What's the Score?

What do results mean in youth football and do they effect the development of players?

It has been a contentious area of discussion within youth football and lots has been done to try and put the development of children at the forefront of what we do, especially within grassroots football, where scores aren't collated in the youngest age groups. In elite football whether that be the boys EPPP Academy system, or the girls Regional Talent Club, scores aren't collated at all, although girls RTC's will do at U16's. The question I ask is does this help with development of players, or does it hinder a will to win and is winning important in youth football? Scores maybe useful to tell us the overall standard of our players, for example if we're consistently losing games by double figures, then we might have to look at recruiting better player for certain age groups.

One way to instill competition in our programmes is the the Premier League, EFL festivals are one way of having competition, but still having development games, where players ILP's and team challenges, linked to current topic from the syllabus are put ahead of winning. If long term development is deemed a priority of your setting then you will recruit players that you think have the best possible chance of future success and will be able to stay in the system. How we recruit players should align itself with our philosophy and what we believe in as youth developers. Do we look for players with technical ability over physical dominance, what players have the best chance of long term success within the game? I have defiantly witnessed professional academies that have clearly selected players for the short term gain of getting results now! My question would be will these players that have gone through early maturation, but maybe lack technical ability, what will happen when the others with technical ability catch up in maturation? Will they have enough to stay in the system?

Another area to this is as we all have philosophy's that say that we will play out from the back through the thirds etc. I don't believe I've seen a single one yet that say's we'll smash the ball forward to the big man and play off him!! That said I have witnessed this within elite football, so do we live our philosophy, or do we just do what will win a game of football at U10's? It could be that coaches do this due to pressure that might be put on them, we've all had the complaint from a parent where their sons not happy as the other players aren't good enough and the team never wins! Another way we might instill competition within our settings is the use of Inter Tournaments. By having mixed age groups and a league/cup competitions that play out over the season and will instill a desire and will to win. The mixed age groups gives some excellent returns around the 4 corners, leadership skills, physical & technical challenges to name a few. Another way of doing this could be to have competitive fixtures in the season where the focus is to win the game through a scenario, such as we are in a play off final against team x. I have done this where we have given the ownership to the players, where we have asked our current leadership team to take the game and select the formation, personal. This is a great learning tool for the players and during the breaks they will have an option to change to formations etc.

For me I think the right balance would be to have a combination of development games and competitive games to give that all import variety, that our players need to learn, develop and have a hunger to win games.