There is an “I” in Team - The Rise of Individual Training

Since becoming a collegiate coach, I have realized that beyond the traditional and non-traditional seasons it is REALLY hard for some of my student-athletes to improve their individual soccer abilities. There are a few obvious reasons, such as academic responsibilities, transitioning between life stages, and navigating new social discoveries and distractions. However, I believe the largest barrier to personal development is that many soccer players simply don’t know HOW to train “intentionally” on their own or with a partner. As a strength coach, I can’t emphasize enough the tremendous value in athletes purposefully utilizing any spare time they may have in the weight room. Athletes committing time and energy off the field will certainly be rewarded for their efforts on the field with elevated performance.  
 
Enhancing one’s performance is difficult. Development at the “next level” is even more challenging. Young athletes must transition from year-round high school and club soccer programs to a condensed, competitive, and arduous collegiate schedule. Moreover, much of their skill development and conditioning must be pursued independently. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has strict regulations. Depending on the conference, some coaches are fortunate enough to work with their players for 5 weeks in the spring. Even with this team sanctioned time, student-athletes are still expected to commit significant individual time to improvement. Maybe the most demanding aspect of being a college student-athlete is the dreaded solo training expectations over the summer. For some, they no longer have access to their former club teams due to a lack of resources, money, teammates, or facilities near their home. As a result, summer training is often an individual pursuit. This requires athletes to be motivated, disciplined, and consistent. Coaches covet players who embody these “self-starter” intangibles and innate driving desire to be the best they can possibly be. Other Character traits such as a desire to improve, passion for the game, and competitive nature are also vital to performance. What really separates the good from the great though, is combining these immeasurable intangibles with more tangible strength and conditioning and individual ball work. Elite athletes today are not dependent upon simply skill, but rather the holistic preparation that allows them to excel.  
 
Youth soccer in America: This way or the highway
 
As a coach, trainer, and conductor of soccer practices, very few of my sessions have involved less than eight athletes, with the exception of goalkeeper training. Most of the training I have delivered at the youth level has been in an age-appropriate team (as opposed to bio-banding) environment ranging from 8-25 players all trying to find space in a small school gymnasium. It is no wonder then, that when I advise my collegiate athletes to find meaningful ways to train on their own or with a partner that they look at me in astonishment. This is unfamiliar territory for them. Hardly any of them have ever had to train individually or in small groups before.
 
It wasn’t until the Winter of 2018 that I decided to develop my own training philosophy and tailor a part of it towards a more individualized curriculum. During this period of reflection, I began to fully comprehend the structure and environment that was needed to make individuals successful outside of their typical team practice environment. In order to build such a curriculum I studied the interweb, watched Youtube and Instagram videos, sourced old DVD’s, and read various related articles. Then, I picked up a ball to first actively teach myself. That was when I decided to trial and test the implementation of the Coerver Coaching Methodology with my college team in the Spring of 2019. I believe that many of the individual training concepts were born from the Coerver Pyramid. The issue I have with is that this type of training is that is needs to be implemented from an earlier age, and the initial Ball Mastery and Ball Manipulation was somewhat stagnant - meaning that playing soccer without thinking is like shooting without aiming. Relative to my experiences as a youth soccer player on the streets of London, I feel there are less structured and more efficient ways to incorporate skill work which also permits the learner more joy when creating stimulation through the essence of free play. The notion of play and skill development being interconnected doesn’t necessarily seem to be a shared ideology among parents and players. They want the fancy uniforms, the gimmicks, the profile photo card with the ball under the arm, heck they even want a treadmill with a hazardous cone regime plastered all over it because it’s bigger, fancier and stupider if you ask me. Yet not many can see the value of their son/daughter practicing their skill work at speed, with constant change of direction, through varying planes, with one foot or two feet, 1v1’s, 1v2’s, 2v2’s; receiving angles because it looks repetitive, too random to them and there are no goals being scored. Skills work is the growth mindset of soccer training. It requires both creativity and consistency. Lastly, skills work tends to focus on dealing with the demands of the environment and letting that be the teacher. However, there seems to be this theory that if the coach isn’t talking then my kid isn’t learning. Us educators know that the more good coaches know, the less they speak and the more the athletes do.
 
“Youth Players have to become experts in 11v11. It is the INDIVIDUAL development to become the best possible TEAM player” - Raymond Verheijen
 
There are a few possible reasons as to why parents have this train of thought when it comes to youth sports. I have tried to debunk a few of these myths below:

1. My kids the best athlete: I recently watched film of the highest level of play in girl’s youth soccer in America. A Development Academy (DA) game between two good club teams. The recruit who wrote me was evidently a strong center-back who loved to showcase her physicality. Within 5 minutes of watching I was immediately turned off by two things:

1. The player’s sole focus was to win the ball back no matter what and had no regard for her teammates or the opposition whilst doing so. This player was reckless, uncoordinated, and gave up three free-kicks in dangerous areas just outside her 18 yard box. How she didn’t get carded, I’ll never know. We all love fierce playing athletes but not catastrophic shin-wreckers who will cough up a PK or worse get sent off and cause us to play a man down simply because the player wants to demonstrate her brute force.
2. This player wasn’t particularly skillful and kept hitting the ball long which often resulted in her team having to defend in back-to-back phases of play. This puts a team under tremendous pressure. I understand that not every team needs or wants to play out of the back, my issue with this type of play is that this young woman’s chances of becoming a dynamic player or having the option of potentially playing other positions at the next level are slim.

 
In order to create intelligent soccer players in this scenario, we must do better as coaches and parents at the individual level to encourage players to stay on their feet, to use good positioning, turn efficiently and create supporting angles with teammates. Tackling is a last resort not a first. Yes, this player illustrates bravery, courage, and a determination to get the ball. However, the risk/reward paradigm is not in her favor. A defender’s first objective is to slow the play down and prevent the ball from going forward. Both of which can be mastered through sound positional play and field, teammate, and opposition awareness.

2. Being on a winning team = my daughter is progressing: In England, you are either on the A team, B Team, C Team, or D Team. I understand that culturally we’re a bit rougher around the edges and tell it how it is but at least we’re not set up to believe in falsehoods. In America, you are either on the Super-Super Elite Team, Super Elite Team, Elite Team, Almost Elite Team, or Elite Team. Youth soccer organizations will do anything to make parents feel as though their child is on the best team ever. Then when these young men and women reach college, we can’t seem to fathom that $10k p/year later, Johnny and Suzie can’t get a rotation onto the field of play. Truth be told, clubs need to fill positions. Just because your son/daughter is on a good team does not mean that she herself is guaranteed playing time at the next level. Players hide. All the more reason that players need to do the extra work outside of team training to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.    

3. Team environments don’t always tailor to the individual needs: Parents assume that within a typical 60-minute training session that their son/daughter is going to get the attention they desire (or paid for) from the coach. “Differentiation” is a term that is widely used to describe a method for catering to individual needs within a large group. This was something I learned about as a teacher back in England, however, still to this day it is one of the hardest things to plan and implement in a lesson or session. Even if coaches don’t want to admit it, every coach knows which kids they didn’t get around to working with during a session. I’d take an educated guess and say that coaches tend to work with the top and bottom groups a lot more but not so much time is spent with the middle group who often times represents the largest pool of kids.  

4. Active participation: “You cannot change what you don’t manage; you cannot manage what you don’t track.” – Valentino Crawford  

Since the inclusion of heart-rate monitors in our college program we have been able to track many modalities including Active Participation (AP), which is an accountability tool for players and coaches alike. Thanks to Beyond Pulse, one of the few wearable technologies out there that tracks AP, we have been blown away by how common it is to see AP rates roam below the 50% mark. As you will see at the bottom of this post, at an elite level event in Figure 1 you can see the results of a typical team training session for 60 minutes. Figure 2 illustrates almost two times the increase in output. This can largely be attributed to the second coach being very familiar with Beyond Pulse. He is the DOC of his club who’s 800+ members all use these heart-rate monitors. As a consequence of this data, this particular DOC has created a rule that all of his coaches must be hitting 65% + Active Participation within their sessions. Which means, as mentioned above, requires less coach intervention and more exercises that keep the player engaged and moving.
 
 
 
 "What we have discovered is that a key factor for an effective transfer from the training environment to reality is that the training program ensures 'Cognitive Fidelity', this is, it should faithfully represent the mental demands that happen in the real world.” - Daniel Gopher


​5. Maturation: What would have happened to the likes of Hope Solo, Tom Brady, and J.K Rowling if they weren’t permitted an opportunity to bloom much later than some of their peers? As aforementioned, “Bio-banding” allows players to compete with those who are at a similar physical and technical level as them. Age-group training sessions mean well but pigeonhole young players early on in their career. Additionally, it allows for players to bloom more organically as their bodies evolve.  
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“Bio-banding is the process of grouping athletes based on attributes associated with growth and maturation, rather than chronological age (e.g. under-15s)” [1]. Advocates of bio-banding state that restricting the differences associated with maturity variance (e.g. size, strength, and skill) will result in greater equality in training and competition and could potentially help reduce the risk of injury among young athletes [2].”
 
It is my hope after reading this post, you will see the value of team-based sports focusing on individual development and the need for players to be accountable for their “I” in team. Practice makes permanent. Deliberate practice is hard and challenging, but players will reap rewards if they can be patient and committed to the learning process. Afterall, there’s a reason why it takes roughly 4 years to graduate college. Anything worth having requires time, energy, and effort. Parents can contribute to this process by putting less pressure on their children. Coaches can assist players by adopting more of a growth mindset as opposed to one that is fixated on the scoreboard. The current instant gratification culture often results in student-athletes feeling frustrated and burdened by outcomes. The most elite athletes take ownership over their individual development. They recognize that skill development, mental preparation, and strength and conditioning must be an independent pursuit. One that will certainly contribute to individual and team success.