Interesting article on Youth Coaching

Refocusing the Player Development Model
Posted October 9th, 2008 by Brad Partridge
By Brad Partridge

Having been involved in soccer in the USA since 1967, I have had the pleasure of seeing it grow beyond anyone's expectations. The shear number of players is staggering to say the least. FIFA stats indicate that the USA now leads the world in registered youth players.
So why haven't we been able to develop more technically elite field players? The answer to this question lies in the developmental paradigms that have emerged in the USA.

Click here to read the whole article

Comment

I agree with the article point, that at early ages we must develop payers basic skills, and that the feed back to players and parents should be given based on this principle and not on games results, but there are few points neglected by the article that I believe play an important role on the difficulty to produce elite players at adult age.
The fact is that despite us having a large number of young players, these players migrate to a different sport when they get older. I disagree it happens because they are burned out for the number of games, even agreeing that ratio practice/game should be higher. I believe it happens because other sports give them more opportunities and prestige. Imagine a football, basketball or baseball player in high school and the prestige and opportunity for a college scholarship compared to a soccer player, it if his (or her) high school has a soccer program.
We do well with young age players, whose expectations are not more than have fun with friends, but when they get older their needs and expectations increase. They need idols in the sport and a realistic chance to play in the future. Because our main league doesn’t have much exposition and the teenager players don’t see many opportunities to keep playing soccer they migrate to other sports that give it to them. It even makes difficult to develop players when they hardly have the chance to watch a game on TV what definitively helps with their creativity and interest for the sport.
So, what can we do to keep these young players? We need remembered that a soccer player, regularly, will not mature before 20 years old and will have its pick at late twenties. Our programs need be prepared to retain these players interest and attend their needs at least up to Olympic age (23 years old). To do it we need support middle and high schools programs through out the country. It would improve player’s interest in our clubs and probably keep them for more few years. We need promote championships (not weekend tournaments) but regional championships between clubs for older ages (U16 and up) and stimulate our younger players to support these teams. It would give the younger players the chance to watch games and improve the motivation and prestige of older ones, forming a fan base for the clubs. With the time, the clubs can organize themselves in small amateur or semi-professional leagues (Northwest Arkansas Leagues for example), giving the players above 20 years old the opportunity to play).
If our goal is to create high level players, beside give the players a good and solid foundation we need to be able to keep them longer than we do today.