Ajax

[thehumblegringo]

Generally agree with your post but not sure about this. There's nothing wrong with competitive football at a young age as it encourages motivation but concluding that teams who win these tournaments must have a very strong set of promising players is what leads to bafflement at the lack of progress when they're at the age to turn pro.

If two U11 teams went into a tournament, one trying to win it and one trying to work towards very good 16 year olds, then I'd strongly fancy the former to progress further. But do you judge the two teams at this stage and say that the former team have a good record? If they're not doing what they actually need to do, which is produce good pros, then it's a smokescreen.

Perhaps it's easy to say "but they were doing so well" because there are medals but the cracks are hidden underneath the wallpaper. I'm not saying this is certainly the case at City but I would say it's easy to look in the wrong place for the breakdown.

My personal take is that it's easier to teach a 14 year old what to do in a game than it is to teach them excellent ball skills, so it's the ball skills that should be a priority at a younger age.

Maybe I'm interpreting what Bob was saying wrong but in the article Lawrence Hallett seems to imply that there is room for competitive games alongside the learning process.

I 100% concur with this as in my experience the winning mentality is often missing from academy football at the expense of "tekkers"

What we don't want is the coaches adopting a win at all cost mentality but i don't think there's a problem in giving the kids an individual will to win.

The emphasis in our Academy has changed 180 degrees in the past year, especially at the younger ages.

A year ago the emphasis was completely on 1v1 domination whereas now the emphasis is on pass and move.

I haven't got any idea which one is right and which one is wrong and i suppose time will tell. Maybe both are right depending on the individual?