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June 20, 2008
How the screaming hurts
What makes the epidemic of sideline shouting particularly egregious is that the instructions are usually misguided. By Mike Woitalla (Soccer America Magazine, June 2008) What better venue for an endless array of amusement and bemusement than the youth soccer field? Much is predictable, like the adult sideline behavior, but the unexpected never ceases. Read more...
May 20, 2008
Youth Beat: U.S. mix better than ever
Soccer shed its reputation as a foreign sport thanks to the youth participation boom that started in the 1970s, but new waves of immigrants continue to enrich the game. By Mike Woitalla (Soccer America Magazine, May 2008) Read more...
May 18, 2008
Pros and cons of the southward pipeline
What will the effect be on U.S. soccer as young Mexican-Americans continue to find opportunities south of the border? By Mike Woitalla (Soccer America Magazine, May 2008) Read more...
April 24, 2008
Measuring Youth Development Progress
MLS expansion challenges American youth soccer to produce exceptional players at a higher rate. By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine, March, 2007 issue) Major League Soccer, aware that it must raise the caliber of its play as it enters its 13th year with 14 teams, increased the limit of foreign players allowed on each team's roster to eight.
March 12, 2008
Tackling Pay-to-Play
Lifting the cost burden off players remains the big challenge for elite youth clubs. By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer Magazine, February, 2008 issue). Read more...
February 25, 2008
A Different Approach
A replica of the French federation's youth development program may not be feasible in the USA, but some key aspects of the system are worth considering. By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer Magazine, February, 2008 issue). Read more...
January 29, 2008
Total Soccer for Children
By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine, January 2008 issue) We see it so often one wonders whether American youth coaches are getting their soccer advice from Garry Kasparov. "Kids come up to the halfway line," says Sam Snow, U.S. Youth Soccer's Director of Coaching Education, "and actually balance themselves not to go past it, because they suddenly realize, 'Oh my god, there's the line that I'm not supposed to go past.' Their arms are swinging, it's almost like they're on a balance beam or something." It's a prime example of overcoaching - prevalent even though it's generally agreed that pickup games or street soccer spawned the world's greatest players. Read more...
January 09, 2008
Let them dribble
By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine's Youth Insider) It's one of the most common screams heard on the youth soccer fields of America: "Pass it! Pass it! Pass it!"
December 01, 2007
Coaching with Cones
By Mike Woitalla (Soccer America Magazine, 2002) Near my house, there's a wonderful park with two playgrounds and a pond with geese whom you shouldn't feed, because they get aggressive and chase toddlers in hopes of a handout. There's a meadow large enough to handle three soccer practices for young children. Here come the coaches and the cones. Not a few cones for goalposts, but orange funnels everywhere. What will they do with them? Read more...
November 17, 2007
Go Abroad, Young Man?
Interest from foreign clubs in teenage American players is at an all-time high and an increasing number of youngsters are considering leaving their homes to pursue their soccer dreams aboard. By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine, November 2007 issue) One day Francisco Lletget noticed something slightly odd about the way his son, Sebastian, was eating breakfast, so he approached and took a closer look. While scooping cereal into his mouth, Sebastian was tapping a soccer ball back and forth under the table.
September 28, 2007
Brilliant Brazil exposes inconvenient truth
By Mike Woitalla (from Sept. 28 SoccerAmericaDaily) Regardless of which keeper stood between the U.S. posts, what mistakes Coach Greg Ryan made or the red card to Shannon Boxx, the difference between the teams in Brazil's 4-0 rout of the USA was skill. Dribbling, trapping, shooting, passing. Brazil topped each category. And Brazil entertained.
September 25, 2007
U.S. Team Winning Games, Not Style Points
Click HERE to read my column in the New York Sun on the USA's performance at the Women's World Cup.
September 20, 2007
Why the Academy?
By Mike Woitalla (Soccer America Magazine) Whether to pursue entry into U.S. Soccer's Player Development Academy wasn't an easy choice for many of the nation's top clubs, particularly in areas like North Texas and Southern California, where clubs are already entrenched in highly competitive leagues. Don Ebert, Director of Coaching of the Irvine Strikers, explained why his club decided to enter the U.S. Soccer league for U-16 and U-18 boys. Read more...
August 23, 2007
Ignored by USA; welcomed in Mexico
Edgar Castillo, who was born and raised in the USA, debuted for the Mexican national team on Aug. 22. The 20-year-old explained why he chose to represent his ancestral country rather than the USA: "I have dual citizenship. I am a Mexican-American. And I decided to play for Mexico because the other side never called me." When Edgar was a young teen growing up in Las Cruces, N.M., his Strikers FC coach Linda Lara scraped up money to send him to ODP tryouts. She said the response she heard from ODP coaches was, "He's so small. He's so small." But Castillo, now 5-foot-9, tried out for Mexican First Division club Santos Laguna in 2005 and has been a starter since January of 2007. Still, he received no contact from the U.S. national team program. The U.S. national team fields players who are subs on their European clubs or see no league action at all. Yet its coaches don't even show interest in a Mexican First Division starter. That just doesn't make sense. (I wrote about Castillo and other Mexican-Americans heading south in the May issue of Soccer America: Young U.S. Talent Heads South).
August 17, 2007
Best Practices
By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine's Youth Insider) What's really important about the U.S. Soccer Federation's ambitious move into youth soccer isn't just the U-16 and U-18 boys leagues of its new U.S. Soccer Development Academy. Specifically, U.S. Soccer aims to have youth coaches adopt the Federation's Best Practices Player Development Guidelines.
August 16, 2007
Taming the Wild West
Creating the U.S. Soccer Development Academy is the USSF's first step in trying to take advantage of the strengths of American youth soccer while tackling its flaws. By Mike Woitalla (From Soccer America Magazine) If boys youth soccer continued along its current path, it's safe to say we'd be getting more of the same. Lots and lots of decent players, and a handful of brilliant players. Is that acceptable?
August 13, 2007
Marketing to the youth crowd
Click HERE for a piece I wrote for the Oakland Tribune on pro soccer in the San Francisco Bay Area and marketing to the youth soccer crowd.
July 27, 2007
Time for a Children's Revolt
By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America Magazine's Youth Insider) Some of the things I've heard adults yell at children at soccer games are just downright hilarious. Like the coach who yelled at a 6-year-old, "Give him a target on the flank!" Oh, how I wish the kids would start shouting back. Go ahead and give an earful right back to the loudmouths on the sideline.
July 25, 2007
A case for U.S. Soccer's 'Best Practices'
From Soccer America's "Youth Insider:" By Mike Woitalla
June 12, 2007
The Perils of Profit-Driven Coaching
Convincing parents to pay for professional coaching is like picking low-hanging fruit. So what does that mean for the children and how this country is developing players? By Mike Woitalla (From the June 2007 issue of Soccer America Magazine) The next time you attend a youth soccer practice or game, pay close attention to how much time passes without hearing at least one adult telling the children what to do and how to do it. Also, time how much actual soccer the children play during a practice session.
June 07, 2007
What the Future Holds for Youth Soccer
By Mike Woitalla (From the June issue of Soccer America Magazine) Let's look into the future of American soccer, shall we? The year is 2012. Major League Soccer had been going strong until the coaching shortage, the top guys having moved to youth soccer, because that's where the real money is. The Dallas Diaper Demons won the first Under-2 U.S. National Championship in a hard-fought victory over the Chicago Crawlers, whose star playmaker was ejected at halftime for tossing his sippy cup at the referee. "He didn't deserve more than a two-minute timeout!" complained the Chicago coach. "The cup was empty!" The Dallas coach was unavailable for comment because the Diaper Demons had to catch a flight to the West Coast, where they're competing in the College Coaches Super Showcase Invitational. But the club's director was on hand to praise the new national championship. "Without the incentive of a national crown," he said, "a lot of these kids would just keep playing rec ball. Then they arrive at our club with all sorts of bad habits that are hard to un-teach when a child is already 3 years old." In fact, there are few recreational leagues left around the country, having been replaced by Soccer Academies, Soccer Schools and Soccer Factories. The number of volunteer coaches has dwindled to 18. Some cite the new requirement of completing an 82-hour H license course to coach above the U-5 level. Others credited the demise of the volunteer coach to the good sense of parents who really care and love their children. "Parents have finally comprehended the fact that it's foolish to trust their children's soccer development to someone they're not paying lots of money," said the director of the Super Star Soccer Factory for Infants & Toddlers, one of the 191,870 professional trainer programs for kids around the nation. The impact of the booming U.S. youth soccer business has been felt globally. The migration of British coaches to the USA leaves so many UK kids un-coached that Prime Minister Richard Branson has asked the U.S. government to cap H1-B work visas. U.S. Congress responded with a curt "no way," citing a new surge in demand for coaches to fill positions in the rapidly expanding Prenatal Soccer Camp industry. (This article originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)
May 31, 2007
New USSF youth plan would decrease reliance on ODP
The U.S. Soccer Federation looks set to dramatically decrease its dependence Academy teams will play in a regionally structured national league in which the U-16 national team will compete. Goff reports that the plan, America's youth soccer landscape already includes national championships run by
May 22, 2007
The assault on free play: drills for tykes
"When play becomes beset by rules ... kids can lose their natural enthusiasm and willingness to try new things" is the response exercise physiologist Michael Bergeron gave when The Los Angeles Times asked his opinion on organized soccer programs for 3- and 4-year-olds. Reporter Jeannine Stein, who even tracked down soccer classes for 18-month-olds, noted that AYSO lowered its starting age to 4 in 2004. A Herald Community newspaper report on a "pro" coaching program for children as young as 2 quoted one of the coaches as saying, "It teaches them discipline." One mother described the lessons: "It's non-stop, they're always doing drills back and forth." -- Mike Woitalla
April 20, 2007
Do we want Robinhos or Robots?
How over-coaching and the emphasis on winning stifle young American talent. By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine The little boy dribbled and kept dribbling. He had taken the ball away from the midfield pack and zoomed toward his own goal. This surprised the other children and allowed him to keep the ball to himself for much longer than any player had managed during this U-8 game. Having put some 15 yards between himself and the other players, he slowed down and seemed to marvel at all the territory he now had to himself. He started making a wide U-turn and flashed a big smile. He moved down the sideline and back into the other team's half, then put his foot on the ball and stopped. When a couple of his little opponents approached, he accelerated toward their goal and took a shot that nearly scored. What creativity, improvisation and savvy! And in his smile was the joy of soccer. So how did his coach react? Read more...
April 19, 2007
Money Ball
The rise of paid coaches is just one reason why it commonly costs an American child thousands of dollars a year. By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine There are a lot of ways to spend lots of money on youth soccer. You can send your 3-year-old to soccer ''classes'' for $30 a session -- if they don't conflict with his Ring Around the Rosey and Duck Duck Goose lessons. For $75 an hour, a coach with licenses from three different countries can teach your 8-year-old ''technical ball skills in a nurturing one-on-one environment'' at a park near your home. Got a spare $180? Hire a ''fully qualified coach'' to come to your kid's soccer game and produce a thorough evaluation of her talent. Parents can eschew such expenses and kick the ball around in the backyard with their children. But other costs are unavoidable for the parents of children involved in competitive youth soccer. Elite soccer clubs charge as much as $2,000 just to cover coaches' salaries and the club's overhead costs. On top of that are uniform and travel costs, and league registration fees. A typical annual expense for a 13-year-old playing for an ambitious travel team is about $3,500. Read more...
April 17, 2007
Where Are America's Black Coaches?
By Mike Woitalla (From the April 2007 issue of Soccer America Magazine) LEADERS OF THE NSCAA Black Soccer Coaches Committee hail the increase of black players in mainstream American soccer -- but now await an increase in opportunities for black coaches. Hylton Dayes, the chairman of the BSCC, is the head coach of the University of Cincinnati and a Region II ODP coach.
April 03, 2007
MLS YOUTH INITIATIVE: Innovation or Replication?
The USA, with its ever-changing demographics, is too big and too diverse to believe the current system can uncover all the soccer talent. ... So does MLS's Youth Development Initiative signal the great new era of American soccer? Read Mike Woitalla's Soccer America Magazine article HERE!
March 29, 2007
Youth Soccer Turf War
By Mike Woitalla Do players benefit when an increasing number of organizations compete for a piece of the American youth soccer pie?
March 24, 2007
Remember, It's Playtime
Taking the drilling and screaming out of youth soccer will make the game more enjoyable and create better players. By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine Let's take the approach so many adults bring to youth soccer to other children's activities. Take a bunch of 6-year-olds to the playground, but don't let them scamper off to explore the different structures. Make them all line up and wait patiently to take turns on the monkey bars. If one of them wanders off toward the swings, scream at him. Be sure to tell them exactly how they should climb. Yell at the slow ones to go faster. While they're hanging from a bar, shout at them to ''grab the next bar!''
March 20, 2007
The Fruits and Flaws of ODP
By Mike Woitalla Nearly three decades since the creation of the Olympic Development Program, the question remains: Are we finding the best players that this huge nation has to offer? Read more...Copyright © 2007 -- Mike Woitalla
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CATEGORIES
Coaching and Player Tips
Commentary Further Reading Health & Fitness In The News Profiles When They Were Children Words of Wisdom Youth Development BEST OF YSF
Remember, It's Playtime
Do We Want Robinhos or Robots? Time for a Children's Revolt What the Future Holds for Youth Soccer RECENT POSTS
How the screaming hurts
Youth Beat: U.S. mix better than ever Pros and cons of the southward pipeline Measuring Youth Development Progress Tackling Pay-to-Play A Different Approach Total Soccer for Children Let them dribble Coaching with Cones Go Abroad, Young Man? ARCHIVES
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