Is the Youth Game Improving?

April 20th, 2010 | by: Jen | View Comments

One question that is eventually asked every US professional player is this: How can we increase the level of play in American soccer? Or similarly: How do American players compare to other players around the world?

Inevitably the answer involves training future soccer players at the youth level.

American great, Claudio Reyna, was recently named as U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director.

Reyna’s initial focus as Youth Technical Director will be to create a structure and plan to improve the coaching of 6-12 year-old players. He will craft a teaching curriculum that will be used to help educate coaches across the country and provide direction on what their specific focus and goals should be when working with young players.

The appointment of a Youth Technical Director continues the implementation of plans developed by the Player Development Task Force, which was created in 2006 to review all aspects of player development in the United States and recommend a course of action.

In other words, Reyna has been tasked with improving youth soccer in the U.S., and thereby improving American soccer on the whole.

I then read an article by Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune that correctly (I believe) pointed out the skills most lacking in the American player — ball skills. He goes on to describe why this most basic tool of soccer is lacking.

The other problem is that with such a highly developed youth system comes paid coaches. And the parents and clubs who pay them base their job performance on wins and losses.

Want to win at the youth level? It’s easy. Get the biggest, fastest, most aggressive athletes, bang the ball into the opponent’s end and pressure, pressure, pressure. Young kids here don’t have the technical skills to play out of the pressure, and those who do aren’t encouraged to use them, to take improvisational risks, with coaches and parents yelling at them constantly from the sideline to “boooooot it.”

Is his anyalysis correct? Is the youth soccer player still lacking technical skills on the ball?

I can give some perspective from the women’s game. I began playing soccer in 1985 as a teenager. At the time there were very few youth opportunities to play soccer before high school. I was fortunate to be coached throughout high school by a Colombian who was a former standout player in his youth. He spent a good half of each practice on ball skills/touches on the ball, but my technical abilities progressed slowly compared to my tactical knowledge of the game.

As I continued to play through college I was exposed to players from different regions of the country. Again, very few had great technical ability while, as a team, the primary focus was on winning tactics.

It wasn’t until the mid to late 90’s that I saw the direct affect youth soccer had on the women’s game. Women 4 and 5 years younger than me were graduating high school with abilities I only hoped for in college. It was obvious that women had begun to play at a younger age and their abilities were proof.

So I’m frustrated to learn that youth soccer still has a long way to go to equal the level of play in other countries. I can assume the men’s game saw at least the same surge in talent that I saw in the women’s game in the late 90’s, thanks to the youth soccer movement in the U.S. But did that improvement become stagnant? Or are we still so far behind the world that it will take decades to catch up?

Those of you who are involved in the youth system — as a parent or in some other capacity — is the youth game improving? What needs to be in place for the young players of today to grow into World Cup favorites? What advice would you give Claudio Reyna as he tackles his new role in US Soccer?