Youth Development

·       These are my experiences, although they cannot fully be representative of the “whole” picture these are observations I have made over the years

·       I will draw upon skills learning literature to provide a “theoretical” basis for the article and to help back up the opinions

State of play within Youth Development

One of the decisions that had the biggest impact upon youth development was that Howard Wilkinson decided that the Premier League and not the FA should control youth development.  Now, you may think on face value that this is not going to have an impact upon the development players.  However, as we have seen over the past 20 years the PL is a finance driven organisation that has neglected youth development, as shown by the decline in standards of the England team.

Also, this surrender of power meant that unlike the German DFB, the FA could not radically overhaul youth development in England and they still cannot, without the agreement of the PL!  I’ll leave you draw your own conclusions from that!

The impact of “coaching”

I used this image as it’s clear that the English national team will struggle to be as competitive as the team inspired by Gazza in Euro 96.  In fact, I question whether a “Gazza” type player has come through since the inception of academy coaching.  I will now try and quantify why the game has gone backwards in terms of “home grown” players.

Perceptions vs. Reality

In research that took place between 1999 – 2001 by senior lecturer Dr Chris Cushion of Loughborough University found that even then, perceptions of what happened were far different to what actually happened.  In an interview with an academy manager the person quoted to Dr Cushion that “I am player centred, most of my sessions are player centred”.  The reality – only 3% of the observed sessions were “player centred”.  This leads me to ask the question…

“If the coach does not know what he/she is doing, then why are we allowing them to work with children?”

The coach as the “centre of the earth”

Dribbling through cones.  Pass the ball and follow it.  Training sessions that are made up of 50%, 60% or even 70% unopposed practices!  Yes, I understand that basic movements need to be formed, but should players who lack basic skills be in an academy setting? 

There was a great tweet by Rio Ferdinand shown below:

Now – I ask does dribbling around cones/passing through cones prepare players to deal with pressure from opponents?  No?  Didn’t think so.  The 10k hour rule suggested within the book “Bounce” by Matthew Syed suggests that deliberate practice, otherwise known as practice with purpose helps individuals develop.  This poses a further question:

“How much time do we waste with players on irrelevant and unchallenging drills?”

What causes this coach centred approach?  Do coaches feel pressured to “show their knowledge”?  Do the clubs have suitable appraisal and development systems in place? Do coaches share best practice as teachers do in education?  In my experience, the answer is no.   Why?  Fear of losing power, lack of knowledge, lack of ability and worst of all, the “jobs for the boys” culture that exists in the game.

The role of coach education

Above is a slide generously shared by @louislancs on Twitter.  It shows how Bayern Munich (current European Champions) defend goal kicks.  Their defensive record – quarter finals = 0 goals conceded vs. Juventus.  Semi finals = 0 goals conceded vs. Barcelona.  The goal scored by Dortmund in the final was a penalty.  Now I ask you, if you followed this defensive set up with the defence dropping deeper on your A license assessment, would you pass or fail?  The answer is that they’d probably fail you as the centre halves should be high up the field, as that is the way the FA coach educators believe that the game should be played.  This leads me to question:

“Is there only one way to play the game?”

EPPP – the future

It will be a while to see if the new-fangled Elite Player Performance Plan will impact upon youth development in the PL/FL.  Whilst I agree that the old CoE and Academy programme undercooked the number of hours, I worry that EPPP will over cook the number of hours and lead to burn out in players, including the volume of irrelevant practices that are running amok in the game

EPPP also has not addressed the farce that is 8 and 9 year old children travelling 5/6 hours on a coach for 30 minutes football.  How is that going to improve their ability?  Surely a better model would be that clubs are given catchment areas to manage, where the clubs mentor grass roots coaches, the players play for their clubs and the better players get extra training or play representative football.  At say 12, 13 or even 14 then it would be a logical progression into the academy format, as the fundamental skills have been formed.

Summary

Whilst the tone of this piece is generally negative, there are some areas of good practice out there.  However there are far too many coaches who get side-lined or overlooked because someone has played 500 league games or employ their friends to protect their position.  Until this cycle is broken, I see no significant change to player development in the future.