Does the US Youth soccer system and England's differ greatly?
You bet they do. We found this article on the web and thought it was one of the best describing the birth of English Academies and how they differ from US youth programs.
PLAYER DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-ACADEMY TIMES
The English Premier League was launched in 1992 and was basically a restructuring of
the professional game in England to allow the top clubs to benefit financially from the
increasingly lucrative television rights income.
At the same time, the English game was suffering from three serious problems:
hooliganism, ground safety issues and dwindling success at the international level. The
1980’s are remembered in England as the decade of stadium disasters, hooliganism, and
disappointing national team performances in major competitions. A government report
concluded that the stadiums at the top tier must be converted to all-seating, installed with
close caption TV’s to monitor hooligan elements, and modernized in many other ways to
improve fan safety. Government funding from lotteries plus the new television money,
which was going to be massive, were earmarked to help pay for all these new
requirements
Meanwhile, The FA, the governing body for soccer in England, realized that the
professional clubs must do a better job of developing players to stop the slide of the
national team into mediocrity. In the 1990’s, The FA went ahead and created a new
blueprint for player development which mandated that every Premiership club must have
a Youth Academy with specific requirements for staff qualifications and licensing,
facilities, training, games, player ages, and supporting educational opportunities for the
players. Hence, the birth of the modern Academies occurred in the late 1990’s.
The situation for women’s soccer wasn’t very healthy in those days. Up until the 1990’s,
women’s soccer did not get much funding or priority in England, as in most of the world.
Only in the USA was women’s and girls’ soccer taken seriously, due to Title IX
implementation. Girl’s soccer in England finally got a boost in the 1990’s. The FA felt
obliged for moral and political reasons to support women’s soccer and started to promote
girls’ leagues and player development schemes. Many of the professional men’s clubs
started to support a women’s team and some funded the teams within a semi-professional
scope. Fulham FC even fielded a fully professional women’s team for a few years. But
the lack of revenue from TV or attendance in the female game kept the top level of the
women’s game in a semi-pro or amateur status. Nevertheless, women soccer in England
is slowly progressing and most Premier League clubs run girls’ academies in addition to
the boys. More on that later.
If the youth academies were only started in the late 1990’s, what was the player
development structure before that?
Prior to the academies, the professional clubs were only allowed to sign players starting
at the age of 15. Players younger than 15 could train at Centers of Excellence run by the
professional clubs, but the clubs could not really ‘own’ them. The players were free to
train at as many centers as they wished, since they didn’t belong to any one club.
Since the Centers of Excellence were just for training, the actual youth leagues were
organized, managed, and coached by volunteers, just like in the USA. There were city
leagues, district leagues, and various knock-out cup competitions and tournaments, just
like in America. School soccer was also huge in scope and profile, and was well
organized. Volunteer teachers coached the school teams in regional and national
competition and, in fact, the U-15 National Team was selected from school teams.
In pre-academy days, a typical youth player played for his local youth team, coached by a
volunteer parent coach, and would also play for his school team. The best players would
also be invited to train at the Centers of Excellence. Once players reached 15, the very
best would be signed by the professional clubs, which is where the serious training
started, under professional youth coaches.
This meant that the important formative years of development between the ages of 6-14
were in the hands of volunteers and school teachers. This environment resembled very
much the youth soccer environment here in America, and spawned the same problems we
encounter here today, namely: too many games; emphasis on competition, teamwork and
winning trophies at a young age; size, fitness and work rate valued over skill
development; kick and run soccer; coaches fighting over the best players; schools and
various youth leagues competing for the players’ time; and a general lack of a systematic,
progressive, centrally directed player development plan. Sounds familiar?
The professional clubs lamented the lack of skill of the players entering their youth teams
but were not willing to invest time and money on younger players if they weren’t allowed
to own them until 15. It must be said that the system did produce many players for the
professional teams and the English league was always competitive and exciting to watch
and English clubs did well in European competition. But the player development system
with its volunteer driven culture was over-structured, over-coached, and did not
encourage individualism or creativity. The system did not have any room for the truly
gifted individualist to emerge. English soccer simply was not set up to produce
magicians the like of Ronaldinho, Zidane, Totti, Henry, Kaka or Berkamp and the
national team suffered as a result. Of course, success is a relative term. For England,
elimination at the quarter final stage of a World Cup is considered a failure, since
England expects to win every tournament they enter. For the USA, getting to the quarter
finals stage is considered a huge success.
The English governing body has finally acknowledged this problem and that’s why the
academy concept was born in the 1990’s. Starting in the late 1990’s, the professional
clubs were allowed to sign players as young as 8 into their academies. But to qualify as
an Academy, clubs had to follow a set of criteria. The FA set out the Academy criteria
and mandated that every Premier League club must abide by these criteria.
It’s too early to gauge the success of the Premiership Academies, since they have been in
existence less than a decade. Most of the current generation of players in the English
leagues grew up in the old system of volunteer coaches and School soccer. Beckham
played his youth soccer for a team coached by his own dad. The bulk of the English
National Team that played in the 2006 World Cup grew up in the old system. It will take
another 5-10 years before we can evaluate their academy system. But judging from the
performance of the Liverpool U-18 team that came to Atlanta in the past two years and
from the emergence of young players like Wayne Rooney, it looks like the academies are
producing more creative players who are technically more versatile.
The game in England has also been greatly influenced by foreign coaches and players
over the past 10-15 years and the impact has trickled all the way down to the youth
academies.
You bet they do. We found this article on the web and thought it was one of the best describing the birth of English Academies and how they differ from US youth programs.
PLAYER DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-ACADEMY TIMES
The English Premier League was launched in 1992 and was basically a restructuring of
the professional game in England to allow the top clubs to benefit financially from the
increasingly lucrative television rights income.
At the same time, the English game was suffering from three serious problems:
hooliganism, ground safety issues and dwindling success at the international level. The
1980’s are remembered in England as the decade of stadium disasters, hooliganism, and
disappointing national team performances in major competitions. A government report
concluded that the stadiums at the top tier must be converted to all-seating, installed with
close caption TV’s to monitor hooligan elements, and modernized in many other ways to
improve fan safety. Government funding from lotteries plus the new television money,
which was going to be massive, were earmarked to help pay for all these new
requirements
Meanwhile, The FA, the governing body for soccer in England, realized that the
professional clubs must do a better job of developing players to stop the slide of the
national team into mediocrity. In the 1990’s, The FA went ahead and created a new
blueprint for player development which mandated that every Premiership club must have
a Youth Academy with specific requirements for staff qualifications and licensing,
facilities, training, games, player ages, and supporting educational opportunities for the
players. Hence, the birth of the modern Academies occurred in the late 1990’s.
The situation for women’s soccer wasn’t very healthy in those days. Up until the 1990’s,
women’s soccer did not get much funding or priority in England, as in most of the world.
Only in the USA was women’s and girls’ soccer taken seriously, due to Title IX
implementation. Girl’s soccer in England finally got a boost in the 1990’s. The FA felt
obliged for moral and political reasons to support women’s soccer and started to promote
girls’ leagues and player development schemes. Many of the professional men’s clubs
started to support a women’s team and some funded the teams within a semi-professional
scope. Fulham FC even fielded a fully professional women’s team for a few years. But
the lack of revenue from TV or attendance in the female game kept the top level of the
women’s game in a semi-pro or amateur status. Nevertheless, women soccer in England
is slowly progressing and most Premier League clubs run girls’ academies in addition to
the boys. More on that later.
If the youth academies were only started in the late 1990’s, what was the player
development structure before that?
Prior to the academies, the professional clubs were only allowed to sign players starting
at the age of 15. Players younger than 15 could train at Centers of Excellence run by the
professional clubs, but the clubs could not really ‘own’ them. The players were free to
train at as many centers as they wished, since they didn’t belong to any one club.
Since the Centers of Excellence were just for training, the actual youth leagues were
organized, managed, and coached by volunteers, just like in the USA. There were city
leagues, district leagues, and various knock-out cup competitions and tournaments, just
like in America. School soccer was also huge in scope and profile, and was well
organized. Volunteer teachers coached the school teams in regional and national
competition and, in fact, the U-15 National Team was selected from school teams.
In pre-academy days, a typical youth player played for his local youth team, coached by a
volunteer parent coach, and would also play for his school team. The best players would
also be invited to train at the Centers of Excellence. Once players reached 15, the very
best would be signed by the professional clubs, which is where the serious training
started, under professional youth coaches.
This meant that the important formative years of development between the ages of 6-14
were in the hands of volunteers and school teachers. This environment resembled very
much the youth soccer environment here in America, and spawned the same problems we
encounter here today, namely: too many games; emphasis on competition, teamwork and
winning trophies at a young age; size, fitness and work rate valued over skill
development; kick and run soccer; coaches fighting over the best players; schools and
various youth leagues competing for the players’ time; and a general lack of a systematic,
progressive, centrally directed player development plan. Sounds familiar?
The professional clubs lamented the lack of skill of the players entering their youth teams
but were not willing to invest time and money on younger players if they weren’t allowed
to own them until 15. It must be said that the system did produce many players for the
professional teams and the English league was always competitive and exciting to watch
and English clubs did well in European competition. But the player development system
with its volunteer driven culture was over-structured, over-coached, and did not
encourage individualism or creativity. The system did not have any room for the truly
gifted individualist to emerge. English soccer simply was not set up to produce
magicians the like of Ronaldinho, Zidane, Totti, Henry, Kaka or Berkamp and the
national team suffered as a result. Of course, success is a relative term. For England,
elimination at the quarter final stage of a World Cup is considered a failure, since
England expects to win every tournament they enter. For the USA, getting to the quarter
finals stage is considered a huge success.
The English governing body has finally acknowledged this problem and that’s why the
academy concept was born in the 1990’s. Starting in the late 1990’s, the professional
clubs were allowed to sign players as young as 8 into their academies. But to qualify as
an Academy, clubs had to follow a set of criteria. The FA set out the Academy criteria
and mandated that every Premier League club must abide by these criteria.
It’s too early to gauge the success of the Premiership Academies, since they have been in
existence less than a decade. Most of the current generation of players in the English
leagues grew up in the old system of volunteer coaches and School soccer. Beckham
played his youth soccer for a team coached by his own dad. The bulk of the English
National Team that played in the 2006 World Cup grew up in the old system. It will take
another 5-10 years before we can evaluate their academy system. But judging from the
performance of the Liverpool U-18 team that came to Atlanta in the past two years and
from the emergence of young players like Wayne Rooney, it looks like the academies are
producing more creative players who are technically more versatile.
The game in England has also been greatly influenced by foreign coaches and players
over the past 10-15 years and the impact has trickled all the way down to the youth
academies.
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