CBC-Sports

Offside: Fixing Canadian soccer - Player Development

April 27, 2009 01:19 PM | Posted by   Jason de Vos  

CBC Sports soccer commentator Jason de Vos examines the state of Canadian soccer in Offside, a multi-part blog series exclusive to CBCSports.ca. This week De Vos, a former captain of the Canadian national team, takes a look at player development.

If you haven't yet read the Canadian Soccer Association's 'Wellness to World Cup' long-term player development plan, I suggest you do so. It outlines a plan to reform Canadian soccer from the house league level to the elite level.

The document is available here: Wellness to World Cup.

While the long-term player development plan makes some very good points regarding coaching and player development, many of which I agree with, it fails to put forth a structure for elite player development.

Changes to the existing structure could have a dramatic effect on our ability to produce players capable of succeeding at the international level. Our current development structure is quite poor, and reform is desperately needed in order for us to turn our fortunes around.

Here are some of my thoughts on how we can do that.

I would start by dividing each province into geographic regions. For example, Ontario has already been divided into seven regions. In each of these regions, I would implement the following:

1) A head coach with a minimum of a national "A" license.
2) Regional teams for both boys and girls at the U-10, U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18 age categories.
3) Coaches for each of these teams with a minimum of a provincial "B" license.
4) A harmonized training schedule, whereby there are no conflicts between club team and regional team. The regional team would be the equivalent of a triple "A " hockey team, and it should be an honour for a club to have a player selected to play for the regional team, not an inconvenience.

Regionalizing player development reduces the enormous financial burden on parents in outlying areas whose kids have the talent to play at the elite level.

How many NHL players come from small towns that you've never heard of? If we had a better development structure in place for soccer, as we do for hockey, perhaps we would be better equipped to spot talent and offer those players the training needed to develop that talent.

Right now in Ontario, for example, there are head coaches leading each region with qualifications ranging from a national "A" license to a provincial "B" license. Implementing the national "A" license as standard ensures that each region has a head coach with the highest coaching qualification in the country.

A part of his/her responsibility would be to work to improve the standard of coaching in his/her respective region. Mandating that all regional coaches have a minimum of a provincial "B" license ensures that the elite level players are receiving elite level coaching.

Ideally, I would like all of these coaches to have a national "A" license, but we have to walk before we can run, and we don't have enough qualified coaches to meet this need nationwide. This is also why I have begun this structure at the regional level. If we had a larger number of qualified coaches, we could extend this structure to the district level and through to the club level, thus expanding the player pool even further.

In the current development system, there is only one regional team at the U-13 age group, and they only train once per week. That simply isn't good enough.

Implementing five age groups for both boys and girls would enable all kids to have the opportunity to develop their full potential. Dictating a cut-off age of 13 at the regional level drastically reduces our pool of players, because most players will not have reached their full potential by the age of 13 and might therefore be overlooked.

Players develop at different stages of adolescence. By increasing the number of development teams at the regional level, we would increase our chances of identifying and developing talented players. It would also reduce the amount of talented players who don't get identified because they are still maturing mentally and physically.

Putting in place a harmonized training schedule would allow players to continue to play club football without interfering with the elite development program. Training one day per week at the regional level has very little effect on player development, as coaches need to spend most of their time going over the same fundamentals.

So what arguments will be put forth against making these changes to our development system?

For starters, the provincial associations will claim that they have no money to increase player development programs. This is a claim that I hear over and over again from coaches at every level. They are given little or no money to develop players and establish programs. How is our country supposed to develop players if our coaches are not given the tools with which to do so?

With so few professional clubs in Canada, the burden of player development lies with the provincial associations. Rightly or wrongly, that is the situation that we find ourselves in.

That requires a substantial financial commitment on behalf of the provincial associations.
In one of our provinces, for example, $22-$28 from every competitive player's registration fee goes to the provincial association. A very limited amount of that is making its way into the player development program.

So the question that has to be asked is: Where is all that money going, and why isn't it going to the development program? I will look at this topic in the "Who's In Charge" section of this blog series.

Another obstacle that any player development reform faces is at the club level.

The emphasis on club football in Canada is not helping us develop elite level players. Clubs are hoarding the best players in order to win leagues and tournaments, which does nothing to help those players develop their abilities.

Clubs complain of regional and provincial teams "stealing" their players, who in turn are being punished for attending those elite programs. Shouldn't the goal of the clubs be to help their players reach the elite programs, not hinder them?

The entire player development program is currently structured so as not to conflict with a player 's club commitments, when in fact it should be the other way around. Clubs should adapt their schedules to the training programs established at the regional and provincial levels. This is something that I will discuss at length in the section of this blog series entitled "Training and Competition", along with a competition structure for the regional teams.

In order for these changes to come into effect, it will take strong leadership on the part of the national and provincial associations. It will require a commitment to invest more heavily in the player development program, so that the coaches on the technical side are given the necessary tools to succeed.

We will need to improve our coaching standards across the board, and our emphasis will need to shift from playing games and tournaments at the club level, to training and improving the key fundamentals of soccer. Implementing a wider network of regional teams will allow talented players to progress from the house league level to the competitive level to the elite level.

There are many topics that I haven't had the opportunity to discuss yet. In the weeks ahead, I will attempt to address any concerns that you bring up, so that we can work together to come up with a solution to the problems we are facing.

When it comes to player development, we simply cannot afford to continue making the same mistakes over and over again. I think we all realize that change is required, and hopefully this is the start of a discussion that will help implement that change.

Here is the schedule for upcoming blog topics:
May 4 - Coaching the Coaches
May 11 - Training and Competition
May 18 - Who's in Charge?
May 25 - Getting to the World Cup

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