Japan u20 beat USA u20 in women’s world cup

[Unregistered]

Please don't put ridiculous words in my mouth. I never said anything about 8 year olds making decisions in a game according to their financial incentives.

It is the COACH'S incentives that matter. Messi's youth coaches were incentivized to make sure he was a great player by the time he was old enough to make the senior team. That means teaching about soccer technique AND tactics AND strategy, and BEING PATIENT, and not sacrificing long-term player development for short-term revenue.

Players learn what coaches teach them. Coaches teach according to the financial incentives of the club (and, sadly, according to their own financial incentives, which include club-hopping). American club incentives are short-term win-at-all-costs vs long-term player development.

This should not be hard to understand. And it's not just me saying this:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...814-story.html (somebody posted this to the other U20 WC thread, I think)

http://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/u20...#post-37004432

http://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/u20...#post-37005889

I know you don't have to believe me (this is an anonymous forum, after all), but despite my personally coaching players at a small club who ended up as D1 starters, it is incredibly frustrating to have players you can see developing moved by their parents to more gotsoccer-points-focused mega-clubs - and to have those players tell me, when I see them again in an older age group, how they now realize that their skills have backslid.

And even if you don't believe these anecdotal stories (and why should you?), the evidence is right in front of you if you go back and watch (Fox Sports app) the US/Spain match. It is astonishing that our players had such awful technique and tactics, especially in midfield, having been drawn from a player pool that is as large as that of the entire rest of the world, COMBINED. Somebody in one of the above comments said Spain only have 20,000 female players registered. GPS alone has more.

As regards immigrants, they have their own leagues, clubs, and pickup games (all of which I have played in at one point or another). So there are places for them to play, and improve, but I believe we both agree that they are cut out of the club-owned development pyramid.

- a coach

You seem to be spoiling for an argument that I am not having. I believe that it starts from Culture. You are addressing a point further along in the process. None of which i disagree with. My point is we get to the point we are at because no one demands better. Why? because the majority did not grow up in the game and have their own understanding and expectations of what a club coach SHOULD be focused on IF development is the goal

The US culture of win now has shaped the structures we currently have. Its shaped the prevalent type of coaches and the coaching they do. The desire for stats, standings. The star system and popularity of games where individuals can have a disproportionate impact on outcomes.

I watched every minute of the US games in this U20 WC and the last U17 and U20 WCs. its very obvious that we are not developing players with high soccer IQs because to win in our leagues it is not required. I dont like to use the athlete vs player thing because i believe that defines athlete too narrowly. Lets just say that when we cannot bulldoze our way thru a team , we struggle to come up with other methods. That goes for the Full team as well. I posted this on TS in another thread. I totally agree with him

https://twitter.com/KeithCostigan/st...30748471664641


I dont think we disagree at all really, but anonymous forums are hard places to get th real meaning of what is being said across