Interesting Article on Dutch Soccer Academies

Boopotts

Found this to be an interesting piece on the differences between American and European approaches to youth sport, so I thought I'd share it here.

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jdip9

I only read the first page, but I'm guessing every kid doesn't get a trophy??

How refreshing.

detroitfan2

Boo, awesome article. I am on the board for the Michigan Alliance Football Club here in Livingston County. Our Director of Coaching preaches, normally to little avail with some parents, the same philosophies of the Europeans. It's counter-intuitive to how we were all raised in sports. If I had a dime for everytime he said "If it were up to me, we wouldn't even play games until the kids were 12 years old", I'd be a rich man.

edmundfitzgerald

There is a HUGE difference between American rec soccer and the Ajax professional development academy.

Heck, there is even a huge difference in Holland between the Ajax philosophy and that of Dutch rec soccer.


I will say that our local hockey clubs here in the states have the right perspective when they have elite 8-10 year olds
playing 1 game for every three practices. I believe that is the proper ratio. Or even a 3 practice to 2 game ratio
for serious soccer players is ok.

For those parents who just want their little Timmy away from the video games, then any type of practice to game ratio is fine.


There was a study done by USA hockey that monitored puck possession in the USA-Canada gold medal game in Salt Lake 2004.
It can be found on USAHOCKEY.COM

It found that the best player of the title game (Joe Sakic) had the puck on his stick for 1 minute and 4 seconds for the whole game.
That is a little above average for a hockey player.

And if there are 90 minutes to a professional soccer game, and 22 players on the pitch, then that means that a pro can expect
to touch the ball for a total of 4 minutes in the entire game.

Boopotts

I, too, am involved in youth soccer, Tom. My son's a U8 player, and a fairly good one at that (he's no prodigy, but he was recently invited to join the Michigan Wolves, and he's definitely a + player on the U9 team he currently plays on), so I find myself interested in 'best practices' for grooming young players. What struck me about this article, though, was how utterly cheerless soccer seemed to be at the Ajax academy. In my opinion it's the most beautiful, expressive game in the world- how can you fully develop if you're constantly living in fear that you'll be cut? Can fear really serve as an incentive for a nine year old to improve? And even if it does, what's the emotional price that these kids are forced to pay for that improvement?

I showed this article to a good friend of mine who's also a true soccer nut, and his response was 'Dude- this is just a game.. It's freaking soccer- it's not real life'. This kind of sums up my feelings as well, though (like you) and Edmund) I do agree that one thing we can all take away from this is that putting too much stress on competing, and not improving, works to the detriment of improving the player.

detroitfan2

<< <i>I, too, am involved in youth soccer, Tom. My son's a U8 player, and a fairly good one at that (he's no prodigy, but he was recently invited to join the Michigan Wolves, and he's definitely a + player on the U9 team he currently plays on), so I find myself interested in 'best practices' for grooming young players. What struck me about this article, though, was how utterly cheerless soccer seemed to be at the Ajax academy. In my opinion it's the most beautiful, expressive game in the world- how can you fully develop if you're constantly living in fear that you'll be cut? Can fear really serve as an incentive for a nine year old to improve? And even if it does, what's the emotional price that these kids are forced to pay for that improvement?

I showed this article to a good friend of mine who's also a true soccer nut, and his response was 'Dude- this is just a game.. It's freaking soccer- it's not real life'. This kind of sums up my feelings as well, though (like you) and Edmund) I do agree that one thing we can all take away from this is that putting too much stress on competing, and not improving, works to the detriment of improving the player. >>



Boo, my immediate thoughts after reading the article are the same thoughts I always have after talking with our Director of Coaching: That's great for the 1% of the players who will play in college or beyond, but is it really the best thing for the other 99% of the kids? One thing that I am convinced of though: The best soccer environment for a young player is one where he can play with and against players who are at the same level. In other words, a player who is a "5" on a scale of 1-10 has the best experience if he plays with and against other 5's instead of playing on a team with two 10's, two 1's, some 7's, and some 3's. I suppose this is true of other sports as well.

The other thing that always cracks me up is there's a lot of theories for a game where even at the most elite level the champion of the world can end up being decided on whether a goalie can "guess" correctly in a shutout.

Boopotts

<< <i>Boo, awesome article. I am on the board for the Michigan Alliance Football Club here in Livingston County. Our Director of Coaching preaches, normally to little avail with some parents, the same philosophies of the Europeans. It's counter-intuitive to how we were all raised in sports. If I had a dime for everytime he said "If it were up to me, we wouldn't even play games until the kids were 12 years old", I'd be a rich man. >>



Hey Tom,

Just thought I'd throw this out there- do you know Droo Callahan?

detroitfan2

Here's a similar article on espn.com:

soccer in the US

Boopotts

Great article, Tom- thanks for sharing the link. I really, really hope that the USMNT can make a run in Brazil in '14. I'll be totally engrossed in the Euro this upcoming summer, but let's face it; there's nothing that compares to the World Cup. We have some very good players coming up ( I'm really bullish on Timmy Chandler), but we might lose Cherundolo and Bocanegra, so it would be naive to feel to confident. Still, I'll be praying for a good showing.