Plastering over Cracks...

"U.S. Soccer introduces Bio-banding initiative!!"

The news broke last week on U.S. Soccer's official website that a new initiative was going to be introduced into the youth soccer system. "BIO-BANDING,"....despite sounding like something from a sci-fi movie, this new initiative is an attempt to develop more world class football players in the U.S. The premise behind such an initiative is actually progressive; "Bio-banding allows players to be grouped based on their maturity and biological age and not by their chronological age. By doing this, massive swings in maturity that can be seen within the current chronological groupings are removed. By grouping players based on maturity, the physical advantages that early maturing players have when playing against less mature players are reduced." Progressive indeed. We all know of someone (Maybe we were that someone) within the game who hadn’t been afforded the right amount of opportunity due to his/her lack of physical maturity during the integral stages of the player's development. Only to be discarded from their respective club/team with the unanswered questions surrounding their departure of "What if he/she was taller, stronger, faster?"

But that isn't the only reason U.S. soccer finds itself in this position, is it?

Now before I continue this blog, I must admit that my position within the sport does allow me to see some very glaring defects in this latest "youth development initiative." I will also be speaking from the perspective of someone who has witnessed two very different yet very similar youth development systems. The English Academy system and the U.S. club system. I must also add that it is not my aim to point out the obvious or discredit the move without a more practical solution. Such is the nature of social media these days, it has become much easier to disagree and fold your arms, than be active in finding a solution.

I will give you all of this!

AND...

I wasn't even going to write a single word, until... I read the quote that supplemented this article, from the U.S. Soccer High Performance Director. "It is well documented that all players will grow and develop at different rates and times within youth soccer. Despite having this knowledge, there has never been a solution to help better support the individual development needs of both early and late developing players. Finally, with bio-banding, there is a scientifically accurate, applicable and assessable way to support all clubs, coaches and players to have the optimal environment to thrive and develop irrespective of maturity level." He starts off so well!! A very clear and scientifically proven statement to support the differences in physiological development of youth soccer players. However, the next few sentences are proof that we have a serious problem in this country with regards to youth development in soccer! And don't worry the same applies to my native country as well (Just in case you thought I was picking on you). Here it is again, "There has never been a solution to help better support the individual needs of both early and late developing players."

.......I hope the technical directors at La Masia didn't read this? Or every other successful academy in the world who have continued to produce world class player's year after year for their National teams.

Just so we can be completely clear about this once and for all. The problem has never been, “he/she who physically develops quicker has a better chance of becoming a professional footballer." This is the effect of the problem not the cause! The cause is.... (Drumroll).... Coaching! Coaching development, structuring and education to be more precise. There are too few of them, too few that have the support they need, and too few that understand the holistic, complex nature of team sports. It can all be traced back to the classical thinking used by coaches to analyze sport performance in a reductive practice. Sporting performance was divided into separate areas; Fitness, technique, tactics or psychology. Each area was further subdivided according to the key performance indicators, so specific training methods were developed to improve each element in isolation and maximize the outcome in the sport. Now this can be very effective! And when applied to individual sports, even more so. But the fragmentation of knowledge into independent disciplines encourages people to be analytical, to reduce things from complex to simple, and by doing so builds its object away from its environment, putting it into a non-complex situation. The performance components were identified, isolated and disintegrated into simpler elements. Once done, it was intended that by modifying one variable at a time generic laws could be elaborated, in order to predict behaviours in future competitions. The issue is, we haven't adapted. Football has NOT been immune to this factorial tendency. Both the player and the game have been uncoupled to be studied away from their specific context. We now see this at every level of the game. From club and high school all the way through their collegiate experience.

Where do we find ourselves now? In an era where coaches have found comfort under the mechanistic conception of "Modern Football." It now seems as if, what cannot be quantified, does not exist. Here is the example I see most frequently; individual values are compared to a particular reference performance model, the coach then determines the start position of the player and identifies the final parameters to be achieved, thus the coach just needs to follow previously validated training programs to take the footballer through a closed process. A closed loop of structured direction that takes no input from the athlete nor allows room for any creativity. Similarly, and very common amongst British academy systems, performances in physical and technical tests are employed to select young players in each stage of their development through their respective age groups. But physical tests must be used as an adjacent tool to control maturity and development, not as a unique criterion to whether or not a footballer would progress into a superior standard of competition. Thus short term performances of physically mature players are placed above the long-term development of talented players who understand the game. Now, at this stage, you may bethinking,

"Isn't this supporting U.S. Soccer's Bio-banding initiative?"

The answer is YES and NO!

I completely agree with the federation's decision to take emphasis away from an inhibiting hypothesis that affects a footballer’s development prematurely. But not in this way! This is essentially plastering over a whole foundation which is cracked at its core. It should also not be read from the above that physical condition is not important in modern football. Of course, a player who possesses a superior maximal oxygen uptake, can run faster, or jump higher is better than not doing so. But by using this physical criterion as the ONLY factor that decides which age group you play in is assuming that the physical attributes of a player are the most important. If Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Aguero, and Phillip Lahm didn’t have to improve their technical proficiency, tactical understanding and cognitive processing to make up for physical deficiencies (In a Bio-banded age group) would they be the players they are today? I highly doubt it…

It is the statement that the U.S. Soccer High Performance Director uses that troubles me most! "There has never been a solution to help better support the individual needs of both early and late developing players."

There has! And it is used across the globe by the most productive academies in the most progressive footballing Nations. The problem is, it is a takes a long time to implement…and who has that?! In a society where quick results seem to take precedent over long-term development, seemingly creative initiatives will always be in vogue. They are fun, interesting and may even work a few times. The problem here is; you are dealing with human beings. The most complex animal on the planet and it is being treated like a machine, whereby its parts can be stripped down, finely tuned and thus, improved. This would great if it didn’t then have to co-ordinate, collaborate, solve problems instantly, adjust to situations, adapt to an open environment, all the while facing 11 competitors doing the same thing. Football is complex, and it must be treated and coached as a complex system. So why do we not coach it in this way? Why do we treat the sport as if it were a closed system? This is the real issue! And it is prevalent everywhere. Yet only the best teams with the best academies and club systems truly understand this concept.

What does this look like?

In answer to this question, I would like you to now visualize three specific players. Iniesta, Silva and Lahm. What makes them all unique? and how have they all played at the highest level of professional football for so long? Speed, strength, power, endurance? Although these physical capacities must be utilized in football, they are not the common denominator amongst these players. The answer is the oldest axiom in football. Decision making. The buzzword that gets thrown around but very few understand. To give it a more scientific translation, it is a player’s ability to integrate and process external and internal information, conjugating all other capacities to provide the best solution to each game-specific situation. Why does Phillip Lahm and David Silva look as if they are faster than other players? (Because if we were to measure their 40m time in comparison to other top flight players, you wouldn’t be impressed). It is because they make decisions, solve problems and act quicker than anyone else on the field. They are processing thousands of pieces of information, pulling from their data storage (past experience and learned environment), and making a decision that is the most efficient for that situation. They take a touch into space after analyzing a defender’s body position so they will not have to physically compete in a midfield challenge. They cover a defensive space before the ball has even been lost, because they know that the attacking player is taking a low percentage shot and the likelihood of a turnover will be high. They are brilliant, intelligent, and simple…! I always refer to one of my favorite quotes from Jose Mourinho when he speaks about how to develop the footballer;

“The great footballer is like the grand pianist when learning his trade. He doesn’t run around the piano without touching it, nor does he lift the piano in order to gain strength in isolation. No, he learns the piano, he learns the music, and he becomes a master at playing.”

I would like to go into even more detail with this quote and add that, the pianist also learns to cope with stress when the palms of his hands become sweaty in a crowded auditorium. The pianist adapts the notes of his melody when he does not hear the right sound. The pianist alters his technique to rouse and calm the crowd when he feels the desired reaction is not being felt. The grand pianist is a master in making decisions!! The footballer must learn the same way!…Thus the body and mind, muscle and brain, cannot be considered independently from each other in the training process. Educating/coaching is not only about developing the muscles, but habituating the brain to command the body more effectively. Therefore, it is the coaches RESPONSIBILITY to guide the training process with a focus on coordinative and cognitive capacities which support the specific skills needed for football players. Football players must be highly specialized and therefore their training process must be adapted accordingly. Another of my footballing hero’s that may be slightly unknown in his work, is the father of structured training at FC Barcelona, Seirul. Lo! He succinctly summarizes one of the biggest concerns I have with the U.S. soccer model;

“Once it was said that, first of all, we have to develop athletes and then footballers. If you develop an athlete, he will really be an athlete. The boy since the age of six has to be a footballer and has to learn football’s specific motor abilities, football’s spatial-temporal conditions, interpersonal relationships, the emotion of the game of football, the traditions and wisdom of the game of football. First developing an athlete and then changing him into a footballer is very difficult. He will never feel it as much as the first case. From the beginning he must be a footballer.”

So how is this done? How can we produce players with this problem solving capacity?

We must re-structure the coaching education process from the grassroots level. And here is the tricky part. It must be nation wide! If a country is to produce world-class footballers, the coaches that spend the time developing the players must have a unified coaching philosophy. Training physical capacities are worthless in themselves if they are not developed in interaction with coordinative and cognitive capacities. We must invest time and resources to improving the state of grassroots coaching. Show players a more well-defined pathway to the professional/collegiate level. The NCAA will also need to help with this (But that is another conversation in itself). But defining a philosophy and educating coaches on the importance of cognitive and decision making is not impossible work. Especially in a nation which has been on the forefront of progressive education in the classroom setting. Use this on the field as well! With a generation of young players who are asking more questions, and are more invested in learning processes without rigid guidelines, Why not give them more control? Because that makes us redundant? Possibly, if manifested in the wrong way. But we are trying to form a process whereby a person finds a solution to high variability of practical situations. Therefore, it is a very individual procedure and each player must assume responsibility to lead this learning process!! In a Nation where we are closer to sending humans to the live on the moon than any other, why are we trying to use old postulations from football’s by-gone era?

Creativity and Innovation is my solution. Forget trying to copy the Dutch or Spanish or German model for youth development. We need an identity! And what better way to establish this than using the abundance of creative and innovative human capital this Nation has? Regardless of footballing background. The sport needs more intelligent educators to coach more intelligent players. We must become the country who makes the learning process more human focused than any other in the world. Yes, we must coach the foundations of the sport. The technical, tactical, physical and psychological components do not lose their importance during all of this. But, can we unify the learning process in a way that makes U.S. soccer players the most intelligent in the world.

Unfortunately, I do not know what this would look like, I can just see the problem from inside the system…