I worry for the uninformed noob to our code who stroll into an internet forum and suck up rubbish presented as fact.

Thanks for the sage advice.

Arfur, I believe the only thing that this cut and paste job proves is that you are likely to get better coaching at Barca than Bankstown. We already knew that.

I wouldn't be getting so hung up on the details. mate. I's a numbers game. In a country like Spain, with a population approaching 50 million, where soccer is king (no, a religion) with no competition for the hearts and minds of the kids (other than perhaps bull fighting), their sausage factory will always churn out consistently better talent than us.

OTOH, I am confident that Australia will continue to punch out better AFL, NRL, RU and cricket players than Spain.

Capishe?

Real world hours in little old OZ.

Talented U11's player weekly schedule;

trains once per week with club team - 1.5 hours
plays once per week with club team - 1 hour
trains once (maybe twice) per week with rep team - 2 to 3 hours
plays once per week with rep team - 1 hour
trains once per week with school team - 1 hour
plays once per week with school team - 1 hour
unstructured play at school/backyard - 3 hours
extra's include futsal, trial games, private academy

Most talented kids in the elite frame have a season that lasts way beyond a six month period. But you knew all this, didn't you arfur?

On average, a young player in Spain will have enjoyed 4,880 hours contact time with an elite club such as Barcelona from the ages of nine to 21. Holland and France pour even more time into coaching youngsters, 5,940 hours and 5,740 hours respectively. An English tyro will have only 3,760.

In the 12-16 age group, English contenders are limited to five hours a week while those at Bergkamp’s Ajax have 10-12. Wonder why England struggle? Do the maths.

The Premier League is taking inspiration from the world of music and dance. At the Menuhin music school, each budding virtuoso has 10,840 hours of contact time in their development years, three times the football figure. Pupils at the Royal Ballet receive 10,000 hours’ tuition.

trains once (maybe twice) per week with rep team - 2 to 3 hours

interesting article with references to the time required to develop players.

Spain = 4,880 hours = 8 hours weekly

Holland = 5,940 hours = 10 hours weekly

France = 5,740 hours = 9 hours weekly

England = 3,760 hours = 6 hours weekly

In Australia most junior and youth teams train twice a week with a game totaling 4 hours a week.
Take into consideration that our season is much shorter than Europes our season would be 26 weeks at 4 hours equals 104 hours over 12 years 1248 hours.

Great articles Arthur,keep them coming!

No-one has been seen playing street football in any western country since about 1962....:?

The boarding school is also to get round the 1.5 hr travel time to an academy, at the moment you end up at a geographical located academy or coe, and the problem is that the smaller clubs use methods to coach players to play in the championship and not the champions league. the coe also produce alot of robots who end up average. Most top players will refer to the 'free play' as their football education and not the coaching.

I rarely see kids playing street football in Australia. The one encouraging thing is that some kids play at primary school - before school, at recess and lunch. This adds up to 5 hours a week. Notwithstanding, unless they are playing SSGs, they probably don't touch the ball anywhere enough though.

At high school that a family member attended a lot of indoor football was played at lunch time.

Now it is considered important for a player to touch the ball 600-800 times in a training session. Someone on here claimed the Dutch and French recommend 2000 touches a week for developing youth/junior players. This goes some way to redress the lack of street football.

I get players I coach to touch the ball 600 times minimum at any session. There was no recommended mandatory number of ball touches in the KNVB course I did.

Edited by Decentric: 17/2/2011 08:20:43 PM

I thought so too, was getting worried that no one else thought so.

Interesting the amount of organised hours of training there is.

While these systems cannot account for "free play" or "street soccer" hours. Even in France a lot of players come from poor immigrant communities where the kids are brought up on unorganised "street soccer" free to experiment and express themselves.

ESPNsoccernet: Europe

Wednesday, February 16, 2011Tough lessons

---

Ernst Bouwes

Last week, the continuing discussions about the pros and cons of football agents reached the Dutch parliament. Socialist MP Tjeerd van Dekken called on the sports minister to consider legislation on agents picking up under-16 players. On the Labour Party's website, he used the term "ronselen", a word equivalent in meaning to the English phrase "press gang". Van Dekken's comments were triggered by recent articles in the weekly football magazine Voetbal International. One of them carried a picture of Daan Kramp, an employee at the Forza Fides agency, taken with Nathan Ake at Chelsea FC. Fifteen-year-old Ake was at Feyenoord when he made the switch to Stamford Bridge at the start of this year. According to earlier reports in the British press, he had the choice of joining Manchester City or Chelsea. When asked for the link between the youngster and the agent by the reporters, the agency explained that Kramp is a friend of the Ake family and that they met accidentally. Kramp was in London as an advisor, while Ake was just touring the impressive stadium. Chelsea must have learned a lesson from the Gael Kakuta case: Wil van Megen, the legal councillor of international players' union FIFPro, stresses that players must not sign until their 16th birthday. "Transfers within Europe are only legal when the guy becomes 16. When the agent makes his parents sign an agreement with him, before the player signs for the club, he can take a percentage." By then, Ake is old enough to beat the '90-mile radius' restriction on Premier League clubs. Will his current club Feyenoord complain? Probably not. Van Megen assumes that the club has received a pay-off to keep silent. With Feyenoord desperately looking for income, they might be quite happy with this development. You may wonder how Chelsea were aware of a schoolboy from Rotterdam, but Ake is a Netherlands youth international. English clubs' scouts, usually ex-pros from the Eredivisie, fill the stands at every international youth game, while they also frequent the grounds on Saturday afternoons. They watch the games, and might also approach the parents of the talent they spot. And who can resist the name of a big club mentioned in the same sentence as their own boy? A handshake for them is just as official as a contract and there is little the law can do about that. Although the Minister of Sports is currently looking into the matter, it is unlikely any regulations will follow. So what happens to the talents once they are picked up by Premier League clubs? Jeffrey Bruma appeared close to becoming the most successful example. He moved from Feyenoord to Chelsea four years ago and has made some appearances in the Premier League. In August, Bruma played the full 90 minutes for Netherlands on their visit to Ukraine, after having an impressive season for the Dutch Under-21s. Last month, he started against Aston Villa. That ended in a goalfest and Bruma has been shipped to Leicester City on loan since. On top of that, Chelsea bought defender David Luiz for about €25 million from Benfica, which is not a good omen for the young Dutchman. Around the time that Bruma moved to Stamford Bridge, Arsenal picked up Nacer Barazite from Nijmegen. The supporters were stupefied to hear that Arsenal signed an NEC player. They would not recognise him if they sat next to him in the stadium. For him, it was the chance of a lifetime. What better place in England to go than to Arsenal's youth academy? After a bright start, he played a few games in the League Cup and was deemed good enough for a place on the bench in May 2008 against relegated Sunderland. Then he went on loan to Derby County in the Championship where he scored one goal in 30 appearances. The next season he hardly played and lost his place in the Dutch Under-21 squad. This year, he returned to the Netherlands to play in his hometown, Arnhem, with Vitesse. After a disappointing spell, he was sent back to Arsenal, where they also told him that he was not needed. Just before the transfer deadline, Barazite signed for Austria Vienna. Although a fine, traditional club of Mitropa Cup fame, it is hardly the place he thought he would be now after arriving at Emirates Stadium in 2006. Another one to live the dream was Jordy Brouwer, a Netherlands Under-19 international, who signed for Liverpool in January 2007. After a talk with Rafael Benitez and promises of League Cup games, Brouwer had high hopes for the next four years. He dined with Steven Gerrard, got kicked in the legs by Martin Skrtel and trained under Kenny Dalglish, who loved to put his boots on in his director days and have a practice with the kids who stuck around. And that was it. Having had occasional training sessions with the squad in his first few seasons and an unsuccessful loan spell at RKC Waalwijk, Brouwer returned at Anfield to find Gary Ablett gone and replaced by the long-ball favouring John McMahon. It was not Brouwer's preferred style. Last summer, Liverpool told him to look for another club as there was no longer a place for him, even in the reserves. After the winter break, he joined ADO Den Haag and played his first few minutes last weekend as a substitute. The money is good in the Premier League, which Brouwer readily admits, but it can stagnate a talent's career. However, staying in the Netherlands is not necessarily a guarantee to reach the top, as I mentioned in an ESPNsoccernet column some years ago. There are many pitfalls to avoid for a young player, while he and his parents have many decisions to make. Giving all their power over to an agent may not be the best road to travel, but it is understandable when parents are looking for advice. The clubs can be just as ruthless as the agents.

[size=7]Can Barcelona model solve England's talent drought?[/size]

Premier League has announced radical reforms to youth football – but are they good for the game? Glenn Moore investigates
Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Yesterday the Premier League unveiled plans for the biggest overhaul of youth development in England since Howard Wilkinson launched the academy system in 1997. The proposals, it is claimed, will increase the number and quality of English players in the top flight ultimately improving the national team. Today Greg Clarke, chairman of the Football League, will tell the Parliamentary inquiry into football governance the proposals will make it uneconomic for his clubs to develop players forcing dozens to close their centres of excellence, leave those kids who fail to make the grade isolated from their own communities, and were a "big risk" to the future of the national team. Who is right?

What is the Premier League proposing?

The most dramatic suggestion is for clubs to run their own boarding schools, imitating Barcelona's La Masia complex.


Young players, initially aged 14 and upwards, would be housed in or nearby the training ground. The Premier League agrees with theory expounded by Malcolm Gladwell that elite sportsmen need 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" to fulfil potential. This is currently impossible to achieve; even with day-release schemes from conventional schools most players only receive a third of that time. Residential centres – or agreements with nearby schools – would enable players to spend more time practising without compromising either education.

These clubs, assuming they meet other criteria in coaching standards, staffing levels, medical support and facilities, would be given Category 1 status. This is expected to cost £2.5m a season, around three times the current average level of spending on academies. At present no club in the country would achieve this status but several are working towards it.

There are three other categories. Level 2 centres will also be allowed to train boys from the age of four but will have less time with them and thus do not need to meet such strict requirements in terms of their education. Category 3 academies will not be allowed to coach players until they are 11 while category 4 will be the safety net, picking up late developers aged 16 and above.

Why does the Football League object?

Category 1 and 2 academies are required to have at least 17 full-time staff which will make it prohibitive to run for almost all clubs below Championship level (though it is believed League One Southampton hope to achieve Category 1). These clubs will become Category 3. But this means they will not be allowed to train boys until they are 11 while players can be signed at the age of nine. Which means the good ones will all be taken before Category 3 clubs can even make contact.


Anything else they are unhappy with?

At present if a Premier League club signs a boy from a Football League club and cannot agree a fee the decision is made by a tribunal. These tend to assess potential and fees can be high. The Premier League wishes to adopt Fifa's fixed compensation formula. This will have the beneficial effect of driving down prices of English players which are currently so high that clubs buy from abroad. However, it will cut income to the lower league clubs. "For many clubs it will become uneconomic to run the academies. Many will close and that cannot be good for the game," said Clarke.

The Premier League also wishes to revoke the rule which stops clubs from signing children who live more than 90 minutes away. Small clubs fear the Premier League giants will mop up all the good players across the country. The top flight argue this will not happen as clubs are limited to 30 players in each year group. They add that players will only fulfil their potential by access to top quality coaching and exposure to a similarly talented peer group. However, Clarke argues that players will "be sacrificed to the altar of football efficiency" as most of them will not make the grade. He will tell the select committee today they will not only have to suffer the blow of being rejected, they will have "given up their whole life" having spent years away from their friends only to be "dumped back on a council estate knowing nobody and with no career".

Are there any uncontentious proposals?

The plan has much to recommend it. The new structure will raise the standard of players and place a premium on coaches who may now be paid a decent salary. There will be regular auditing of academies to discover which ones have a track record of producing players, ensure staff maintain professional development, and account for the cash going into them. Players will have logbooks detailing training and injuries. There is an insistence on age-specific coaching, small coach-to-pupil ratios and regulation of scouts (to curb poaching).

Shouldn't the Football Association be doing this?

Yes. That is what happens in other countries. Wilkinson's Charter for Quality was an FA initiative but in the intervening years the governing body has suffered successive crises of leadership leaving it weak, compromised and incapable of imposing anything on the Premier League. The FA is now happy to achieve small victories such as the Premier League allowing it to run coach education. The emphasis on age-specific coaching and mandatory financial auditing are also aspects Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development, has been pressing for.


What will happen?
A compromise. The Football League will probably acquiesce if the Premier League increases its grant (subsidy), offers a more generous compensation formula, and allows those clubs currently destined to be Category 3 access to under-9s. The proposals should still produce more English footballers capable of holding down a place in a Premier League team.

On average, a young player in Spain will have enjoyed 4,880 hours contact time with an elite club such as Barcelona from the ages of nine to 21. Holland and France pour even more time into coaching youngsters, 5,940 hours and 5,740 hours respectively. An English tyro will have only 3,760.

In the 12-16 age group, English contenders are limited to five hours a week while those at Bergkamp’s Ajax have 10-12. Wonder why England struggle? Do the maths.

The Premier League is taking inspiration from the world of music and dance. At the Menuhin music school, each budding virtuoso has 10,840 hours of contact time in their development years, three times the football figure. Pupils at the Royal Ballet receive 10,000 hours’ tuition.

[size=7]Henry Winter: Premier League's elite plan radical overhaul of academy system to help top schoolboy talent[/size]

Leading Premier League clubs such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea want to replicate the hothouse intensity of the Royal Ballet School and Yehudi Menuhin Music School, even introducing a boarding-school system so they can work more closely with the nation’s most gifted schoolboys.
England are painfully behind other nations in youth development; Barcelona’s team of all the talents visit Arsenal on Wednesday with up to seven home-grown products, such as Xavi, Pedro and Andrés Iniesta, in their starting line-up.

“Barcelona can achieve a lot because they have four times as much money as our clubs because of individual TV selling rights and they can pool young talent nationally,” said Richard Scudamore, the Premier League’s chief executive, on Monday.

The second point is one he seeks to copy with the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan, which splits clubs into four categories of excellence from the 2012-13 season. This will give leading clubs, those who qualify for category one, access to the country’s top prospects and, most significantly, trebling the time spent working on their skills.

“This is a supertanker that’s very difficult to stop now,” said Scudamore of the Premier League’s blueprint for better dream factories. “It’s a strong force going in a positive direction.”

The data demands urgent action be taken.

On average, a young player in Spain will have enjoyed 4,880 hours contact time with an elite club such as Barcelona from the ages of nine to 21. Holland and France pour even more time into coaching youngsters, 5,940 hours and 5,740 hours respectively. An English tyro will have only 3,760.

Under the FA’s Charter for Quality introduced in 1997, Premier League clubs are permitted three hours’ contact time a week with nine to 11 year-olds, those progressing through what Dennis Bergkamp calls the “golden years of learning”.

In the 12-16 age group, English contenders are limited to five hours a week while those at Bergkamp’s Ajax have 10-12. Wonder why England struggle? Do the maths.

“Our boys are disadvantaged compared to European boys, where they have full-time, well paid coaches,” said the Premier League’s head of youth, Jed Roddy. “We’ve made it very easy for managers to resource their clubs from abroad.”

The Premier League is taking inspiration from the world of music and dance. At the Menuhin music school, each budding virtuoso has 10,840 hours of contact time in their development years, three times the football figure. Pupils at the Royal Ballet receive 10,000 hours’ tuition.

The supply line to England needs improving and Roddy believes that “it could be 10 years before the benefits are fully felt”. Although talents such as Jack Wilshere are emerging, the crisis in youth development is not simply related to technical deficiencies.

Some academy directors despair at the declining fitness levels of English youth, particularly in the under-resourced state sector. Everton have even begun sending coaches into primary schools.

Premier League plans coincide with a new FA coaching strategy, focusing more on small-sided games, a philosophy that the more enlightened clubs, such as United, have long advocated. The FA will help coach the coaches at their National Football Centre at Burton, so providing the elite with more specialist, age-appropriate coaches.

Most controversially, Premier League clubs have even discussed the possibility of bridging the gap between academy and first-team by fielding teams in the Football League. However, it was deemed “too radical” by Scudamore and “offensive” by Andy Williamson, the Football League’s chief operating officer.

Overall, the Premier League’s pursuit of excellence should be applauded, but the elite body must ensure the Football League is not badly damaged by what could be deemed a land grab. Upstairs must look after downstairs.

Of the 23 England players who travelled to Copenhagen last week, 13 spent part or all of their development years at Football League clubs. Two others, Wilshere (Luton Town) and David Stockdale (York City), also benefited briefly. “There’s a big risk for England if we get cut away,” said Greg Clarke, the chairman of the Football League.

Under the new Elite Player Performance Plan, some of those nurtured at Clarke’s clubs will migrate even earlier to the elite. So compensation levels must be properly weighted to safeguard smaller clubs’ survivals. “But if the player is too expensive, there’ll be an incentive to go abroad,” warned Scudamore.

Football League fears are real. Clarke hosts a series of chairman dinners with the leading lights at his 72 clubs. “They tell me the No 1 or No 2 issue is youth development and some say they can’t stay in business if it goes,” Clarke said. “We are concerned that 30 to 40 clubs would give up youth development.”

As usual in football, the tension comes down to money. “Looking at the Deloittes figures into Premier League club accounts, the amounts [on compensation] are not exactly going to break the bank,” Clarke said. “The £50 million Chelsea spent on Fernando Torres is equal to the cost of running all Football League youth development for a year – with £10 million spare.”

Clarke also pointed to the human cost. “We mustn’t screw up kids’ lives,” Clarke said. “One minute they think they are going to be the next Wayne Rooney, the next they are being released by a Premier League club and dumped back on their council estate. Let’s develop the hell out of our kids but let’s not sacrifice them on the altar of football efficiency.”

For all the sympathy with any 16 year-old released by a Premier League club, he can still rebuild his career at one of Clarke’s clubs.

English football must accept the law of the jungle if England are to become powerful again.