Should Ontario Youth Footy Follow the A, AA, AAA Model

2013 has been quite an interesting year for youth soccer in Ontario mainly due to the creation of the 2nd standards based league the OPDL (SAAC is the first despite what the OSA may try to claim). Although in theory a great idea, the OSA has handled this completely wrong as they have concentrated the majority of the clubs in 2 areas that makes it quite hard for clubs to get the truly elite level players throughout the province involved in the "top" league. There has been many blogs, tweets, and post on various forums about this so I won't go into details about it.

Yesterday I came across a newspaper article from the Toronto Star written about the GTHL looking at downsizing (eliminating non-competitive teams) and as I briefly discussed with another individual on twitter, something that needs to happen in the "competitive" world of of youth soccer in Ontario, as there are far to many teams playing at the rep level, and this has severely water downed the level of play. In the case of the GTHL, it is more of a shift in demographics as the majority of organizations that are struggling are from the east end of the GTA, and the same shift has been seen in youth soccer as well where once the Scraborough Soccer Association use to be a power house, but that has now shifted to Peel-Halton being the dominant area in Ontario youth soccer.

After reading this article, it rekindled some thoughts that I had that I believe could help change the landscape off soccer in Ontario, keep things more competitive on the filed, and not dilute the level of rep soccer as much as it is now. What I believe should be done is what happens in almost every other competitive team sport in Ontario where organizations are classified as A, AA, or AAA. Why I believe this would be better for the game is so that it eliminate a lot of teams/players who shouldn't be playing at the rep level, rids coaches of thinking about promotion and relegation (win at all cost), and it would PLACE THE PLAYERS AT THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL THEY SHOULD BE PLAYING. Instead of coaches being viewed as "successful" for winning trophies, they now could be looked at being successful for how many players they are able to develop to play at the next level.

For this to work, what would need to happen is that organizations would need to be classified as having teams in either as A, AA, or AAA (they me be affiliated with a club, or a stand alone organization). For some of the smaller areas, if they would like a AAA or AA organization it would be 1 team in that region so that they are able to pull from the surrounding towns without having to really worry about competition for players in neighbouring towns, and in larger areas such as Mississauga there may be 2 AAA clubs, 3 AA, and 3 A clubs. From there at the start of every season there would be tryouts where coaches would pick their top 15-18 players to make up their rosters with the rest of the players who aren't selected either trying out for another team, or play in their local house league program for the summer (which if numbers provide, will have an all-star team).

The leagues themselves will have standings, but there would be no promotion or relegation for teams, and if a player is doing very well in their current level, then hopefully the next season they will try-out for a team at a higher level. Like the OPDL, to coach at different levels coaches would be required to have a particular coaching level so that players playing at the AAA level are getting trained by individuals who have had higher training themselves. The AAA level could be where the provincial/national coaches go out to scout (maybe some AA games as well). As time goes by, we will be seeing the top players playing at the top level while receiving level appropriate training, and the same thing throughout the other 2 levels as well.

The reason why I believe that this would be the best way for soccer to progress is that it won't stretch thin top level training (often times right now, club's technical staff are working with very large groups, and in all reality a lot of the players need to be working on the basics first), teams don't need to focus on finishing at the top of their league to move up, but instead it will be based upon the individual player themselves and their skill level, and it will also eliminate the abundance of "rep" teams that currently exist. This model is used in hockey, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse to name a few sports, and the Canadian national teams are able to compete much better than the majority of national soccer teams.

Sessions or Actually Coaching?

As some of you may already know, I just successfully completed my provincial pre-b assessment this past Sunday. It was unique as it was just myself and two other individuals (who I help coach the u12 boys program with) who were in the course. The course was hosted by Huw Morris and he was aided by Terrol Russell. Although I was successful with the course, I was still able to learn a lot from these two individuals as they had a wealth of knowledge to pass on to myself and the other two coaches.

One of the most interesting comments that myself and the other two coaches taking the course took in was made and then demonstrated by Terrol, and what he said was "There are many coaches out there who can run sessions, but they don't actually coach". When I thought about this, and then Terrol in action, it became evident what he meant by that. When a lot of coaches go to run a session, they have their drills prepared, and then all they do is just go out and run those drills, and if the drill isn't going well they then just make corrections to that specific drill.

What Terrol showed is that simply explaining the drill and then carrying out is beneficial to players often times as coaches we over look a lot of things that are going wrong. As drills are going on, us coaches are often quiet and watch the drill with very minimal coaching taking place during the drill (instructions being given are different from actually coaching). What he also also asked us to do was get the players more involved in the training session by constantly asking them questions. Often times as coaches when running sessions, we spend our time just giving instructions to players instead of actually testing their knowledge. I know when I was working with my former team at North Mississauga along with other teams in our COE program I would ask players questions about things they think they could change to enhance the drill, but Terrol showed us how we can ask these questions in a better manner.

Terrol was able to incorporate form of coaching right away into his training session during the warm up. He had the players dribbling around in a small area and as they were working he was vocal and motivating to the players. He then stopped them, and did something that a lot of coaches don't do... Most coaches have a tendency of just telling players what do for the drill and may offer a demonstration of what to do. What Terrol did though was instead of telling the players how to change the dribbling technique that they were doing, he asked them "how many parts of the feet can we dribble the ball with?" After the answer was given (5), he then again asked a player what was a technique they could do to incorporate 2 parts of the foot to dribble, and as the answer came he then got them to continue in that fashion. While the players were performing that task, instead of stopping them get them to use their other foot, he was coaching them and told them to incorporate both feet. Although it seemed simple to do so, many coaches (myself included) wouldn't take this approach, but instead would stop the drill completely and then tell them to use their other foot, this kept the flow and intensity of the the drill going.

Although Terrol only briefly ran two quick drills, the intensity and change from how the majority of coaches tend to run their sessions was very evident. This was good for me to learn as I believe that taking this approach to my training sessions from now on will not only help me, but will also help maximize the development of the players that I am working with. I look to implement this style of coaching into my next session this coming Saturday morning, where I want to become more of a coach than an instructor.

Solid Foundation

Today I par-took in a provincial pre-b license course in NWT, and it went relatively well. It was nice to work in a small group (there was myself and two other coach's who I coach with for the u13 boys group here), and it was ran by Huw Morris and Terrol Russell who came over from Saskatchewan. They provided me with some great feed back to help improve my coaching style, and the help optimize getting the most out of the players at training sessions. It was also nice to have a few of the u17 players come out to partake in the drills, but as they were doing so, it was another observation for me that the players here (no fault of their own) were not provided a proper foundation from a young age that would allow them to compete at a higher level in the long run.

In my last blog I had made mention that in Yellowknife, there is quite a divide in the soccer community and because of this doesn't provide the players here with a proper development pathway from a young age so that the basics of the game can be learned, and so that when they are put into an environment with a more demanding coach, they don't face quite a shock. After the two other coach's and myself ran our sessions, Terrol ran a couple of drills for the the players, and the other coach's and myself were able to see an immediate shock in the players expression on how a high intensity training session would be ran. When the other coach's and I talked to each other about this, and if we took the same approach to running our sessions, one of their responses was the players wouldn't show up again.

This got me thinking how important it is to get these players in Yellowknife who aspire to play at the next level (or even being able to compete with other provinces at things such as tournaments in Alberta or nationals) they need to be placed in a proper training environment from a young age. Having been involved with the North Mississauga Soccer Club for over 2 decades, Terrol reminded me a lot of their current assistant technical director Jhon Ardila (and the rest of the mentor coaches) and how he runs sessions for the players in the Center of Excellence program who range from u7-u12. There is a demand on the young players as they are in the competitive player pool, but it is nothing that is unrealistic. All of the players are able to train in such an environment, and over the season and years great strides can be seen in their game, both as individuals and as a team over all. 

The reason why I believe that it is important to start putting these players in such an environment at a young age is so that they develop a mindset from a young age that they need to work hard and at high intensity level from a young age, so that this way when they get older, a more demanding coach isn't a shock to them, and they don't have an attitude of quitting the game because a coach wants more out of them during training. If the players here in the NWT are able to learn this from the early ages (provided they are in the high performance program) they will see great strides being made in their individual and team games.

In order for this to happen though, there needs to become unity among all the clubs in Yellowknife so that they have a proper system to develop the players who would like to play at the high performance level. If there was 1 club for youth, they could have a houseleague program for the less serious and weaker players to play in and develop, while the players who have some talent and want to progress further with the game have somewhere to go with proper training and a bit more demand so that they are used to constantly working at a more intense rate. With this foundation, it will help them learn as they get older that when someone wants them to work harder (not just in soccer but all areas of life), quitting isn't the answer but instead giving it an honest effort will show them that they are capable of attaining much more than they believe they could.

"While some may think they didn't get the opportunity that life offers,often they miss it because it comes disguised as hard work, sleepless nights and sacrifice"

Starting Fresh- Youth Soccer in Yellowknife

Been awhile since I have written one of these, but I'm back! As some of you may know I have moved from Ontario to the Northwest Territories for work, and along with that I have gotten myself back into coaching as well (it's hard to stay away when you love it). I plan on updating this more frequently now, but this blog will be a brief over view of the soccer "culture" that I have observed here so far.

Fees for Coaching Courses
In comparison to courses that are ran by the OSA, it is a lot cheaper up here in the north in comparison to coaching with the OSA. I recently registered to take my pre-b license and unlike the astronomical fees of $250 (minimum) charged by the OSA, the exact same course here is offered for just $50. The NWTSA only looks to cover the cost to bring the facilitator in to run the course (my instructor will be coming from Saskatchewan), and the course is going to be ran in a much smaller setting (obviously there a much less coach's here). Another great thing is that for any other courses that I may decide to take such as my B, they will pay to send me out of province and cover all my expenses.

Politics
If you thought the OSA was a mess, despite being a small city sadly politics exist here too. I am living in the city of Yellowknife (population of just under 20,000), and yet somehow there are 6 different clubs with 5 of them being "competitive" clubs... To put this in perspective, I'm from Mississauga which has a population of over 700,000 and there are 6 main clubs and 3 micro clubs. Each competitive club here only operate in specific age groups, with none of them having the same age groups. One clubs has u9-u11 (one group of boys and one group of girls with the 3 age groups combined), the next club u11-u16 with the with the u11's to u 13's as one group an the u14's-16's together, another just has a u18 team, another is the 2 adult teams that represent the province at Nationals (they automatically get to go as there is no other teams to play). Worst of all, the only real game action that these kids get to play is in by playing in a poorly ran house league program that as very little organization (the indoor facility in town that they had the most say in has boards...) and there is ZERO development there. Soccer is played by a lot of kids in the city, but in order for these kids to actually develop, it would be essential for the entire soccer community in the city to come under one umbrella to build a proper foundation.

Player Development 
Today was my first day running a session with the u11-u13 group with the club I am coaching at, and lets just say there is A LOT of work that needs to be done (I will get into more details about this at a later time). These kids haven't really had any proper training, with a lot of them being introduced to a bit of "quality" training at the u11 age group, but by then they have picked up some bad habits and have not learned any of the basics to the game. Tonight there was not one player during the warm-up who was on their toes (all flat footed), terms like check away weren't known, and during the scrimmage... well let's just say the sense of positioning wasn't there, and EVERYTHING was always going forward with very little passing. Another problem that may hinder their development is that due to the location of Yellowknife, and the lack of organization, there is no league for these "competitive" (or high performance as they call it here) teams to play in and if lucky they get 1 tournament for the year in Alberta.

Conclusion
As I said this was going to be brief as I have to get to bed to work early in the am so I will wrap this up now. I will provide more updates with how the soccer life here is going but I will end it with this. I HAVE A LOT OF WORK AHEAD OF ME, BUT IT'S A CHALLENGE I AM READY TO ACCEPT! 

Everybody Makes Mistakes, That's Why Pencils Have Erasers

If you can remember a few months ago there was an uproar by many individuals in the province of Ontario who are both apart and unattached to the soccer community, with Don Cheery being the biggest critic (media wise) to the removal of standings in youth soccer up until the age of 12. This is a topic for another day, but with the introduction of LTPD players are able to play in  a much less stressful environment (or at least it should be that way).

In the old system, coaches often hindered players development because the focus of play was on winning instead of actually developing players, and more importantly allowing players to be creative. As I watch rep games in the older age groups, I often see very little creativity from players, when in pressure they are quick to get rid of the ball instead of trying to take a player on, and I believe this can be attributed to the fact that from a very young age these players were never given the freedom to actually be creative as coaches wanted to win, and if the player tried to do something creative and made a mistake, they were often yelled at and in some cases taken right off the pitch. From a young age when players are in such an environment, they get scared of making mistakes because they don't want an ear full from the coach after.

With the removal of standings and having the kids just play, coach's should now (although they should have always been) be encouraging their players to try for them to be creative without getting on them negatively if they happen to be unsuccessful with what they are attempting. When we started to walk, our parents didn't yell at us, but instead would encourage us to keep trying until it became natural to us, and this is the approach that we should have with all young players in the game. 

If a player is coming out of the back, or in the middle of the pitch tries to beat a player with a step-over and happens to get the ball taken from them, instead of instructing the player to get rid of it next time, coaches should be encouraging that player to keep trying it so that eventually as they do develop they aren't afraid to try it again or other tricks that are even more advanced, because one day they will eventually be able to do such things successfully. The u9 team I've coached for the last 2 years have conceded goals where players try to make a certain pass such as looking to play it back to a defender and it gets intercepted and the counter attack is on. Instead of yelling at the player to not try that again, it is important to recognize what they are trying to do, and point out it was a great idea, and maybe I will tell them next time they need to put a bit more pace on the ball to make sure it makes it to the player next time. If a player realizes that the coach isn't going to be upset with them with for making a mistake, it will only help build their confidence and they won't be nervous to try it again. Something like this is very important because as they get older, there will be many times where they need to knock the ball back to their defender to maintain possession, and if their confidence is shattered from a young age it will be much more detrimental to them as they get older.

Quite possibly the most important position where coaches should allow for "mistakes" to take place is the keeper. I was recently watching a  u10 game where a coach was yelling at their keeper to stay deeper in their goal as the keeper was highly aggressive at challenging the shooter and got beat over their head a couple of times. I later had a talk with the coach and the keeper and told them that they should be encouraging the keeper to continue this style of play, because as they grow (and can touch the cross bar with ease) the goals lobbing over their head will decrease dramatically, and they will also be cutting down the angle on what the shooter has. There is nothing worse than seeing a keeper at the u13+ age group who afraid to come off of their line because from a young age their coach was instructing them to stay deep to avoid getting beat over their head.

With young kids we must remember that they are going to make mistakes as they aren't professionals, and instead of getting on them for making the mistake, we should be encouraging them to try it again. With there now being nothing on the line to play for from up until u13, we need coaches need to do their best to let players confidence grow so that when they are ready they can do something special like a rainbow to get by a defender instead of have them just knock the ball down the pitch in hope that their player can chase it down.

I conclude this entry with a quote from William Edward Hickson "IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN." To all coaches, please remember this and encourage the creativity that your young players have inside of them.

They Do, But Are They Really Learning?

Having watched many youth soccer games over the last decade (I'm an official as well, and for many years was on a pitch no less than 6 days a week), I have heard the saying that players "look lost out there" or "their style of play is very robotic". We then ask the questions of "why do they look lost out there?" or "why are they playing like robots?" and below I am going to explain my thoughts on why I believe this happens very often and what can be done at an early age of development to help stop this problem.

Many times when coaches run a training session, they explain the drill, do a demonstration, correct (or yell a lot of the times) something that is being done wrong, and then watch the players go through the motions of the drill properly. This may seem good if the players can complete a drill properly, but coaches (especially at the younger ages u8-u13) often forget what I believe to be the most important step when teaching children to play the game, and that is finding out if the players truly understand what they are being taught.

As a coach of a girls u9 player pool this is a step that I refuse not to overlook at any of our training sessions. The way this can be done is by asking players open ended questions (other than just do you understand? or do you have any questions?) Questions that need to be asked are "why is this important?" "when in a game would we use this?" or "if this happens (a change in the play as things rarely work out exactly according to plan) what do we need to do?". Questions like these give you as a coach a better understanding if the players are actually grasping what you are teaching them, or if they are simply just going through the motions of what they are being shown. As I mentioned briefly earlier, there are the coaches who like to yell or tell a player how to correct something they are doing wrong in a drill. Although correction is needed, I believe that the best way for this to be done is not by telling them what they should do, but instead asking what the player or team believes they should do to correct what they're doing, and then as a coach you should elaborate on what they say.

As a coach this approach has many benefits in the development of young players, along with the development of the coach. Some of these benefits are:

• Helps you understand if the players are grasping the concept of what is being taught
• Makes them aware of when to apply such skills or tactics in a game
• When they hear information coming from a peer they sometimes can better relate to what is being said
• As a coach working with younger kids there are moments where we use advanced terminology (I'm guilty of this sometimes, but luckily my assistant coach is able to remind me that the girls are 9), but there is a player or two who understands what you are teaching and can break down what you are teaching into the most simplistic terms that wouldn't ever cross your mind
• It challenges the players to think deeper about the game

At the end of each training session it is important to ask the players a few questions and they are:

• What was today's topic? (hopefully you tell them at the start of training)
• What are some important things about the topic?
• Why/when do we use such skill/tactic?

If these steps are followed it will give you a much better gauge on whether the players you are training are simply just going through the motions, or if they are actually understanding what they are doing. If they truly understand what they're doing then it will help them that much more in their development.