There are two
models of "club" regarding grassroots/ youth football at this moment.
One of them is
the "standard" model of club and the other is the
"emerging" or new model which comes from a different paradigm.
The first one
is the most common and well recognized in places that have more tradition
historically especially in places like South America where great players always
emerge.
The “Traditional” model of club based on Physical
Dimension.
Some Characteristics:
-The scouting
and selection of young talents is based mainly on kids who have great physical strength
in order to obtain immediate results. Long term work is not considered. Winning
is a must at whatever costs.
-These results
are an “alibi” of how everything is working positively.
-It is known
for constant physical evaluations based on comparisons where a possible
evolution or involution can be detected.
-They have
very good installations and material infrastructure where Young footballers are
allowed to develop themselves professionally.
-Very good
human infrastructure focusing on scouting and detection of kids with potential.
They normally choose a lot of kids even though they all will not be able to play
just as long as they find him/her interesting.
-They are able
to work in an interdisciplinary fashion having several professionals helping
them with their study and private life.
-Many times
the Youth Standings/ classification is a fundamental reference, when the work
that is being carried out is evaluated. It is not taken into account if players
reach 1st team, national youth select teams, if they are sold or if
they get to play on top level.
-The only
option is winning. Teaching/learning takes a back seat because the work of the
coaches depends on the result. They are not evaluated by the session content
and evolution of players and teams, but rather by if they win, tie or lose.
-Players who
reach 1st team, if they happen to get there, they arrive empty of concepts and
game knowledge. The game is seen like decades before, where footballers should
know what to do at all times and basically all the knowledge was empirical or
through experience. The difference now is that before we would spend many hours
playing and now due to many reasons, kids do not play as much.
Also the game
is much more sophisticated tactically now.
-Physically
bigger, stronger and faster kids are scouted / selected but not the ones who
are smarter, with better decision making and better players technically.
-Evaluation of
coaching staff and sport director is done by people that in most cases have no
experience playing, training football, but rather have activities that have
nothing to do with pro football or how a professional club must be managed
(club directors),
-Never focus
on long term. After season ends (at best), a new coaching staff arrives and a
different plan is executed. Many times the coaching staff work and have
different points of view regarding the game from one season to the other. There
is no emphasis on learning but only on winning.
-Many times
ex-players of club that have no experience coaching are hired. After they leave In most cases many generations of kids do not reach first team since there was
no development done.
-As we know
now, the ability to coach, is not
something that you can learn from doing
a different activity. Football is learned training and playing as a footballer,
and coaching is learned the same way….coaching. THEY ARE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES.
You need at
least 7 seasons of experience coaching for a coach to be ready. He/she must
accumulate theory, experience and constant evaluation. Promoting someone to a
head coaching position after one or two years he/she stopped playing, shows the
ignorance and irresponsibility of people in charge of professional football
clubs.
-With this
model, unfortunately we don’t produce top level footballers but talents still
are born, but are taken to Europe to continue their development and later play
in top clubs like it is happening now.
Others go and
very shortly return because they did not get the correct development or they
are chosen by agents because they are
considered good players by standards of
those clubs (Physically) but not by European standards where game/tactical
intelligence is the main focus.
-This is due
to the complexity of the modern game, and to the reason that they do not train
specifically with tactical content, kids do not understand the game tactically
and do not learn to take advantage of their strong points in the game.
-The
evaluation for a good youth coach under the traditional model is one that if
that coach wins several championships not focusing on how he/she has done it and the development of team and
players.
Those coaches
use this to get promoted to professional level.
The Emerging Model of a youth football Club based on
cognitive process.
First we must
define what cognitive means, and it is none other than “That belongs or is relative
to knowledge”.
This emerging
model can be seen in Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal.
It is born
under a new paradigm, the complexity one, and it is based on a new focus where
the footballers are seen as a whole, inside a learning process (where its name
is taken) as well as the game where he/she is guided (guided discovery) and
stimulated through different tasks of varied complexity related to the game of
football.
As its name
indicates, it focuses on a learning process where kids through the game
discover the complexity of this beautiful game.
The sensible
Phase in the Physical Dimension, is not ignored but it is not the main focus in
the training process. By the sensible phase, we refer to a period in puberty when young boys
develop hormonally (testosterone, growth hormone etc) and here is where most of
physical training must focus on. Training this way, this phase is not ignored,
it is taken into consideration but the tactical concepts are still the main content in the process.
It is quite
striking how the Portuguese School has emerged in the last couple of years,
growing very quickly where many top players have emerged and are now playing in
top level clubs in this moment.
“We are losing at least 5 years, from 15 to 20. Us here, we are wasting time , here the Young players from our youth system are still being trained based on PHYSIOLOGICAL reasons and not on COGNITIVE ones, not focusing on decision making”.
Juan
Carlos Osorio
-Scouting it
is not done by physical parameters but on game intelligence, technical and
coordination abilities and decision making. It is not relevant if the
footballer is bigger or stronger but more intelligent When both footballers, a
bigger one and a smaller one, when they reach puberty, this race will start from 0 and
whoever is more intelligent and technically better with better coordination
will always triumph (this happened to us
many times).
-Results are
not the most important aspect, but a factor to take into account. The smaller
they are, less relevance in the result and more on the game concepts. As they
reach near professional level, more importance will be given to the result
without forgetting the concepts and performance of the footballer.
-Physical dimension
is not evaluated. Not all kids grow the same way, there are no footballers who
are the same, even if they play in the same position. They all have different
characteristics. Strong points and weaknesses.
-As I always mention, what is the advantage of a footballer jumping higher if he/she misses the ball, or if he/she runs more if he arrives late or too early. He/she has a higher oxygen consumption but loses all the balls he/she touches.
It is time to
begin to understand the complexity of football and leave behind this “naïve”
vision where we think that all footballers do and situation is the same. Before, everything used
to be the same even though now thanks to Big Data and Analytics we know it is
not true.
We now know
that if our team has possession of the ball, it will have half of the amount of
sprints or Anaerobic Alactic Power stimulus in a game, and if our team doesn´t
have the ball as much, we are going to have twice the amount of sprints.
Another example of complexity.
Tactical Supra-dimension
influences everything, even playing in altitude.
-Each team and
general standings, will not be a
reference to indicate if the professionals are working correctly but rather the
evolution in play, in tactical understanding and evolution of players.
-Winning, especially
in smaller ages is not important. It becomes more important as the footballers
get closer to professional level.
-The process
is evaluated on a long term, taking into account how many footballers arrive to
1st team, youth national teams and how many were sold etc.
-Experienced
coaches are hired, especially at the youth level where they not only look for
winning to trampoline themselves to the 1st team, but to teach these kids so
that they can reach professionalism the best way they can. They normally have
experience teaching the game and specialize in this area.
-The income of
the sales of the players of club is a great injection for the club and will
help complement other revenues. It is very important, especially in emerging
markets, that clubs understand this.
"If you have a talented footballer, with enough work, you can build an athlete. If you have an
athlete you can only make him/her a
better athlete, not a talented footballer. Running is a part of the game, but
if it were the most important thing, clubs would be looking for Carl Lewis, not
Zidane”.
Cesar Luis Menotti.
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