I do apologize for following up on this question alittle late.Been rather busy week but always find time for soccer somehow.I will go ahead and give my thoughts on this;
In respect to club -> College progression
1-First off talking about a soccer player or generally any athlete,it would help for people in responsible positions to realize that not everyone was born a natural in whatever sport they are involved in. There is a huge proportion of athletes that learnt to play the game as they progressed in the sports they are in and are effectively performing in their respective capacities in whatever sport they are doing.I will try to narrow this down to just soccer as that is possibly my major domain of sports knowledge and i do stand corrected on a few items. Now if the education that our trainers/coaches was fairly emphasized or targetted at TRULY leaving no stone unturned,not just sc but several states would have really high percentages of graduants from the stages in the game as we would be discovering tons of "hidden" talent and not just that, but also an athletes characters that would bring out a teams value in all it's true colors whether they knew how to do a "ronaldhinio" or not. I cite a typical example; Some of you might know a former Brazilian player called Fred Ddunga.Captained one of the most heroic Brazilian teams that played and i cite this because he captained the team during USA'94. His style of play was not the most fancied but he defintely did qualify to be the captain of one of the most notable brazilian teams we have seen in the world cup AND he started every game.Ddunga is currently the Brazilian national team coach and i think he has held that position for about 2 or more yrs or so. Brazil is one of the most fancied soccer teams in the world and who is their coach? Someone whom if he was to go through what our children have had to go through,or are going through,would never be where he is at this point and time.Was he the most skilled player in Brazil? Nope,however he delivered as a team player and his qualities if i could personally list and rank them on a 10 point scale: Leadership - 10,Field vision : 9,Skill level : 6. Overall ability as a player that can "deliver":10
There are various examples i could give.The bottomline here is that you cannot rule a player out or grade a player unless you know or have goal and purpose for the player be it a strong and skillful player or a weak player who just happens to love the game and needs honest direction until their confidence builds up.
We definately have to clean up the training process. Maybe it might make sense or it might not but it would help to educate or train our coaches to groom players other than slyly "coach" the players at this stage. Sometimes it looks like some of us coaches are out there looking to run up our "W" records and do not care how the players progress after we have achieved a gazillion "W's". Let a lone the fact that we might not even know how we got that many "W's" and have no knowledge whatsoever to recur the performance.
College->Pro level.
Kind of tough to pin point as i have never been a college coach but have passed through the college->semi pro or pro level or whatever one might want to call it(as a player) and my deductions here would be based on (a)a players dedication to the game(if he was groomed well at club,it will flourish in college) (b) The desire of his college coach to see him succeed as an individual that belongs to a group with a common goal.
Finally and possibly most important,as per our system in United States (i have personally been exposed and participated in some decent overseas youth programmes - valid references can be availed upon request),however,i have not seen the extent of parental involvement in the college feeder programs i.e the youth soccer clubs as we have here in th US to the extent of almost crippling our youth clubs. No offence intended here at all.If we enforced all over the country the "tri-effort" without bias or favor we just might be able to build and develop the TRUST that it takes to effect a "tri-effort" system.Once again it takes all three parties.
As i mentioned in the initial question,we start with this- hypothetically : (1)Coaches are trained to "groom" and not just be present at games and clubs because at one point and time in their lives they played the game and due to that "qualification" and other "certifications" after their time was over,they feel obliged to "coach".
(2)At the higher tertiary levels,we target for our players to not just "make the first team" but to enhance on their club achievements that initially got us to recruit them - obviously if a player was recruited to a college as being an "all time" this and that and we signed him on,then he should be worth spending time on.Ultimately we'll get him into the pros if he has been trained well and is not terminally injured in the process.
Well, that is just my 2 cents. I stand corrected on some issues but i will solemnly and fairly try to justify what i can.
Last edited by SCKicker; 03/21/09 04:18 AM.
