Can the U.S. produce the next crop of world class soccer players? The business of player development in America.

The business of developing youth soccer players is BOOMING. At least overseas, where most professional youth development clubs and academies are generating a profit. The youth academy at Real Madrid, for example, has reported over $170 million in revenue spread across the past four years with a profit margin hovering around an estimated 50%. Not to mention the tens of millions the academy presumably saves its First team on exorbitant transfer fees. Profit is one thing, but as an American, witnessing my country win the World Cup would be priceless!

Can we really produce players like Messi and Ronaldo? The short answer is YES, and sooner than you think. To find out how, let’s do a bit of reverse engineering starting with the best player in the world– Cristiano Ronaldo. Ok wait…to avoid the debate, let’s look at Messi too. As a youth, Messi was professionally developed at Barcelona’s famed academy- La Masia. When you think of the Barca Way, images of beautifully-sequenced passes are capped off by an elegant finish much like musical notes coming together in a symphony. Perhaps a lesser known fact about Barcelona is that, unlike most professional clubs, their patented style of play is not actually dictated by the First team; rather the Club’s methodology is established by the youth academy, and the First team is practically a by-product. It’s truly an education on fruition.

In contrast, Ronaldo’s skills were honed at Sporting Club de Portugal’s youth academy. What makes this Portuguese academy so unique is that it’s the first athletic organization in the world to become ISO9001:2008 certified. This type of certification is a Quality Management System commonly found in the business environment, and its purpose is to establish measurable processes and controls to produce predictable and repeatable outcomes. Through defined processes and identifiable metrics, Sporting sought to develop a “formula” for producing world-class soccer players. Once they established a formula, they hoped to repeat the outcome. Apparently, this strategy has paid off- Sporting are the only youth academy in the world to produce multiple ballon d’or winners (FIFA world players of the year).

The good news is that we don’t need a mass exodus of American kids heading to Spain and Portugal to become great soccer players. All the resources we need are right here at home. I’ve identified two elements American players need to become world class. The first element is basic, so let’s start there.

Element #1 - Time With the Ball

Simple enough, right? But to be clear on what we’re trying to accomplish, I’ll need to elaborate. As a devout Manchester United fan, it abhorrently pains me to say what I’m about to say, but here it goes: Pep Guardiola is the greatest manager in the world right now. Not only do his teams dominate, but they do it in the most attractive way possible. He’s a visionary who succeeds wherever he goes. When it comes to identifying talent, can you guess which player attribute Pep values far more than any other? Dribbling. Dribbling for a player is like money. It buys you time, freedom, control, self-reliance, options. You get the point. So how much time with the ball does it take to become a world-class dribbler? To find a suitable benchmark, we’ll take a page (pun-intended) from Tom Byers’ book, Football Starts at Home. Byers leverages the philosophy that it takes at least 10,000 hours to master any kind of skill- in this case, dribbling. Byers stresses the importance of starting as early as toddler years. You’ll be pleased to know that this philosophy has already reaped dividends in the form of one Christian Pulisic.

Element #2 - Video and Data Analysis

According to the Social Science Research Network, more than 2/3 of us are visual learners. That rate is presumably higher for athletes. In a land that produced the likes of Billy Beane, Jon Gruden, and Eric Spoelstra, it’s ironic that this crucial element in the development of world-class soccer players has been espoused at a slower rate compared to countries in Europe and South America. Thankfully it’s finally being adopted stateside. Video analysis is an indisputably powerful tool for enhancing a player’s decision-making capabilities. Whereas Pep Guardiola esteems dribblers, most coaches rate decision-making as the premier attribute in a player. The unfortunate reality in a player’s career is that the higher level you go, the more likely you’re going to compete for playing time. With a lack of playing time, how can these players continue to evolve? And more importantly, why should we care? In the thought-provoking book, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong, authors Chris Anderson and David Sally use in-depth statistical performance analyses from the top leagues in Europe to uncover eye-opening insights. One finding suggests that a team has a significantly better chance of winning by improving the performance of its worst player, as opposed to its best player. In other words, the bench-warmer has greater potential to positively influence a team’s performance than the super star! How can a player possibly develop when he’s riding the pine? Fortunately, tactical preparation and awareness can be developed off-field. The more a player dedicates her time studying film, situations on-field will become more predictable and less foreign; ultimately leading to a dimensional expansion of thought processes (i.e., greater creativity and fewer errors in decision-making).

To Sum Things Up

When you combine players dedicated to technical (dribbling) and tactical (video analysis) development, put them in an environment that prioritizes the syndication of individual masterclasses over winning trophies (La Masia), establish tangible metrics to measure intended and repeatable outcomes (Sporting Portugal), then you have a formula for success. To further test this strategy, I’ve recently launched an experiment with the help of a local youth academy team. The experiment is a 90-day exercise and 67 data points have been identified and monitored to track the developmental progress of all the players on the team. Within this group of players, ten have been randomly selected to receive 30-60 minutes of video analysis and feedback per week. Here’s the twist…the coach has no idea which players have been selected! Additionally, the ten selected players are also made aware of the 67 metrics we are monitoring, whereas the other players and coach remain unaware. It’s still early days, but so far, the results are astounding. If you’d like a copy of the final outcome, or the modeling used, drop me a note and I’ll be happy to share with anyone interested.

Bottom line…whether it’s the business of making a profit by developing youth players, or producing World Cup winners, the money is on the U.S.