I recently discovered a post by Vince Ganzberg, former Director of Education of Indiana Youth Soccer and current Grassroots Coaching Education Consultant for US Soccer, that got my attention. 'Conquering the Myths of Youth Soccer' highlights some of common youth soccer fallacies. I'm re-posting one of the myths he deals with here because it's one that I hear repeated over and over. Too many people think that more matches equals more development. Ganzberg does an great job explaining why this is not necessarily the case.
“Conquering the Myths of Youth Soccer”
Vince Ganzberg
Director of Education of Indiana Youth Soccer
This past summer I finally found some time to read a few books. One of the books that absolutely thrilled me was a book called Game On by Tom Farrey. This book addresses some of the more pertinent issues facing youth sports today and also offers some ideas for reform. Each chapter has a theme based on a “myth” of youth sports. For this article, I am going to discuss just a few of these myths as they relate to youth soccer in our state.
Myth: We have to play more matches year round or we will lose our edge.
Truth: We need to give them a break for a period of time.
Too many matches
At the ages of 11-18, we really need to start practicing the right number of matches for our players. Whenever I do an ODP training session, I am amazed at the number of players that are coming injured, have knee braces on, etc. at this age. Players at this age shouldn’t have knee braces! Most of them are on either the early or late end of maturation; therefore, their bodies are going through many changes.
Because some clubs give year-long schedules with a limited break, more players are either burning out or have overuse injuries. The book A Nation of Wimps offers this statistic: In 2003, the latest year for which national data are available, more than 3.5 million overuse injuries in children were treated in the United States, out of approximately 35 million children from six to twenty-one who participate in team sports. It later goes on to state, “It’s not enough that they play on a school team, two travel teams, and go to four camps for their sport in the summer,” said one family sports medicine expert. “They have private instructors for that one sport that they see twice a week. Then their parents get them out to practice in the backyard at night” (Marano, 33).
College coaches are not looking for U8 champions or elite teams ranked in the top five of an online soccer database. Instead, they are looking for players who developed in a supportive, creative and healthy environment that fosters skill and love for the game. For example, Georgia Tech’s basketball coach Paul Hewitt asks his recruits if they play another sport. There are valuable lessons to be learned by playing and trying different sports and not specializing in just one.
There is a saying that the game is the best teacher, but if kids don’t get a chance to learn from their mistakes and practice technically and tactically, they will not get better from just playing match after match. It would be like a teacher giving his/her students test after test without teaching them in between. We need to embrace US Soccer’s best practices suggestion to limit the number of matches and have more training in between. US Soccer’s best practices document suggestion is to have 2-3 trainings per one match. The maximum number of matches should be no more than 30 in a calendar year. “French children typically play no more than one game a week, and the seasons aren’t endless. Even as high as the U13 level, most club teams play 30 or 35 games a year, max. (Farrey, 94).
In the book Game On, the author tells the story of Thierry Henry from France who trained at Clairefontaine (their national training center) at age 13. During that time, there was little emphasis on building speed, strength, and other physical traits but technique, technique, technique. If he tried something new, he wasn’t punished. He was encouraged to experiment with the ball and perfect his technique. There were no matches during his two-year residency. It is also important to note that in
Europe and other countries, most children do not have to pay to play organized sports. The other element is that some, if not all, play with hopes of being signed to a professional contract. We are not there….yet.
Tournament Play
Tournaments were originally created to provide outside competition in an environment where travel soccer teams were the exception, rather than a rule. In today’s economy, where clubs are trying to hire coaches, buy goals and equipment, create scholarship funds for underprivileged youth and ensure the health and safety of players, a tournament is a great solution for fundraising. More and more clubs are offering tournaments to help raise money for their organization. An unintended consequence of the increased availability of tournament play is that teams are participating in more tournaments which means players are playing more games in a shorter amount of time.
Our very own State Cup format is one that needs to be reviewed. Our current format places teams in a tournament style game series where the winner goes on to play into the State Cup Finals weekend. With three games in a very short time frame, this format encourages a “fitness contest” winner instead of being a measure of soccer skill. Indiana Youth Soccer is currently seeking alternative formats for this event so that teams advancing to the State Cup Finals are truly the best soccer teams, not better track teams.
In August, Indiana Youth Soccer experimented with an alternate tournament format during our ODP Friendly weekend. The teams played only one shortened match per day with optional technical sessions and “fun” activities like soccer tennis. The event was well-received as teams got the opportunity to meet outside, quality competition without the emphasis on outcome. This format also encouraged coaches to try new lineups and gave players different opportunities on the field.
A similar shortened game format could be applied to club tournaments so that the kids are playing the appropriate number of minutes and not an inappropriate number of matches. For example, a tournament could offer three 30-minute mini-matches in one day. With this format, teams would have the opportunity to play against more clubs, while still working towards a tournament championship.
Example: A tournament would offer four brackets of five teams each. Each team in a bracket would match up for a 30 minute mini-match, playing two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday. The team finishing on top would then play a 45 minute match for the championship. This is a very radical solution but would limit the number of minutes of play, hopefully helping to lessen overuse injuries. It would also promote attacking soccer, as teams would have to find ways to score rather than being scored upon. An altered tournament format as suggested above might be one way to give the players a more manageable schedule, allowing breaks for recovery and reducing stress and overuse injuries.
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This is just one of the myths that Ganzberg discusses in his post. Click here to view the entire article.
Have a great day!
Tom
