremont Street Eats. Fremont YSC also made it’s first annual Earthquakes event, with over 100 members attending the Earthquakes vs Dynamo game in September.

For our older players with College ambitions we held a College Coaches Panel with iSoccerPath.

This Spring and through 2018, we will be focusing on our ‘Better People, Better Players’ initiative.

The current environment in youth sports has become toxic in its constant drive for more is better, and winning is all that counts. Through all of this we have lost the focus on what is the most important part of youth sports – developing good people for the future, through learning life skills.

‘Not all human beings are players, but all players are human being’

Over the coming months we will be making changes to our website as a greater resource for player and parent education, and implement rules around the club for players to learn more about discipline, respect, and leadership.

Players will not realize it now, but when they look back in the future, many life skills would have been learned through their participation.

Spring 2018 Recreation is open for registration. Building on the success of the Fall, all age groups are geared to start for the week of March 12th, all with their age specific curriculum’s, and focusing on the individual player to have a fun experience through learning individual technical skills through play.
Coaches will have an education evening on coaching for the program, and there will be an introductory session for all parents.

Camps kick off with the Spring Camp, and as always we will have plenty of weeks of Summer Camps throughout the players summer holidays. A great way for players to be out of the house getting plenty of exercising, and doing what the enjoy the most, playing soccer.

Registration – www.fremontyouthsoccer.com/registration

Information – www.fremontyouthsoccer.com/springbreakcamp2018/

Level 2 Barcelona Positional Play Coaching Course

Presented by Albert Puig

On January 13^th and 14^th of 2018, Fremont YSC Coaches Travis Cabral and Gavin Carvalho attended the Level 2 Barcelona Positional Play Coaching Course hosted at Las Positas College.

“The ball is ours and I act according to this, I want to dominate, and I always want to go out to win. I force myself to win the ball, keep it and not lose it. If it is lost, I have to recover it as quick as possible. I attack by defending” – Albert Puig

This statement is fundamental to the coaching philosophy that has helped Albert Puig and FC Barcelona to develop world class talents like Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets who are all graduates of FC Barcelona’s famed La Masia Youth Academy.

Teaching Methods

Puig establishes the blueprint for his system of positional play by introducing players to positional games i.e. structured possession play.

He emphasized that “Possession is the instrument, not the objective.” The objective is always to have the ball and create an opportunity to score in that possession. Each practice contains fundamental aspects that are relevant to the real game scenario, in this, Puig encourages players to dribble and take on defenders to create opportunities to score but if there is an opportunity to play a pass forward and beat defenders with the pass, this is strongly encouraged.

This bears a striking similarity to the philosophy that Fremont YSC has adopted in which players from the youngest age groups develop their technical abilities with an emphasis on being comfortable in 1v1 situations on both sides of the ball. This development pathway enables players at the older age groups to flourish in playing a very exciting, creative and attacking style with the same philosophy to have possession of the ball with the objective of creating a scoring opportunity but also to press the ball quickly when it is lost to regain it and attack quickly.

Key qualities in each positional game:

• Direction
• Spaces to attack
• Spaces to protect and defend

The fundamental idea is to give superiority to the “Free man”, the player in space. Players were strongly encouraged to break lines, to play the pass to the supporting player in the space behind the defender in order to achieve the end goal, every pass must have a purpose and every pass is unique and unrepeatable.

To make this achievable, players are to be positioned at different heights in relation to the other supporting players, thus facilitating the creation of passing lanes.

Puig detailed the importance of establishing individual objectives and relating them to the collective objectives that the group is looking to accomplish.collective objectives that the group is looking to accomplish.

Practice

Each practice session is divided into 3 essential categories

• Warm-up
• SSP (Preferential Situation Simulation)
• Match

The SSP is the transmission of the positional game to the system.

Situation: Creating real game situational scenarios

Simulator: Running through the situational scenarios to impact player ability

Preferential: Performing tasks so that the capacities that we want to optimize are maximized

One of the importance themes of Puig’s practice philosophy is to emphasize quality of practice over quantity. When the intensity of the practice is low, there will be little improvement to be found. If it is too high, we increase the risk of injury and lose quality. Therefore it is essential to find a balance of intensity and quality.

Periodization is key to enabling high quality of practice over a long period of time, at Fremont YSC, our training curriculum from U9 to U19 is organized into 3 sections: Pre-season, in-season and post-season. In the pre-season, we are preparing the players for the season of play ahead addressing the needs of the player by focusing on soccer specific fitness. In-season, each of the 3 weekly practices are sorted into technical sessions that teaches a specific technique relatable to the tactical and coaching in game (8v8 and 11v11) sessions to end the week. In the post-season, our younger age groups have free play which builds creativity and the ability to come up with unique ideas while developing motor planning skills and foster decision-making skills.

The SSP of medium or high loads are the ideal ones to achieve the optimization of the work. The load is not only measured from the conditional capacity, the mental structure has more importance.

Practice sessions must have the following variables:

• Progression: When quality improves – allow for 3-4 repetitions – increase the intensity of the SSP
• Continuity: There must be daily objectives that relate to medium term and eventually the long term objectives.
• Reversibility: Creating positive habits through repetition
• Variability: Sessions can be replicated over a period of time, coaches must find a way to vary the construct of the sessions to avoid monotony and boredom
• Globality: Fitness, moving parts of the body work in unison. Must be specific work as SSP does not apply.
• Individuality: Each player has different functions according to their position on the field. We must take into the account the specificity of the player to add individual instruction.

General Q and A

When asked about the landscape of US Soccer and their potential leading up to the next world cup, Puig replied by saying that the potential is there but we do not know where the talent is. The talent identification process needs to be improved.

In response to a question regarding the landscape of US youth soccer talent as compared to that coming in at Barcelona, he explained that it primarily a culture difference. The Talent is all around us in the United States with tremendous athletes all over the country but we lack the methodology, formation and tactics of the European clubs.

He also mentioned that it is essential for our professional league(s) to offer promotion and demotion in order to create a higher standard of play.

To continue with further education, Executive Director travelled back to Wales to participate in the UEFA/FAW C Certification. Having already gained USC Premier Diploma (formally NSCAA) it was time to explore another pathway.

A very technical course in the understanding of soccer action mechanics, the course covers the fundamental skills along with coaching through the use of life skills.

Life Skills

‘Not all human beings are players, but all players are human being’

The emphasis here, just like the Dutch and German clubs, is the importance of being a good person, and developing the individual’s life skills. Yes, players will improve their soccer ability, but very few will make the elite level, so there must be more in youth soccer than dreams of a professional career.

• 0017% chance of playing in EPL
• 100% chance of being a better person
• Develop the person as well as the player

Life skills developed through youth sports participation can include-

• Respect: other people, yourself, the practice environment
• Confidence: self-belief while being humble
• Open Mindset: appreciation of failure, learning from set backs to further develop, work ethic
• Communication: working with others, listening, leading
• Discipline: attitude towards others, bad language, reaction to referees

Players and coaches shouting at referees ultimately teaches kids to challenge authority, a lack of respect towards the rules and other people’s decisions/opinions. In life the police are authority, the life lesson hear is to no longer respect authority of law.

Life skills are broken down in to categories of skill sets:

Behavioral: verbal and non-verbal

Cognitive: decision making

Interpersonal: dealing with others

Interpersonal: self-driven by setting goals

Reflective Practice

Coaching players is the main job role of being a youth soccer coach, but players can only develop based upon the knowledge and understanding of the coach. Players are not empty vessels arriving to practice with no knowledge of the game, but all players are filled to a certain amount. The coach must bring out that knowledge and additionally increase the players knowledge and understanding. Coaches must continue their education, and can do through many means –

• Coach education courses
• Literature, around the sport and through additional disciplines (psychology/nutrition)
• Learning from other coaches/organizations
• Learn through doing, advancing on mistakes
• eLearning, podcasts, videos

Coaches should ask themselves 2 key questions and hold themselves accountable to the reflective practice process.

1. What will you take away from this session?
2. Are you committed to reflective practice to develop as a coach?

Evaluation and Reflection Sheet