SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Claudio Reyna: 'Coaches should sit down'

By Mike Woitalla

For many reasons, Claudio Reyna was the perfect choice to be named U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director one year ago.

The New Jersey product, who captained the USA at two of his four World Cups, played American youth club, high school and college ball before embarking on a career in Europe that saw him captain teams in Germany, Scotland and the English Premier League. After finishing his playing career with MLS’s New York Red Bulls, which he also captained, Reyna traveled the world to observe the most successful youth programs – including FC Barcelona.

Reyna’s research, and his own experiences, culminated in the Federation’s new curriculum for youth coaches (available for download at USSoccer.com).

Upon the unveiling of "U.S. Soccer Curriculum," Reyna spoke to us about what had impressed him about the youth programs that he found worth emulating.

“The coaches were guiding the training,” he said. “They were not controlling. They weren’t on top of the kids. They were not stopping the play for every mistake.

“None of them yelled. The only time they barked was when kids were screwing around. That’s when they said, ‘Hey, cut it out!’ And boom, the intensity went back up.”

It’s important, Reyna says, to avoid the temptation to focus on mistakes:

“When you first start coaching young players, you see so many things, because, yes, they make mistakes, and if you see a lot of mistakes you want to correct a lot of mistakes. But these coaches were really letting the kids learn the game.”

In the United States, youth soccer struggles to stifle the influence of traditional American sports.

“In our country, we feel we have to do things because of our other sports, which are very much dominated by calling a timeout, writing up a play, 'do this, do that,'” he says. “There is more of an influence from the coach in those sports to solve a situation for the players.”

Another trait of the youth coaches at clubs that succeed at producing top-level players was that they “were very organized, professional, very prepared.

“You could see that they knew what they were doing from one exercise to the next.”

Reyna was struck by the humility of the youth coaches at the pro clubs:

“Very humble. Devoted to their jobs. I got to speak to so many coaches and it was almost when I asked them things they were embarrassed to talk about it. They’d say things like, ‘We’re a part of something else. The kids are students. We’re their teachers. We have to do this job, then we pass them on to the next coach and he does his job, and I get the next group in.’

“And it was very, very powerful to see these guys who were working behind the scenes. They don’t get any credit, no one knows who they are, and for me they were fantastic coaches.”

During games, Reyna observed that “at the best places the youth coaches are sitting down. And if they get up to give instructions, they sit right back down again.

“When the game is going on, all the coaches should just sit down. I think if you ask any player at the youth level, if the coach is on the sidelines standing, it brings tension. You can sense it.”

Coaches at the foreign pro clubs Reyna observed are judged by how many players end up reaching the highest level. And that’s what Reyna says should be the measure for American youth coaches.

“For me, it’s irrelevant if coaches win state cups, regional cups, national cups,” he says. “We get a lot of resumes -- I don’t mean people shouldn’t put that in their resumes – but how many trophies they have in their cabinet isn’t important to me. It’s about the kids, it’s not about you.

“We care about how many players you develop rather than how many trophies you win.

“What is the plan you have? What is your style of play? What’s your philosophy? What do you teach them? What do you do with your staff? If you don’t address that, then what are you doing? Going from week-to-week trying to win games?”

(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, coaches youth soccer for East Bay United in Oakland, Calif. His youth soccer articles are archived at YouthSoccerFun.com.)

Sitting or standing; shouting or quiet ... really makes little or no difference. While I agree with some points here, again, we have a "leader" of U.S. soccer talking about style instead of substance.
Bottom line: As long as U.S. "club" and "academy" soccer are pay-to-play, kids will have a misguided sense of entitlement that works to the detriment of all involved.

...but still an issue that needs to be addressed. U.S. Soccer won't be "fixed" until we find ways to get more promising young people the opportunity to play AND do the best job we can with the young people that we have. For every potential player who never enters the system due to structural issues, there are many more who decide to either stay or quit--or decide how much of their hearts and effort to invest in the game--based on their experiences in practice and on the playing field.

Anyone who knows me will know that I'm not a "sit-down" coach; if I'm simply sitting on the bench my players think there is a serious problem. There is a big difference, though, between trying to micromanage on the field, control the players' decisions, and berate them for errors, and being involved by active encouragement, applauding strong efforts and good decisions, and complimenting creativity on the field. There is a time for correcting errors before they become big problems, but there is a much bigger opportunity to reinforce the positive. I have seen a lot of coaching and I've observed many styles; the teams who seem to play the hardest and find the extra gear when it's needed--and have the players who keep coming back for more--are the ones who hear a little correction and a lot of encouragement. Soccer means something positive to them, so they put positive effort back into soccer.

True, bringing more players into a quality system is an issue that needs to be addressed, but retention and advancement of the young people we do have is equally important in my estimation--and that's where sitting or standing, shouting or quiet, or what MESSAGE a coach is shouting or sending by his/her silence makes a huge difference.

Backscreen....I don't disagree with you on the simplistic aspects of standing/sitting or shouting/quiet.

But i disagree on "pay to play", somehow being an inhibitor to kids playing Academy or "US Club", whatever that is.

I really don't think there is some large pool of soccer playing kids out there that are being missed via Academy or other means. If you really believe that.......I thnk you are mistaken.

If your point is.....that the cost of playing soccer keeps kids out of the game who then choose football or basketball or baseball.....then ok.

But if thats your point I think its mostly theoretical, since culturally those kids wouldn't be playing soccer anyway right now. Soccer may be expensive......but footballers and hoopers are going a different route out of choice, not cash.

Pay-to-play is both inhibitor and "entitler." Not seeing a pool of talented kids doesn't (necessarily) mean it does not exist. IMHO, there's a screaming ton of kids out there who play other sports -- or no "organized" sport at all -- because of a range of access issues, cost primary among them.

As to standing/sitting/shouting/not, you're dealing with the style, as opposed to the substance or quality, of a message. All successful coaches/trainers "correct" on an ongoing basis. If Reyna's supposition were uniformly correct, many great basketball, football, hockey, etc., athletes never would have survived a demanding coach. Different kids/people respond to different styles. No one style is universally successful (or not).

I agree that "Coaches should sit down" is a ridiculously simplistic way of looking at successful coaching, but while that particular aspect of it is up for debate--as if sitting down is the only way for a coach to convey a positive message to his players--there's more to the message than that. If someone told me that there was only one "right" style of coaching, "deluded" would be the most polite term I would use for them. Coaches are very much like players--they need to learn to play to their personal strengths to develop their best personal style, and anytime you try to make every coach a cookie-cutter image, it's no different from micromanaging and trying to make cookie-cutter players--which is exactly what this article is discouraging.

If you look past the title, the message is not so much about style as it is about substance--about teaching the basics and demanding focus and hard work, but also providing positive feeback and encouraging CREATIVITY--empowering players to make decisions on the field and develop their own style and use their own personal strengths in conjunction with their teams. Creativity is at the heart of all the best players--no coach could have taught them to do what they do HIS way because they do it THEIR way better than anyone else. A mark of good coaching is to give the players the tools they need to surpass their coach. To do that, a coach needs to build players' confidence in their own decisions--it's not American football, and you can't stop and draw up a play every few seconds; the players have to be able to make those decisions on the field, on their own, without hesitation and without waiting for instructions or always pausing to think, "is this what Coach would do?"

Empowerment and positive energy get young people into the game and KEEP young people in the game, and teaching the right skills and building the right foundations gives them the chance to excel in it. Whether a coach is sitting or standing, silent or loud, it's the substance of the message he/she is sending that makes the difference...teaching the right things AND saying them in the right way to connect coaches with players.

I respect many of you guys much more than the opinion of someone who has never coached youth and high school soccer. How many games has Reyna coached at the high school level? How many youth soccer games? It's like someone who has never taught telling you how to teach, or a virgin talking about sex. Of all the things he could have harped on, he picked standing up on the sideline. Seriously? How about doing something with our first touch? Tackling? Give me someone like Kevin or Will, Phil or Uncle Frank in that position, and I'd be more likely to consider their ideas. We don't always have those heated comfy chairs to rest in at our games, afterall. He might as well be talking about using Hobbits at defensive mid: quick, short, and stout low center of gravity. It's fantasy. Cmon Claudio - give me something I can use!!!

Let's start with the concept that Claudio Reyna has the best of intentions. He actively and constructively wants what's best for soccer and its players/coaches/trainers/supporters in this country. He's very well traveled. I readily concede, his opinion has a certain weight and should be heard.

Late in 2010, I sat on the sideline of an "international" match between (as I recall) Turkey and Korea at the Academy Showcase in Phoenix. Literally two down from me: Claudio Reyna. He was extremely focused on the game and its players. I was happy to see him involved and there.

That said, it's important for him to understand that the point of the exercise is NOT to implement a Spanish, or English, or Brazilian or Mexican "system" for identifying and developing young athletes. Rather, it's to identify the readily addressable and significant strengths and weaknesses of OUR system. There is no SINGLE answer. There are major roadblocks. Let's remove roadblocks.

In fairness, no 750-word article can capture the entirety of a person's vision. I would suggest, however, that micro-management of coaching style should be about 38 items down any to-do list for U.S. soccer.

Access should be No. 1. As long as we follow an exclusive pay-to-play model, that access will not be available. We also will not maximize our national potential ON THE FIELD until a generation of kids who see soccer as a "career," rather than a means to an end (college education), takes hold. Finally, and this DOES relate to coaching/training, we must promote an evaluation and development process that places more emphasis on WHAT a kid can do, rather than WHO he is. Kids aren't fools. They know WHO can play. When they see a process that doesn't consistently reward talent and commitment, they seek other venues that do.

Some statistics from this past season:

9 games = ~ 12 hours of soccer
~ 30 practices = ~ 45 hours of soccer
games + practice = ~ 57 hours of soccer
travel time to away games = ~ 38 hours

Are we developing soccer players or future business travellers?

Pay to play....the last two games of the season cost me more than $1,000 of travel related expenses to watch kick-ball. Not many families can (a) afford to or (b) want to....pay $500 per soccer game. I'm quickly migrating to (a) and (b).

Several years, thousands of dollars, hours & hours travelling, and teams still can't string together three passes before some kid boots the ball 40 yards to the other team. Other sports call that a 'turnover' but in soccer, we say 'unlucky' and will try it hundreds of times because, remember a couple of years ago?.....it worked once.

Yup, our system is broken....