Football training – Why the game is the best teacher

Winning certainly matters at a lot of high schools, at most colleges, and at all clubs; and all professional programs. Yet when we look at those levels of the game:

* where are the imaginative tactics?

* where are the players with flair that can lend excitement to the game?

* where are the games that aren’t like watching reruns?

I saw a few, and they made the blood rush!

We can’t even tell how good our coaches actually are because the players probably can’t execute the imaginative tactics that our coaches can envision…so we blame the coaches for mediocre performances at all levels.

* Are the players to blame at all for this mess? I don’t think they are exempt from criticism either. How many come to the coach eager for more ideas on how to improve themselves as players? How many are looking for new techniques to master? Most are getting to the next level after years of hearing how good they are. When they get to the next level, and I’m thinking of college now, it is their first experience with playing in an open age group and playing with players to whom they have to prove themselves.

Many even show up believing that they are beyond needing technical training and think that a coach who is trying to improve their technique is out of touch. If they fit into the program they may get 10% better but how many really blossom into something special? Is that the coach’s fault or the fault of a soccer system that doesn’t value the technical coach as part of the system at any advanced level of the game?

* What complicity lies with the parents in this mess? It lies in the idea that if their child plays for the club with the most wins, and costs the most to join, that somehow this will lead to their child having a scholarship. They frequently leave clubs that were trying to give the player a solid technical foundation for a club that wins more. The parents don’t even think about whether their child actually learned all there was to learn from the coaches that made them attractive to other clubs.

Who nurtures this attitude in them? Is it the clubs and their PR programs? Is it the colleges who don’t make any clear statements that programs that produce the best technical/tactical players don’t always have to win to get their attention? Many parents are obsessed with reducing the stress and frustration that is often required to meet the challenges that produce players that are better skilled and stronger mentally. How many parents want to see their child technically challenged repeatedly and hardened to the point that they can compete with people who play to eat?

* Are referees complicit in our failure to develop better technical players? Yes. However, I do not believe it is intentional at all. We need our referees to be more protective of the players at all levels so technical flair can be nurtured and on display. Increasingly, the game is getting more rugby-like. Aggressiveness is being substituted for defensive 1v1 skill. Physically threatening play when they’re young is down to ineptness. Overly physical play when they’re older is down to style and, after all, they’re grown ups. To some degree, referees should be the guardians of the beautiful game as much as enforcers of its laws.

We have a few oases in this technical desert where the premier clubs and high schools are focused more on technical development and believe that winning will come. Only the most secure clubs can afford to tell a parent that they are going to focus on technical development and not worry about their winning until they are U14 and up, and if they don’t get it, they should take their child somewhere else.

Until we find a way around the complexity of this mess we are going to continuously look at coaches who have to work with what they can get, and then take the blame for the mediocre level of the game, some of which they deserve and some of which they don’t.

Of course, there is a relatively simple partial solution:

* Create more technical coaches and use them to improve the players we have now and those we will get in the future.

* Technical coaches are the first step.

* Position coaches are the second step.

* Use the technology we have in the USA that we pioneered.

* UEFA is a step ahead of what we need first.

Think about this. If the “game is the best teacher,” then all I have to do is play 3,000 rounds of golf and I would be nearly as good as Tiger Woods!

Written by Guest blogger Gary Avedikian. Gary is the former Head Men’s Soccer Coach at The Ohio State University, NSCAA President and is an NSCAA Master Coach.

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