He was apparently very offended when he was interviewed for the job. Presumably because GB's brother was on the committee.
OT: Copa America 2024 Thread
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It doesn’t matter what the winning is, a good women’s coach has few options to make money, while you have to pay more to attract and keep a good men’s coach because he has a ton of options outside of coaching a national team.
Turner is horrendous with the ball at his feet and it is one of the main reasons he lost his starting job in England.
I was pretty disappointed in the passing accuracy of Richards in these games as well.
This actually isn't an unpopular opinion at all. I attended a very good coaching clinic hosted by USA soccer, and the first thing said was that our players lack creativity because of the way they're coached from youth levels. We promote technical efficiency over creativity, and therefore never develop the special players you are looking for.
You can easily see the difference in ball skills (passing and receiving, especially quick 1-2s and creativity) in tonight's game between Brazil/Columbia vs. the USA. I think it's from kids in those countries playing soccer all day as kids before they get into organized competition vs. in the US where everything is under adult supervision. The blog linked below talks about this.
https://www.soccerwire.com/resources/organized-chaos-the-key-to-brazils-soccer-success-part-2/
https://www.soccerwire.com/resources/organized-chaos-the-key-to-brazils-soccer-success-part-2/
Exactly.
Our country has a lot of resources (aka $$$), but it tends to go towards things that don’t directly correlate to development (uniforms, travel, facility overhead, trophies, etc.).
Real development comes from kids who have a mamba mentality about soccer, have inherent talent, and are coached by people focused on development and not winning.
All these are headwinds domestically as most parents who can actually afford travel soccer see soccer as a child’s extra-curricular activity rather than a career choice (rightfully so, IMO).
Meanwhile, in other countries, soccer is viewed as one’s only way out of the ghetto.
Basketball is becoming the same way, which is why we are seeing more and more international players — they are highly motivated to make it professionally and are put into pro development academies for free(!) at the earliest stages.
TIM HOWARD: I will talk Klopp into coaching the USA after Copa America
TIM HOWARD: I believe I could make a very compelling argument to Jurgen Klopp to take over the US Men's National Team. I know he's only been retired a few weeks and wants a break.
www.dailymail.co.uk
There's been an awareness of a couple different problems with US youth soccer coaching that's now spanned a couple decades, at least. And there have been some efforts to address some of the issues. There's the issue of how the "best" clubs and teams are typically only available to kids of relatively well-off parents. And there's the issue of pressure to win versus develop.
Most of the phenomenal coaches associated with US Youth Soccer that I've met over the years understand and preach development over winning in youth soccer. But it's one thing to say and quite another to do. Combine the over-prevalence of so-called premiere soccer clubs with typical US parental attitudes and the pressure to win, even at early ages, becomes overwhelming. So fixing things here in the US has proven to be a tough row to hoe.
Parent's with money will seek out those teams with the best rankings for their kids. Rankings are based on winning. Teams of nine year-olds are being measured by rankings/winning. This is counterproductive to focusing on development and creativity and a love of the game at young ages. And it forces a style of coaching that is counterproductive to taking a young talented player and molding them into the best possible player they can be.
For example, in order to win at younger ages, coaches will spend far too much time on rote tactical and role instruction at the expense of individual skill development. This is totally backwards, totally inefficient because kids at young ages take much longer to learn tactics and roles than those same kids just a few years older would take. And worse, human brains are way better at developing individual ball skills when they're younger, but that precious time is being wasted on rote tactical instruction instead. So the kids wind up less naturally skilled w/the ball and with a bunch of often improperly onboarded tactical and role instruction (because the tactics and role instruction is compromised due to the young age).
Focusing on individual skills at young ages and then tactical instruction at older ages is vastly more efficient. Because what might take 30 hours at U10 will only take ~3 hours at U14 or 1 hour at U17. Meanwhile, although a 17 year old can work hard to develop their ball skills, they may well never quite attain the same level of instinctive brilliance they might've had they focused almost entirely on their individual skills with the ball, and a love of the ball, from the youngest ages. The way we're doing it actually hinders many players development.
Coaches I've spoken with over the years often know all this and don't want to focus on winning. But they're forced to do it in order to be competitive and keep the team's rankings high, keep the club's money-train flowing, and keep their jobs.
I remember the director of US Youth Soccer coaching in NJ ranting a bit about this at one of my licensing courses many years back. He seemed to think that having all these premiere clubs was harming US soccer. I was unsure back then. But it seemed a not unreasonable theory, and over the years, I've started to buy into it more and more. Now I'm a full-fledged believer.
First of all, there really aren't that many kids with truly elite talent, so parents are being basically scammed to some extent. For another thing, younger players should be having fun in games doing crazy stuff with a soccer ball and figuring out simple combination play all on their own through small sided games that make it instinctive. That makes the game way more fun, and it builds talent and awareness naturally and deeply.
They shouldn't be being screamed at to go here, then go there, then do this thing - which is kinda the opposite of how small group tactics should be taught anyway, requiring some coach to come along and correct that player's understanding later in life.
Interesting comment. It reminds me of a related story I read in regards to education.
Some consultants trying to improve reading scores noticed that the kids who did the best at reading read the whole word (an example you might have seen is where they can mix up the letters inside a word and as long as they leave the first and last letter the same some people can read what the word is supposed to be).
So, some school districts stopped using their phonics related programs for the earliest readers and tried to use this whole word philosophy instead.
Performance actually got worse. What the consultants missed was that the best readers actually did start with phonics, they just mastered it so quickly that they blew past it and moved onto reading the whole word more quickly than their peers.
Bottom line, the point I am trying to make is that it appears that there is no replacement for someone mastering the basic skills, whether we are talking about soccer, reading, carpentry or playing music. Only after the basic skills become “natural” does a person move on to more advanced performance.
You know how kids learn to hit, catch, and throw a ball properly (for the most part) from their dads?
Well this sort of thing happens for soccer in other countries.
You’ll note many of our better players (Weah, Pulisic, Reyna, etc.) came from “soccer-first families” where their parents played/coached at higher levels.
The good news is that as more and more kids play into higher ages, we’ll have more soccer-first families contributing to the talent pool.
It’s going to take some time. In the interim, I still advocate for playing a style that maximizes our roster talent, which happens to be more defensive at the moment.
Well this sort of thing happens for soccer in other countries.
You’ll note many of our better players (Weah, Pulisic, Reyna, etc.) came from “soccer-first families” where their parents played/coached at higher levels.
The good news is that as more and more kids play into higher ages, we’ll have more soccer-first families contributing to the talent pool.
It’s going to take some time. In the interim, I still advocate for playing a style that maximizes our roster talent, which happens to be more defensive at the moment.
'Glad I'm here' - Canada boss Jesse Marsch blasts USMNT for 'lack of discipline' after seeing Gregg Berhalter's side implode in Copa America group stage | Goal.com US
Canada boss Jesse Marsch didn't hold back as he opened up on the USMNT's disappointing Copa America campaign.
www.goal.com
I'll admit this might be heresy, but this sounds way to organized for U10. Are 9 year olds in Brazil that organized, or do a bunch of kids get together and chase a ball around ?
I don’t know what happens in Brazil. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with being organized as long as the result is loads of fun for the kids, and the kids get thousands of touches on the ball each session.
Kids can start playing travel soccer at 7, on U8 teams. I once trained a U8 team, whose coach was inexperienced, for a year. The training sessions were focused almost entirely on developing skill with the ball, using small, often uneven-sided, competitive exercises/games the kids loved playing. You mess with numbers, available space, and various sorts of constraints.
Although I spent almost no time at all on tactics, the right sorts of exercises silently encourage the players to work together to solve problems to “win” an exercise. Done right, the kids start to experiment, and they often start to figure out early combination-play all on their own. And kids are already competitive enough on their own, the coach doesn’t need to say a thing in that regard.
The result is organized in that the kids go though organized progressions. But they don’t know about 95% of the organization. They’re just learning lots of different fun games played with the ball. Now and then you spot-correct whatever specific technique a given session is focused on developing. But the kids tend to self-teach a lot of it when very young, ‘cause the exercises and coach work together to promote experimentation to learn what works and what doesn’t.
Wish there was a stronger button here than "like". Kids will find a way. Make it not fun, and kids will quit. They're not dumb. We (royal we) overcomplicate the game, but fundamentally how do you get to say a 3 vrs 2, and what do you do when you find yourself in a 3 vrs 2? And the best way to perform well in the future in a 3 vrs 2 is .... play a bunch of fun drills in 3 vrs 2 scenarios.
Yep. I watched the interview where he said it.'Glad I'm here' - Canada boss Jesse Marsch blasts USMNT for 'lack of discipline' after seeing Gregg Berhalter's side implode in Copa America group stage | Goal.com US
Canada boss Jesse Marsch didn't hold back as he opened up on the USMNT's disappointing Copa America campaign.www.goal.com
When many of us were young, we'd go outside and create new games using balls or branches or whatever with friends. It was pure fun.
IMO, good coaching for the youngest age groups is about simulating that natural unsupervised environment as much as possible, but with some session structure blended in and with the added benefit of having a coach/trainer there to correct bad individual technique and maintain some order when chaos evolves, as it has a way of doing, especially with boy's teams.
Very well said. Sports and even after school activities (play time) are way too structured. Let kids be kids. They will figure out pretty early on if they enjoy an activity and if they want to take it more seriously.
When I coached and ran clinics/camps much of the “structured” activity was merely monitored by staff (by design) to allow creativity and self correction. Activities need to be fun. Give the kids encouragement and a baseline of fundamentals and let them run with supervision.
Hard core coaching doesn’t need to creep in until kids that want to be coached 10-12(some younger)have risen to that level.
I’ve seen super talented kids scared away from activities from coaches and parents taking sports/music/dance too seriously too soon.
