Evaluation of youth soccer players
Evaluating youth soccer players, whether for a draft or to determine positions, is one of the most important yet underperformed tasks of many youth soccer coaches. Too often a player is assigned a position because it “looks like” the position without regard to the skills required for that specific position. Oftentimes, kids who look like soccer players or are the kids of coaches are given preferential treatment and selected for positions of “skill” or glory. Another mistake many youth soccer coaches make is that they assess children’s abilities in a way that has little or no correlation to what are actually critical success factors for performing well on the soccer field. Too often, a player is assigned a position based on just one required attribute of that position without taking into account the totality of skills required to fill the position.
i made the same mistake
The end result is that you often have youth soccer teams that don’t perform anywhere near the potential of the aggregate group. Quite often when I’m asked to come in and troubleshoot teams that play poorly, have kids in the wrong positions and disparities in players are obvious if you know what to look for. At the beginning of my “career” as a coach, I too was taken in by the physical appearance of the players. One of my first years coaching a tough talking 10 year old showed up at our first practice, he had “the look”: Mohawk haircut, shirt sleeves ripped off, frown/I want to rip your head off, look at it to the face and was a sturdy but solid 120 lbs. Hell, he would have guessed he had a pack of cigarettes a day from the attitude he put off, we were drooling at the thought of having him play football for us. On the other hand, there was this skinny, quiet kid with a military cut, and only 8 years old, he probably weighed less than 65 pounds. He seemed like one of the kids that most coaches probably prayed NOT to understand at first sight.
Look like Tarzan, play like Jane
It turned out that the Mohawk boy was not in very good physical shape, which is not a big deal, but he was also an excuse maker. He was one of those who questioned every exercise and when he didn’t win an exercise (we do almost everything in a competition format) he had an excuse, he slipped, he started late, the other kid cheated, he had overeaten that day. On top of all that, he didn’t have very good body control. He could move pretty well in a straight line, but when he was going to do a chopping turn it was like he was trying to turn the Titanic, he couldn’t do it. His core strength was terrible and his quickness was horrible. While there are some core strengthening techniques and moves we can do to improve this, even dramatic improvements would still have this player in the bottom 20% in this critical area.
Looks like Jane, plays like Tarzan
On the other hand, the shy and scrawny 8 year old seemed natural when we did our games/exercises that revealed core strength. During the mannequin relay races, he was not only able to lift and balance the mannequin, but also ran with it, while others did a wobbly jog. During the Towel Game, he always hooks his opponents to the cone, displaying excellent leg strength, natural leverage, and heart. Even in the Sumo Game he showed excellent trunk and leg strength, tenacity and great natural leverage. The Deer Hunter game, in my opinion, is the best and most fun way to determine the “football speed” of a player. Football speed means the ability to start, stop and accelerate in tight spaces, being able to change direction and control your body to escape from the “hunters”. Our scrawny little 8-year-old excelled in this exercise, while our Mohawk was first out.
make accurate assessments
The net is that you can’t judge a book by its cover and you HAVE to measure kids to reveal their football playing skills, not how fast they can run 40 yards or how many push-ups they can do. How many times in a football game do kids actually run 40 yards? And how often is 40 times really accurate? The answer to both is rarely to never. What does a flex test? Upper body strength does little to help your linemen on their blocks; a proper block puts much more emphasis on foot speed, core and leg strength, as well as attitude and aggressiveness. Some say you can’t test hardness, resiliency, toughness or aggressiveness until kids put on the pads, that’s just not true. So according to those who believe you can’t get the kids into positions until you put the pads on them for at least a week, they are VERY late. For them it is a roll of the dice until the 2nd or 3rd week of practice. The Towel Game, Sumo Game, Dummy Relay Races, and to some extent Deer Hunter all reveal these traits without using pads.
If you are recruiting players, you have a huge advantage if you know what to look for and how to look for it. If you don’t have a draft, being able to assess kids correctly is STILL a big plus because you can assign positions sooner, put your schematics in faster, and don’t waste a lot of time switching players from one position to another. like a church cake social walk until you find the right place for the poor confused player.
making it fun
If you can make the assessment process fun for children, that’s an added bonus. The first week of practice, kids and parents are paying close attention to the fun factor and you. You can make some huge deposits into parents’ emotional bank accounts that week if you can make testing fun. We use all of the fun judging games mentioned above during my team judging and they are all in my book. I found that the drills/games are so effective that we can get the kids into the correct positions after the first practice with a 95% success rate.
The first game we are almost always significantly ahead of our competition, although we always practice less. An important factor has to be able to make accurate and effective assessment and early placement of players.
The assessment should be preceded by making sure you have very detailed descriptions of the requirements for each position on your team so you know what skills you are looking for to best fit.
The Ultra in unusual but effective exercises/assessment games
Here is a very interesting method a high school uses to evaluate their players, Rabbit Catch. Bobby Bowden even thinks there may be merit to this unique assessment practice. Think about how closely this activity reflects what successful soccer players do on the field on game days. Notice the 4 state championship rings on the hand of the high school head coach.
For those of you who are using my system, doesn’t it look a lot like our Deer Hunter game/simulation? Evaluate your players well and not only will you be way ahead of your competition, but you will also have very happy players and parents.
