By Proud Dad - 20 Oct 2020 3:47 PM
"The Sky Blues’ youth setup sees players compete up an age group, and Fondyke said this move was paying dividends as his young squad overcame experienced sides to seal the title and progress to the NPL NSW Finals."
“Winning titles as a youth development coach is not my goal and shouldn’t be at any youth development level as coaches." https://www.sydneyfc.com/news/fondyke-heralds-youth-philosophy?fbclid=IwAR2x9oldc_yIDNZZ5FUTA5q2CVP-36wnetlr_mf1gmJherjttLn3m1e4fkI
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By Monoethnic Social Club - 28 Oct 2020 9:52 PM
+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+xPretty sure most AL clubs already do You'd think so but apparently not. Which ones? I believe the Roar this past season decided to play the academy teams back in their age groups after previous years of playing up an age group. Naturally enough all the academy squads have won their comps apart from the U16's who unfortunately, finished 3rd after their performance drastically plateaued towards the end of the season. It is also worth mentioning that the academy players pay no fees, thereby giving club unrestricted access to the best players, as should be the case. Strange that the new academy boss seems to have adopted the opposite approach to other clubs, for what benefit? So, do you think it wasn’t good year for BR academies then? Sure, they might of won across their age groups but they certainly didn’t dominate. In fact, in our age group I think they were lucky to win. I think it has been a competitive competition all round and it only makes it stronger for the future. Of course, It would of been different if they were flogging everybody and it’s not like they weren’t playing kids up. They were still playing kids up, just not the whole team. For me, if they were focusing on players individually like physical, mental readiness etc then that is better approach to development than just playing the whole team up. What determines a successful season for a jnr academy team? I don't think you'll get the answer for a couple of years yet. It's a shame Coffs got cancelled, it's not a bad barometer. Was just interesting to see the new philosophy this year and contrasting comments from Sydney FC, nothing else. Sorry but isn't a successful season one where your team finishes on top of the table? Is there another measure of success for a team? Yes. For development teams they should NOT focus on table position. So what would define success then? I'm baffled by this. Is this development methodology common in other sports? Do swimming coaches throw the kids in the pool and say "f%ck winning the race just as long as you don't drown" ? Sport by it's very definition is the competitive outcome of a result between two players or teams. Everything lyou do to make you competitive for that game-match-bout or whatever is just training. You’re either just baiting the conversation or you know nothing about development coaching?
The purpose of an Academy is to develop players, not win titles. The measure of an Academy should be the quality of players it develops, the number of quality players it develops, not whether it finishes 1st or not.
No need to be so condescending I have mentioned previously that I have no coaching experience. My question however still stands, you say that academy players are being developed for free by, in this case, Brisbane Roar.... Why? I assume a squad of say 23 each year "graduates" out of this system or is too old to play in the NPL setup. What happens to them? What does Brisbane get back for its investment into these players? With the average career for a professional footballer being 8 years and a squad size of say 24, theoretically on average 3 new players are required each year. Those players can be bought in or promoted from the academy. From this it is obvious that most of the players in the academy will move on elsewhere. Clubs normally run academies to find the players that will make it to the higher level. Some of the exceptional ones can make them "big" dollars by eventually selling them overseas, lesser ones they keep in house and other players they might be able to sell on to other clubs in Australia. It can be quite lucrative in a more normal league that allows transfers between clubs. Even if they are not making money out of selling on players top tier clubs have a responsibility to be developing players for the wider good of the game. " It can be quite lucrative in a more normal league that allows transfers between clubs." I agree with this that's why I am asking about their purpose here in Australia. Depending on which side of the divide your opinion sits, I believe our playing pool for the Socceroos is fairly shallow at the moment and am wondering if one of the reasons is that these players who are developed "for the good of the game" don't have any professional destinations to play for? Not asking about what happens in the rest of the world. I know why Ajax has a youth academy or why Red Star Belgrade or what La Macia is for etc etc, but why do the A-League teams? The A-League clubs run academies for the same reason as everyone else... to develop players. They obviously produce more players than they can use themselves so the extras get moved on to get picked up by clubs that are generally in the lower standard leagues like NPL1, NPL2, NPL3 etc. Not many tend to filter through in Victoria from what I can observe but ok I'll let that part slide as I'm sure it will get pounced on by the number crunchers.. So how many ifvthwirvoqn products do the actual franchise's use? No one wants to give a straight answer? Watching Marconi and now Sydney Croatia get stripped of players this week I'm wondering why they don't use their own academy players? Monoethnic social club - you make some good points. There is a big q mark around what are the major drivers that turn a good youth player into a great senior player (a-league etc). The very fact that some of the players never made an a-league academy as juniors could be the 'major driver' that turns them into great senior players. It could be the parents who make that final difference. It could be the kids best friend. It could be the kids technical coach. And yes it could be the club. All will try and claim credit and the truth is very murky. Every talent id person in the world is trying to figure this out. West Hams Mikael Antonio got rejected from every second rate academy in England and had to come up through the amateur leagues. Personally I think being at an a-league academy is preferred but the kid, the coaches, the parents shouldn't be complacent. Its not enough. BTW I also agree with you that A-league academies should be aiming to win. Yes they need to develop players but unless they have clear metrics as to what this means (develop players) its a bit fuzzy. Sounds like a good excuse for mediocre performances. If the metric is 'players that graduate from u19's to senior football' - are they really sure they can claim that if they signed the player at 18 years of age? The only metric that counts in football is winning....give me another one and ill mount an argument why its fluff... It is anything but fuzzy. There are clear measurements you can put on individual players from month to month that will determine their development progress .... none of which are related to ladder position.
If an Academy sides aim “is to win” then you recruit, select and retain players to win games. Even if you know a player isn’t going to be good enough in a few years time you keep them, because they help you win this weekend.
Winning games is not wrong for an Academy team (by definition it should consist of good players and therefore should win plenty of games) but winning games is not the right measure for development and is contrary to (pretty much) all coaching wisdom
But doesn't the "performance" for lack of a better word of the academy or club affect its reputation and standing up against any other competing academies if nothing else. What you describe is fine as the function of a federation run academy run for the benefit of creating players for the national team and the pro division in general however club academies not caring about the table would only still attract the best talent if they where the only academies with a direct link to pro soccer.... oh f#ck now I get it.....
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