Coaching Point #9

Some youth players feel that they have to choose between having a winning team, developing their skills for long-term growth or opportunities, or just having fun. Players focused too heavily on winning often emphasize short-term goals (literally and figuratively), and don’t concern themselves with where they need to be in 3, 5, or 10 years. Or, if the emphasis is too long-term, players tend to focus on developing their own skills, often avoiding team strategy, field sense, and similar essential aspects of the game. As with so much in life, proper balance among all of these goals should be the goal.

When you look at some of early travel teams that began at the U-9 level, you may notice that there is significant team turnover, and that many of these teams must add new players to continue to compete as they move from level to level. Why is this so? Why is it that teams that competed at the highest level one year seem to get worse rather than better? Simply put, many of these teams will use a style of play that takes advantage of specific players’ size, speed, or individual ability to completely overwhelm most of their opponents. While this works in the short term in terms of winning games, it doesn’t prepare the players for the day when they come up against opponents who have more size, speed, or individual or team ability. Inevitably, these teams face other teams with someone who is bigger, stronger, faster or more skillful. A team playing only to win is unprepared to address the competitive issues that arise when the opponent is just as talented (or maybe even more talented) than they are.

Similarly, if the only goal is long-term individual skill development, players develop like islands. The result is often a team of amazing individual talent, but without any real idea how to play as a team. These teams can look impressive, but they rarely achieve winning results because they cannot overcome the team that works well together. (Our most recent opponent demonstrates this quite well).

This is what makes the team aspect of soccer development so important. When young players work hard, learn the game, and focus on having fun, they might struggle at times, but they will have learned to combat stronger or more skilled teams by playing smarter. For example, by playing against faster players at an early age, players learn to combat speed with better positioning, better running angles, etc. If a player only learns to combat speed with speed, when he faces a faster player, he will inevitably lose the battle. Only by playing smarter can a player counterbalance the effects of a more talented opponent. This does not mean that these talents are useless. Only that they cannot be relied on totally. At some point, the edge in talent is lost or diminished. If a player learns to play smart, he will be better prepared than the player who relies only on talent.

To tie this all together, we need to understand that while a goal of every game is to win, it is not the goal. Good soccer is fun; smart play is a reward in itself; and putting the two together to create a win over a superior opponent is even more satisfying. The best games to win are the ones the team "should not" have won.