Originally Posted by
lardy
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.