Nebraska State Soccer director of coaching JEREMY TOSAYA says areas of the US have a problem developing creative players - and believes he knows why...
Because the United States is so big, I will focus mainly on the Great Plains region, where I have done the bulk of my teaching and coaching.
I think coaches and players here struggle with the transitional moments, but also players reading the game in general.
It has got a little bit better because of how much soccer is on TV. But I think the challenge for some of the kids that I work with is: do they watch?
As the state director, I come in and do clinics. Kids don’t even know the World Cup was this past winter, or don’t realize sometimes we have a professional men’s soccer team in Nebraska, or the closest women’s professional soccer team is down in Kansas City.
I ask, "Have you ever seen their games?", "Who’s their best player?". I try to ask those questions to engage them in watching, because you can shorten the curve on reading the game by watching the game.
But where we really struggle is with the creative player, the player that’s really special. I think part of it is because we have such structured environments for play.
Every time a player has a ball, they have to be with a coach. They have to be at practice. It has to be because your parents signed you up for it.
I don’t know what the solution to that is. I have been a part of clubs that have tried to do free-soccer Fridays, where the kids just showed up and played.
Vince Ganzburg, the national director of coaching education for United Soccer Coaches, has spent a lot of his career in high school coaching.
In the middle of practice, he will give the players 10 minutes to work on whatever they want, no coach-led stuff.
He might give them some activities to choose from, or some things to work on. But you choose, you start the activity, you work on what you want to work on.
We would set up some soccer tennis, or small-sided games, at the practice field, and if the players wanted to come early and play, they could.
"Creative players happen because they just try things out that they see on TV..."
The play-practice-play methodology by US Soccer is another one where you are trying to get players to show up and just let them play initially.
Don’t coach them. You can ask questions, and get them thinking about things, but you’re not trying to instruct them. You are not trying to put restrictions on them right away.
Just let them play, let them figure it out. I think creative players happen because they just try things out that they see on TV, when they are playing.
Our pickup sports culture is really dying out. Part of it is a reality, because of safety. It is not safe to just let your kid be at the park by themselves playing.
Can we create environments where maybe we can encourage that a little bit more? And also not punish them for mistakes, because I think that’s where we’re taking some of the creativity out of the game.
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