By Damo Baresi - 3 Jul 2018 9:05 PM
Australia is producing 'robots', says youth guru Smith
BY DAVE LEWIS
AIS Youth coaching kingpin Ron Smith, the man who nurtured golden generation stars like Mark Viduka, Vince Grella, Craig Moore and Lucas Neill, has added fuel to the furnace of the Socceroos’ FIFA World Cup exit by claiming the country’s development systems produce “robots” high on energy but short of goalscoring technique.
With the recriminations over Australia’s impotence in the final third in Russia raging, the former chief of the now defunct Canberra-based AIS finishing school for budding Socceroos insists an "obsession" with producing players "who run about like lunatics" in adherence to a methodology put in place by Dutchman Han Berger during his five-year reign as the FFA’s technical director from 2009-2014 is partly to blame for what ails Australia.
Famously hailed by the legendary Viduka as the best equipped coach to lead Australia, Smith believes a lack of focus on encouraging individual technique and a return to a landscape which sees youngsters playing the game at a competitive level for only six months each year have also contributed to a vacuum in the production of top-tier talent.
"Are we looking for strikers who are like Olympic athletes and can do shuttle runs ad-nauseam but may not be able to score goals?” Smith said.
"If someone else pops up do we just go ‘oh no he’s not going to fit the mould’.
"I’ve always been about tailoring the team’s playing style around the quality of the players. Right now in Australia we have people chasing the ball and running around like lunatics.
"We’re more concerned with that than we are about nurturing people who can put the ball in the net.
"The mentality is ‘yes, he can score a goal but he can’t chase people around all day, so I’m not even going to have a look at him’.
"That attitude that emanates all the way down to the junior teams. Why can’t we develop flexible players and allow our coaches to be flexible in their thinking. People are obsessed with systems.
"I’m beginning to hate that word. I’m sick of hearing it. Everybody has one but they never say what it is."
The AIS Centre of Excellence, under Smith and his predecessor Steve O’Connor, also produced Mark Bresciano, Brett Emerton and Mile Sterjovski, plus the likes of Ned Zelic before that.
It was closed in an FFA cost cutting measure last year.
Smith, 67, traces the beginning of the end of Australia’s ability to harbinger intuitive players of the ilk of Viduka and fellow great Harry Kewell to the arrival of Berger and his Dutch coaching manuals.
"When he rode into town he virtually kicked out everything that had been the standard procedure before," Smith said.
"What was implemented was a system where you blow a whistle and players all run to their starting positions like robots.
"It was the complete opposite to the philosophy that had been in place for 25 years, which was about developing individuals within the team structure.
"Decision-making was at the crux of everything. Players had the freedom to do pretty much what they wanted but within the realms of the structure.
"There was a consistent message from the state institutes up to the AIS.
"All the advances we made were just thrown out of the window. Culturally there was a mismatch.
"I tried to educate Han Berger on what had gone before but he never listened to a word I said," added Smith, at the time an analyst within the Socceroos set-up following his departure from the AIS.
"It was a case of ‘you’re going to have this, whether you need it or want it because I have it in my manual’."
The advent of the A-League in 2005 also played a part in the suffocation of the talent pathways, with Smith explaining: "Between 1992 and 2005 we had the opportunity for kids to virtually train and play all year around. All the NSL clubs had a youth teams.
"But that ended with the A-League and from that point on kids put their boots away and went surfing.
"So we went back to what we used to refer to as a six-month mentality - that was the situation in the 1970s when we all played in the winter.
"It’s hard to compete on the world level when you’re only training and playing six months of the year because nobody else does that.
"If you’re a national youth coach now and you want to find players it’s like a dogs breakfast. There’s nothing in place.
"There’s also not the same dedication to go out and play for the love of the game as there used to be ... kids just have too many other distractions."
Smith describes Daniel Arzani - an uncut Socceroos gem who began his football education on the streets of Iran - as "a breath of fresh air".
"But why aren’t there more like him?" he added.
"I think it’s because there is zero emphasis on teaching technique in our coaching programs and I don’t believe kids just become great technicians just through playing the game.
"At some stage you need to be able to refine technique. That requires a fair amount of ability from the coach; you don’t just inhale that through the atmosphere."
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By Arthur - 9 Jul 2018 10:21 AM
+xThis is from the Belgium Director of coaching 4. GIVING PLAYERS FREEDOMWhen I started playing football, 45 years ago, it was on the streets. Often I'll ask coaches “who played street soccer?” There was no referee, so you could try anything, and there was no coach, so there was freedom. If you want creative players, you must create an environment of freedom. That means a coach who observes, who is there as a guide, who will help them reach their destination, but not a PlayStation coach, who says, "do this, do that," who makes the decisions instead of them.Create the environment, free them and help only if it's necessary. Let the kids discover – they are more intelligent than you think they are. https://trainingground.guru/articles/coaching-revolution-that-took-belgium-to-top-of-world1. PLAYER-CENTRED APPROACHOne of the main principles is that the main actor is the player; not the coach, not the team. Then it’s very easy to understand that in children’s football we have to do what they like. We call it the tailor-made approach. Who is in front of me? Look at the characteristics of the player and then adapt the environment to fit them.2. SMALL-SIDED GAMESKids want to play football in their own way, not the way adults want to play. If you put a child on an adult’s bicycle, they’ll say, "are you crazy?" But this is what happens in football, we ask them to play 11 v 11 or 8 v 8 at a very young age. They are not able to do it.
As a child, how did you start playing? In my case, it was with my brother, playing 1 v 1 at home, in the garden, in the garage, dribbling and scoring.We created a format that is tailor made for this. We put one player in the goal and one on the pitch and at five, six years old, they play 1 v 1 with the goalkeeper and they adore it. They have a lot of touches, a lot of scoring opportunities. It’s all about that fun environment and fun means scoring goals.They play two halves of three minutes, then they go to the next pitch. The winner goes to the left and the loser to the right. After one or two games they’ll be playing against a similar level of opponent and everyone scores goals, everyone wins games, which makes it fun.I remember at my home club, some of the parents said: “Kris, you’re crazy. What are you doing? Football is a collective game and you’re making them play 1 v 1 and a goalkeeper.”I said: “Yes, football is a collective game – but only when they are teenagers and adults." When they are five years old, they don’t want to pass the ball, they just want to dribble and score.We used to play 5 v 5 at six years old and had a big problem, because there was only one ball and some players never had a touch of it. After a few weeks, they'd say, “I don’t like it, it’s not fun.”Under-14 is when they will first play 11 v 11 with us.3. MULTIMOVEThis is an amazing project funded by the Flemish government. It is about basic motor skills - teaching them to move and preparing them for choosing a sport when they are older. That is an approach we wanted to focus on more and more - making children active in several sports and at a later age they can decide if they prefer basketball or football or whatever. That is very important.
Parents tend to look with the glasses of adults. They say: “I want my child to play football. Now I’m seeing him catching balloons.” But you have to start with the basics. If they are not able to master these, then they cannot go into complex situations. Then they will stop loving football.4. GIVING PLAYERS FREEDOMWhen I started playing football, 45 years ago, it was on the streets. Often I'll ask coaches “who played street soccer?” There was no referee, so you could try anything, and there was no coach, so there was freedom.If you want creative players, you must create an environment of freedom. That means a coach who observes, who is there as a guide, who will help them reach their destination, but not a PlayStation coach, who says, "do this, do that," who makes the decisions instead of them.Create the environment, free them and help only if it's necessary. Let the kids discover – they are more intelligent than you think they are.5. GAME-BASED PRACTICEFootball is complex and it is a decision-making process. Young players must be in an environment of making decisions by themselves. Once the game starts, the coach is out. The player has to read the game, makes the decisions.In training, this is what you have to simulate – real game-based situations where they can make decisions, read the game and learn from it. This is very, very important.They have to learn to be aware of space and time. In football you have opponents. You might want to do a passing and shooting drill as a warm-up, but then you have to go into situations where the players are aware of the opponent and are thinking "how can I create space for myself?"All these things you can only learn in game situations. When I was a young boy and we had to pass from one cone to another in training. It was so boring. We used to say: “Coach, when are we going to play a game?”He'd say: “If you do well, we’ll play a game at the end of the session.”
 READ MORE: Meulensteen - how to develop a gem like RashfordWe have changed this completely. One of my slogans to coaches is “make your players love the game.” After that, you can help them learn the game. They love the game through maximising game situations.
6. WINNING DOESN'T MATTERWe don’t have league tables until the Under-14 level. That was one of the big battles for us. Coaches shouldn’t be concerned about tables and trying to win trophies before this age - they should be thinking about developing players.Coaches are inclined to focus on winning the game. That makes them play the big, strong players who give them the best chance of winning, so the late developers end up on the bench 75% of the time.The second thing we did was play four quarters. At the end of the first and third quarters all the subs had to come off the bench. That was the only time the coach could make substitutions. Otherwise they don’t develop, because they’re on the bench watching the game instead of participating in it.Remember that slogan again – love the game, then the learning can start.7. LOOK AFTER THE LATE DEVELOPERSLate developers will go one year lower if they need to. Then they can play in an equal battle and show their skills. If you don't do this, you can lose some big talents who are late maturers. Nacer Chadli, Dries Mertens, Kevin De Bruyne – they were all late maturers.In fact Kevin did not appear for the national team until the Under-19s - now he is considered the best player in the Premier League!
In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona are really focussing on late developers, because they are aware of what they can do. If you give them the time to grow, they can develop into a Messi or an Iniesta!These are the players who have really developed their brain, the intelligence and this is what modern football is – reading the game and making quick decisions, being able to execute what you have in your mind.For latest updates, follow us on Twitter at @ground_guru
Here's the problem; We know this!!!
All that has been said by this TD from Belgium is common knowledge in Australian Sporting circles. Check out the Australian Sports Commission or books on Physical Education or Sports Science.
The problem for everyone in the First World is implementation and political will.
The politicians want to give AFL $250Million and a Tassie AFL team $25Million.
All I see is 275 Sports centres in Victoria and Tasmania that are a social, cultural and community game changers.
Our sporting bodies spend most of their resources on their elite levels to the detriment of grassroots.
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