its a good read...........
“The soccer of the past we have to respect, the soccer of today we must study, and the
soccer of the future we should anticipate.†Bora Milutinovic
Neil Postman, a professor of sociology at the University of New York, states in
his well-known book The Extinction of Childhood (1992) that modern society often does
not allow children to distinguish their mode of living from that of adults. “They are
eating the same food; they are watching the same television programs, commit crimes
like adults, take alcohol at an early age as well as drugs, etc.†He further states, “The
world of labor is also getting out of control. Girls between 12 and 17 years of age are,
today, among the world's best-paid models, and there are children that, at the age of 8, are
already multimillionaires (e.g., actors or pop stars). It is impossible that these children
are behaving and will behave in the future as normal children would. . . .†According to
Postman, it's very dangerous when society does not notice much difference between the
world of children and that of adults. He believes that children must discover the
mysteries of life slowly and step by step, always in accordance with their mental stage
and their present capacities.
The environment that children move and play in today has suffered an enormous
transformation from nature to “urban jungle.†This development has denied children the
chance to learn from and follow nature. Instead they are more often forced to move
“against their own nature†(e.g., to cross the road only when there is a zebra path or play
computer games instead of outdoor games in fresh air). Since children have lost the
natural setting, which influenced the education and development of their parents and
grandparents, they should be given modern surroundings for learning and gaining
experience on their own that can replace the former ones. This is why having organized
sports in schools and clubs is so important for the quality of life of our youth!
Our world of soccer reflects the current situation. Instead of children being able
to practice their particular games, as in the past, in the streets or other natural settings, the
increasing urbanization of the landscape does not allow most of them to make use of the
natural surroundings that their grandparents had for play.
Besides having to play the game far away from their homes, in our advanced
society young boys and girls—in many clubs and schools—are exposed to rigid training
methods and competitions. These old-fashioned methods and competitions in no way
respect the laws of nature or the children’s actual mental and physical capacities.
Everywhere children are obliged to train and compete like adults, forced to adapt
to rules originally intended for adults. The rush to introduce talented youth to the adult
game has frequently resulted in their acquiring bad habits that later limit their
performance on our senior teams. Children should take part in games that are specially
designed for their age, rather than being rushed into the complex adult game.
We know that when an institution organizes a competition, it determines to a high
degree the objectives, contents, and methods of the children's training and learning
process. That means that if the structure of the competition (11-a-side game) is wrong,
the way the coach trains them must also be incorrect.
Experience shows that coaches of young players are seen positively by the parents
and club officials only when the kids demonstrate success or winning. But to achieve this
kind of success in the traditional competition, the coaches must train them in a very
similar way to the adults, with more or less the same contents and methods.
Beginners in such a system are obliged to compete every weekend in a match
where success is conditioned mainly by one specific skill (the long pass) and often by
destructive or negative tactics. This forces the coaches, in the limited available practice
time (generally 3 hours a week), to concentrate almost exclusively on match-winning
aspects. They are afraid to "waste time" in developing the children at the initial stage
through a wide range of physical activities and problem-solving situations. But it is only
in this systematic way that a sound level of coordination and conditioning capacities can
be acquired. And these, as we all well know, are indispensable for the further
improvement of young players’ performance.
Although all sport scientists agree on this developmental model, few sports
federations are making use of the important recommendations these professionals make.
Instead of copying nature and patiently developing all the necessary capacities, through
training and competitions (Mini Soccer, 7-a-side Soccer and 8-a-side Soccer) tailored to
the children's capacities, many coaches of young players still force them to play like
clones of an adult.
Modifying Postman’s words slightly we might affirm the statement, “Once we
give the children access to the forbidden fruit of adult information [competition], we
expel them from the garden of infancy.†It does seem as though, in many parts of the
world, there are too many teachers and coaches of young soccer players still living in the
Middle Ages. Why call it that? In the Middle Ages society knew only infants and adults.
By six or seven years of age, a person was already considered adult because he
participated in adult activities: the child worked, ate, dressed, and behaved as an adult.
For how long can we allow the ignorance of these coaches and administrators to continue
to obstruct the natural development of the next generation of soccer players?
“The best advice I could give to young players is to make use of every minute and don’t
hide in a box that others have constructed for them.â€
Michael Jordan
Horst Wein
Permanent assessor of the United Nations for the world-wide project of Soccer Schools.
Taking Soccer Into the Future
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