Relegators

This is great!! Please keep researching and making interesting contributions. I can't tell you how much of a positive impact your research and insight is having on my thoughts and writing!!

Thanks,

Andy

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Change for Range – The switch to a better coaching method that guarantees ignition, ongoing motivation, incredible skill, intuitive tactical speed, bravery, creativity and ultimately…leadership!

The Legends “trust based” coaching method motivates children at the heart of learning where deep character and self-motivation is enhanced. Monty Roberts author of “The Man Who Listens to Horses” & “Horse Sense for People” says, “The groundwork put into developing trust is always worth it, because once trust is established the learning process speeds up noticeably.” Monty Roberts calls this phenomenon, “Slow is Fast”. Traditional soccer coaching methods fail to establish this trust because they are results oriented. Instead of being process oriented they focus on the cold, hard outcome plus the feel good emotion people derive from winning while proving their superiority over an opponent on the scorecard. The traditional win oriented coach is recognized by intelligent parents as someone who, to a certain degree, is prepared to put the importance of the statistical win over each child’s individual growth. Unfortunately, because it is “use and outcome” based, any focus on achieving the short-term team win at the cost of long-term individual development will eat away at the core of self-concept and the individual learning process, thereby slowing it down. Traditional methods are therefore “Fast is Slow” ones. This is where the focus on the immediate statistical gratification destroys trust and the brave, creative, self-motivated leadership focus essential for the optimization of a child’s personal potential. In the long run this limits growth and fulfillment.

The Legends learning process speeds up development for life with a simple, logical and proven educational theory. The degree that individual skill, intelligence and character is developed is directly proportionate to a child’s ability to be successful in life. Most youth soccer programs favor a more tactical approach and limit creative skill training. Most coaches retard skill, intelligence and character development by working on passing patterns and set plays. In doing so they limit the creative alternatives players are permitted to attempt. Most coaches encourage their players to play simple soccer rather than encourage the brave, creative leadership inherent within a gutsy deceptive dribble and brave, but low percentage, shot. Legends coaches encourage players to play difficult soccer where, as an essential part of the learning process, they attempt the hard deceptive dribble and have the guts to go for the low percentage shot. Most coaches play the game with a statistical win focus that restricts the use of the very deceptive dribbling and shooting skills that are essential to the development of a star player with a great self-concept.

Monty Roberts says, “If the average speed of learning is quantified with a miles per hour number, then theoretically you might say that the average learning speed in the United States is fifty-five miles per hour. Suppose someone says that the learning speed could be raised to 100 mph, why would we accept a far slower rate? We have to ask how we can change to encourage students to learn at this higher rate and why it is that the majority of people learn at a speed that appears to be below their optimum.”

Change has a considerable impact on the mind. To the scared it is threatening because it suggests that things may get worse. To the optimistic it is motivating because things may get better. To the leader it is inspiring because it is a personal opportunity to make things better.

The revolutionary Legends method of accelerated learning challenges every child’s ability to permanently absorb information at speeds that push accepted limits and far exceed normal expectations. Optimum conditions are those in which the student can learn at the greatest speed known to exist. In the Legends club we sincerely believe that we have significantly improved the soccer learning experience for children. We have devised a method that combines optimum conditions for learning to excel at soccer with simultaneous development of incredible character for life. We have raised the learning for soccer speed and ultimate character for life benefit to the maximum possible degree by developing a philosophy that combines ignition, ongoing motivation, incredible skill, intuitive tactical speed, bravery, creativity and ultimately…leadership!

Andy

It is really perverse but in countries where the age cut off for regional and national team play is Dec 31st an incredible percentage of players have birthdays near the start of the year.

In countries where the age cut off for regional and national team play is July 31st an incredible percentage of players have birthdays near the end of the year.

I chose the decade of the 90's for the research. Here are the links:

1999 U17 World Cup

1997

1995

1993

1991

You might also want to read Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers

Andy

The Canadian Hocket example from Outliers (Gladwell) is certainly interesting and point possibilities of doing things differently if one really wanted to leverage an overall talent pool.

I have not looked at your stats, but it would not be shocking to see similar results as Gladwell predicts.

It’s the accumulative advantage of differential exposure to training & coaching.

That’s why individual players really need to train and practice on their own in addition to team practices (so they don’t fall victim to getting behind those with early birth-dates getting selected for special team training activities due to the birth-date advantage). If you are lucky enough to play for a club that offers a daily academy, team practices, 1 v 1s, 2 v 2s, in addition to scheduled games then consider yourself very lucky and take advantage of those opportunities. If not then you can always workout on your own (moves, 1v1 or 2v2 SSG, wall-ball, juggling, etc.).

All training time should be optimized so that each player is actively engaged with a ball. My simplistic definition of actively engaged with the ball is you either have the ball and are using it in a gainful activity (more soccer -like and less soccer-strange) or you are actively trying to win it back from the person who does (it’s kind of hard to do that if your sitting on the bench, watching others play, listening to the coach give a 20 minute speech, or have too high a ratio of formal matches to training sessions).

All training time is not created equal. We recently left the park after a training session of moves, shooting, and 1 v 1. We noticed 4 players with one ball leisurely practicing corner-kicks to a large goal. Although, I am sure they were having a great deal of fun, a month of similar activity would not provide those 4 players anywhere near the benefit of the single 1.5 hour training session we had just completed. You can train in a productive manner and still have fun; they are not mutually exclusive activities. A certain portion of each training session has to be conducted at match-speed so that the player can adapt over time to playing at a higher level of speed. Soccer is a series of all-out efforts with jogging and moderate rest periods in between while waiting for the next opportunity to strike; it’s really not a slow marathon and you should not train that way. The mind and body will adapt to the higher/faster level of play incrementally over time but only if a reasonable portion of training is conducted at match speed.

600 moves, 200 shots, SSG (1v1 or 2v2), and juggling each day with a certain portion conducted at match speed may not make a noticeable difference the next day, the next week, or the next month; but over a longer period of 5 – 10 years the accumulative effects will make a dramatic difference in the skill level of any player.

It should be glaringly obvious by now that Legends coaches and administrators are encouraged to see and carefully evaluate all feedback...even the most negative!

In the spirit of seeking to understand the opinions of parents within our club we recently conducted a club wide survey of parents. We asked for their opinions of a wide range of key subjects and received some wonderful feedback.

In order to shed light on the challenges inherent within even the most child centered and progressive child development system the following contains some of the philosophical questions, observations and feedback resulting from the survey.

Andy

Parent questions/observations:

1. We are fully supportive of the Legends approach to teaching moves-but feel that there are too many aspects of the game that are not being covered by this coach.

2. I would like to see a focus on building the fundamentals of soccer like passing, communication, transition between defense and offense, shooting, ball control, using space, etc. Why so much on moves like "pull back", "step over", "scissors"??? These skills can be useful, but they do not help build an all around good soccer player.

3. This team is starting to learn to pass. I see some good passes, but some very poor. I think they need to practice the 10 - 15 yd passes in front of the attacker. Too many passes made with heads down to spaces where there are not any of our players, just giving up the ball.

4. We need a broader range of skills taught to the boys.

On behalf of the Legends coaching staff here are my answers:

To truly understand the whole Legends method one has to read my book, "Training Soccer Legends", cover to cover. For a free PDF copy please email me at andy@kclegendssoccer.com

The following is a very brief justification for the incredible Legends focus on deceptive dribbling and shooting followed by intense 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 tactics.

The Legends coaching program focuses on the most influential skills and tactics in a way that accelerates learning for soccer and life to an incredible degree when compared to other, more traditional, coaching methods. Because we focus intensely on deceptive dribbling and goal scoring the Legends curriculum is also more enjoyable and motivational than traditional methods. Anson Dorrance, formerly U.S. National team coach, and the most successful NCAA DI coach in the history of all college sports, defines our curriculum as teaching “the margin of soccer greatness”. In order to give our players more learning and develop greater talent in the same time available to other teams and clubs, we have refined the soccer learning process to core elements that contain all of the most important physical and mental skills and tactics. These “core elements” are taught in unique ways that simultaneously develop great technique, tactics, physiology and psychology for soccer and life. The Legends approach is a “Less is More” philosophy where the end result of developing expertise in the team leading skills (beating players in the 1 v1 & 2 v 2 and scoring goals) carries over into great passing, receiving, defending and all round team play. The difference between traditional programs and the Legends approach is seen when in high school Legends trained players can easily fulfill their team role but can also make the “Big Play” that decides the game.

According to Sir Alex Ferguson, coach of Manchester United, there are currently 115 Brazilian players in the Champions league and only 15 British. Why is this? The truth is that talented young Brazilians can perform most deceptive dribbling moves before they leave pre-school. It is their creative skill with the ball that enables great tactical speed in highly pressured receiving, passing and finishing situations because the talented dribbler can master the ball by feel leaving his eyes free to see the field for tactical decision making. One of the glaring contradictions of soccer, where sharing the ball is ultimately very important, is that great team players are first great dribblers, (Ball hogs or hot dogs!).

Only when we truly know that each player is able to beat their opponent or dribble deceptively out of pressure will we teach the team game. Even though it is very difficult to be patient in this impatient world, we must be willing to teach and encourage individual brilliance before focusing on the "team" game. Incredible teams are made up of incredible individuals. Developing an incredible individual takes years of teaching, encouraging and rewarding high risk, creative behavior. If we are patient and supportive of the process necessary to build incredible deceptive dribbling and finishing skill our children will reap the lifelong character benefit that goes with brave, creative leadership. They will also be fantastic soccer players!!

Andy

According to Sir Alex Ferguson, coach of Manchester United, there are currently 115 Brazilian players in the Champions league and only 15 British. Why is this?

This question posed by Andy above is mind boggling...

Talk about giving something some perspective...

Correction to above statistic. It was "over 100" Brazilian players not 115.

Here's the article from Soccernet.com and direct quote from Harry Redknapp (Tottenham manager):

Tottenham have announced that they have completed a deal to sign Sandro from Internacional, with Harry Redknapp describing the midfielder as "one of the brightest prospects to come out of Brazil."

"I went for dinner with Alex Ferguson the other night and he came up with the most amazing statistic. There were around 14 or 15 English players playing in the Champions League last year and over 100 Brazilians. When you think it is a European tournament it just shows you the strength in depth and quality of Brazilian footballers and this is one of the brightest prospects to come out of Brazil.

Andy

In some form the following is going to be in my next book. Can anyone help me edit it? If you have any changes please email me at andy@kclegendssoccer.com

Thanks,

Andy

As a young man I was regaled with fascinating stories of “football” in Ghana. During the Second World War my father, “George”, served in the British Fleet Air Arm. He was stationed in Ghana, West Africa. He played real “football” for the Fleet Air Arm against the other branches of the African Allied military machine. During the war his team finished as runners up in the “Africa Cup”. This was quite an honor because Britain’s pre-war pro players made up the bulk of each divisional team. So, as a young man I heard many stories of “football” in Ghana. He told me that every evening after the daily war work was done the British servicemen and the local Ghanaians would gather for their evening game of football. I particularly remember my Dad waxing lyrical about a young local Ghanaian called, “Spitfire” by the warring Brit’s. Spitfire was a “ball wizard” who played barefooted while the Brit’s played in their ankle boots. “We couldn’t get the ball from him,” my Dad said. “The only way to stop him was to kick him or stamp on his feet.” My Dad joined the armed forces when he was 17. He spent most of his war in West Africa. He went to war with a traditional British soccer perspective. He came back with a tremendous admiration for deceptive dribbling skill in the Ghanaian fashion. From this point onwards he loved the entertainers. Fifty years later I was to personally have a Ghanaian experience that, in its own special way, paralleled, reinforced and raised to a new level, everything my father set in motion fifty years before.

This family experience was further enhanced by my colorful “Uncle Vic”. Vic, Dad’s older brother, played youth soccer with the famous, World Cup winning coach Alf Ramsey. They were a part of the, “Fanshawe Old Boys”, a dynamic youth team from London’s “rough and tumble”, working class East End. Later alumni of the “Fanshawe Old Boys” were Rodney Marsh, Jimmy Greaves and Terry Venables, (the latter also an England coach). Uncle Vic was the first Englishman to play for famous Italian Serie A Italian side Napoli, (Diego Maradona’s old club). He was perhaps the first Englishman to play in Italy’s top league.

As a result of my family’s experiences and love for the creative game I grew up listening to stories of Sir Stanley Matthews, Ferenc Puskas & Garrincha. During the sixties, as my love for “the beautiful game” flourished, we would sit together and idolize dribblers/goal scorers like Pele, George Best, Jimmy Johnstone and Eddie Gray.

My own personal Ghanaian story is set against the background of Ghanaian U17 World Cup dominance during the 1990’s. In the 1990’s five completely unique and different Ghanaian U17 teams achieved a level of world dominance in soccer that may never be seen again. Ghana won the U17 World Cup in 1991 and 1995. They were losing finalists in 1993 & 1997 and placed third in 1999. What makes this achievement all the more impressive was that each of the five successful Ghanaian squads was 100% different from the one before. Unlike full National sides where many excellent players appear in multiple World Cups, (Pele appeared in four World Cups winning three), not one player from each Ghanaian U17 squad was selected again two years later.

Here’s the link to the record of Ghana’s amazing run of success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_U-17_World_Cup

Why was Ghana, (a country with a population of only 23 million people), able to achieve this outstanding, (best ever in one decade), level of youth soccer success? Even Brazil with a population of 192 million people was only able to manage three Final Four appearances in the 90’s. Why was such a young soccer country that didn’t get a professional league until 1956 able to achieve such youth dominance?

In the summer of 1993 I took my 1979/1980 (U13) KC Legends team to the Manchester United Football festival and the Arsenal Cup. This talented youth team were taught a lesson in British aggression by an Irish Youth squad in the Manchester United Football Festival, but one week later won the Arsenal Cup. The same team ultimately won 4 National Indoor Soccer Championships and placed second in the 1995 U16 USYSA Final Four. This Legends team had been coached for many years to play a “Brazilian” deceptive dribbling and goal scoring style of soccer. However, integrating their tremendous individual dribbling and finishing ability into the team concept was proving difficult and frustrating. This was also the case with the other six KC Legends teams I was coaching at the time. All this was about to change as a result of what I saw in Manchester that summer!

Here’s where the story takes another interesting twist. In 1992 and 1993 Manchester United’s youth team won the 1993 FA Youth Cup and finished as runners up in 1993. International players David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Phil and Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Robbie Savage & Paul Scholes, were all key members of the Manchester United youth team set up in those years and members of the squad that faced Ghana. In hindsight, although we didn’t realize it at the time, we witnessed the best youth set up ever in the history of the World, Ghana, versus a team containing some of the players who would later distinguish themselves as some of the very best long-term senior international and club professional players in the world, Manchester United.

The game was fast and furious. The Ghanaians had intuitive deceptive dribbling, quick passing and finishing skills. Every player had an ability to play “silky skill” soccer at speed with great intensity and finesse. Manchester United played hard nosed, disciplined, high work ethic British style soccer. One would have thought that such a game would be a close and competitive one. Not so…the game was no contest! The Ghanaians won by a couple of goals but the game wasn’t that close. The final score should have favored the Ghanaians to a much greater degree.

What was the telling difference between the two sides? In my opinion the Ghanaians demonstrated an instinctive understanding of the best tactical options and had a wider repertoire of tactical solutions stemming from their greater range of creative technical skills. Because of their phenomenal skill and tactical speed it seemed as though their team consistently had an extra yard of space to work with. As is usually the case with teams containing a plethora of deceptive dribblers they were also frighteningly unpredictable. To British defenses such unpredictability is both confusing and unusual. The Manchester players never quite got to grips with the range of skills the Ghanaians exhibited and the constantly changing ways in which they were able to penetrate.

I left the game in awe! It was a youth soccer epiphany! How had the Ghanaians developed such skill and tactical speed? What was it that was happening in Ghana that wasn’t in Britain? Could it be identified, quantified, adapted and incorporated into a structured youth club curriculum?

A day or two later I attended a Ghanaian training session. The session was already in progress as I walked towards the field. As I approached the training pitch my lifelong biases and patterning first led me to reject what I was seeing. The Ghanaians had every member of their playing squad in one penalty area. They were playing multiple simultaneous games of two v two soccer in unbelievably crowded conditions, where space and time on the ball were virtually non-existent. What I witnessed was the equivalent of playing small-sided soccer in the Grand Central Station main terminal during a NY rush hour! Slowly, as I watched, this “Bats in a Cave” soccer scenario morphed into a soccer experience of outstanding beauty and creativity. Each of the 2 v 2 mini games was an offensive war of deceptive dribbling, quick combinations and pinpoint finishing. On the defensive side of the ball every player had to deal with opponents who each had a diverse technical arsenal of moves, passes and shots. What’s more is that these players had been trained to use these devastating weapons in vastly more difficult and complicated live conditions than they would ever witness in a game situation.

Every few seconds one of the Ghanaian players or teams would produce a world class play, in a crowd, under incredible pressure. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw one great play after another bear fruit in ridiculously difficult and complicated circumstances.

After the training session was over I spent time quizzing the Ghanaian coaches on their unique and unusual methods. Their responses confirmed my suspicion that the whole ethos in Ghana was vastly different from the British game I grew up with, and the heavily European influenced American game I moved to. The exceptionally talented Ghanaian youth players had been recruited from local city and country leagues by the professional clubs in their region. These young men had developed their skills in the rich and fertile soccer soil of hard baked dirt soccer fields and streets. In these dry and dusty play areas where no seed could ever hope to germinate, the seeds of Ghanaian soccer were fertilized and watered with magical consequences. Every community produced a number of talented deceptive dribblers and goal scorers trained on dry, dusty fields, in crowded complicated conditions. The most athletic and talented crop of these incredible dribblers and goal scorers were recruited to their local pro club. The most athletic and very best of these were selected to play for the national team.

Here’s where the Ghanaian story takes a different road. At this point in the process even the most creative and famous soccer countries i.e. Brazil and Argentina take the creativity and athleticism of the players they select and restrict some of these qualities by training them to adhere to a “system” in which they do certain pre-defined things such as set plays and pattern plays. The less creative countries such as the U.S. and England often stamp on the creativity of the players and demand that the system takes precedence over the individual. Ghana chose to train their players in a way that maximized and optimized their individual potential. While this approach was less structured and safe it turned out to be a masterstroke of soccer genius because it is the strength of the individual that determines the success of the team.

THE WOLF
``Now is the Law of the Jungle---as old and true as the sky;
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back---
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.''
Rudyard Kipling


By developing and creating an environment that strengthened each and every player’s creative skills and tactical speed the Ghanaian coaches built great strength into the team. The 2 v 2 in a crowd practice environment was the ideal way to develop these talented and athletic young players into better team players while continuing to enhance their deceptive dribbling and finishing skills.

Who among us can argue that 2 wins, 2 seconds and one third in five consecutive U17 World Cup tournaments isn’t the most incredible and praiseworthy performance ever at the international level? Who then can argue with any credibility that the 1990’s Ghanaian 2 v 2 method shouldn’t be part of the ideal developmental blueprint for the future?

This article from the ever insightful English Guardian newspaper is delightfully perceptive of why Barcelona are currently the World's top team while raising the conflict of creativity, beauty and fun with the real world need to win. The tragic thing for children is that many adults treat youth soccer the same way.
Barcelona versus Arsenal (www.guardian.co.uk)

Barcelona must attempt to create a dynasty not just a passing delight!

As well as etching silly grins on the faces of football fans, the Catalan club must also use their brilliance to obliterate

If the Barcelona principle were applied throughout society Philosophy Today would out-sell Nuts on the magazine stands and a Miles Davis re-issue would massacre Lady Gaga in the album charts. In this world, the hardest thing to do would always be the most celebrated, and the poet would recline in business class while Dan Brown rammed his knees into an economy seat.

Hold that thought, because plenty of us can remember Route One as religion. A football was a cannonball that would be launched "into the mixer" for the knock-down and the shot. The excuse made for this Neanderthal method was that it was scientifically proven to be effective. World football is now in the enviable position of being able to demonstrate that the most artistic form of the game is also the most productive.
All you would need to bang home that claim is a DVD of Barcelona's first-half performance at Arsenal in midweek: a display that etched silly grins on the faces of all who saw it. Martin O'Neill, the Aston Villa manager who played in a European Cup-winning side at Nottingham Forest, said the next morning: "How Barcelona play is what everyone should be aspiring to, honestly. I'm not saying every single football club in Europe has Messi or Xavi to call upon, but it's lovely, really, really great. It's inspiring."

But while we luxuriate in this majesty it is also necessary to say the European champions have a weakness. It can be seen in the rhetoric of artistic endeavour – of entertaining the Catalan masses – which even presidential candidates at Camp Nou are reciting to the mirror to prove their cred.
Sandro Rosell, who would like to be king of the Barça salon, said this week: "People see Barcelona not as an industry, not as a business, more as a feeling. As a human being you prefer to be involved with a feeling or an emotion than a business. How do you describe a feeling? How do you describe love?" Presumably Rossell got rich in business, not love, but never mind.

This oratorical arms race was taken up by Joan Laporta, the incumbent: "Our philosophy is spectacular and attacking. It is a kind of love between Barça and the team and the ball. We play a maximum of two touches per player. In my opinion, if we are loyal to this philosophy we will always be the best. We used to say that we prefer to be best than to be first, but normally the best is also the first."

The maximum two-touch rule is a myth. Imagine telling Lionel Messi to stop and pass after his first two-touch dribble. That lad can get you a goal from the halfway line. The heart soars to hear Barcelona grandees express these life-enriching principles. But the point where beauty becomes an end itself is also the junction where Pep Guardiola's team can draw 2-2 in a game they led 2-0 and which they threatened to win by six or seven.

Guardiola said recently: "For me, it all makes sense, the effort, the work, the planning, the concentration and the discipline, if you do it for the people. The manner in which we play is a demonstration of the respect we have for the people who pay for a ticket or pay money to watch matches on television." And: "It is a philosophy of football, win or lose. I want us to show what kind of football we believe in."

Even a TV evangelist would hesitate before walking to the pulpit with this kind of language. However strong the urge to perform cartwheels in gratitude for Barça's gift to us all there is also a voice that urges them to kill teams off and not just enchant in bursts. As O'Neill concedes in these pages, there is no use demanding credit for bringing James Milner and Ashley Young along if the trophy cabinet stays bare.

On Wednesday night Arsenal suffered a kind of 45-minute velvet assault. "I've not seen Barcelona press as high up as often as they did in the first half of the game. It's hard to keep that going," O'Neill said. "Barcelona lost concentration. Arsenal's first goal was a direct result of the boy losing it in midfield, just playing a sloppy ball, and the next thing you know they [Arsenal] are in. And the game changes, the momentum changes, you could sense even from the TV, the momentum changes, the boys are back in the game."

As this new dream team strives to become one of history's great ensembles the question will arise in many high-stakes games: what do the players think they are there for, what is their raison d'etre? To captivate, certainly. But this brilliance must obliterate, too, it must crush.

How reassuring, then, to hear Messi say: "We have already written a page in history but we have to continue doing that. We have to take advantage of this great team – all of us feel that." This should be a dynasty, not just a passing delight.