This is a takeoff from the discussion on the General board, but I was interested in what people thought about the specific D1 teams now that we all have seen quite a few games. My intent is not to pile on any particular team but it seems like people use different definitions of kickball. What teams play kickball versus soccer? Solar Red to me has always been the top "possession" team, but I think Texans Gall and FCD Premier have caught up or, some would say, even surpassed the Big Red Machine. FCD Blue (Che) to me seems like a kickball team -- hunker back on defense and clear it as far as you can and hope your forward can get to it. I think Forth Worth FC used to be a kickball team but looks to have improved dramatically on that front. What do those of you with more experience think?

scrdad wrote:This is a takeoff from the discussion on the General board, but I was interested in what people thought about the specific D1 teams now that we all have seen quite a few games. My intent is not to pile on any particular team but it seems like people use different definitions of kickball. What teams play kickball versus soccer? Solar Red to me has always been the top "possession" team, but I think Texans Gall and FCD Premier have caught up or, some would say, even surpassed the Big Red Machine. FCD Blue (Che) to me seems like a kickball team -- hunker back on defense and clear it as far as you can and hope your forward can get to it. I think Forth Worth FC used to be a kickball team but looks to have improved dramatically on that front. What do those of you with more experience think?

I watched 4 hours of English Premier League last week. Looked a lot like what we call kickball around here...

FWFC doesn't have enough talent. They have a few players but not enough to play possession soccer. If you're counting who takes the best dives, they have one boy who can take a dive better than anyone. It gets better the close he gets to the box.

Pino is the top possession based team. IMO

Solar Red and Gall are about the same. Big time possession players. Just a little behind Pino but not much.

FCD Blue. Not enough talent to matter.

The top 5 teams all play possession style soccer.
1: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B (GALL)
2: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B PREMIER (PINO)
3: SOLAR CHELSEA SC 01B RED (OGLESBY)
4: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B SOUTH (ADAMES)
5: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B (BAZAN)

The middle teams (6-12) lean on their speed and size way to much. Some (like DT Red and Partain) more than others.

The bottom teams (13-16) are just trying to stay in the game. When they play each other you'll see one or two kids stand out but they lack the depth of the top 10.

This bottom group (17-20) can "try" to play possession soccer but they lack the talent. One bad touch and the possession play is over. That's why teams like Waters are dead last. He's trying to play possession but can't. Some think he's the best coach ever but he can only work with the talent he has on the field.

Go figure, the teams with the most talent play the best soccer.

IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.

Newparent, calling out a specific player like that negates the credibility of your entire statement. Limit your insults to the team level.

Below are my observations after my kids playing soccer in North Texas for the last 10 years.

You are getting your terminology mixed up.

Kickball is what kids do in rec. Kickball just means kicking the ball without ANY specific destination for the ball. Not normally seen in select soccer.

In select you have two distinct styles of play. You have possession soccer and you have longball, also referred to as direct soccer by college coaches.

Choosing between these two usually involves one or two things. It could be the coach, i.e. Texans Hassan & Hudgell play longball. A telltale sign is when the midfielders pass the ball backwards to the defenders and then the defenders launch the ball to the forwards. Where as coaches like Solar's KS play a possession style of play. The team works the ball through their midfielders and try to set up specific opportunities to specific players by working the ball around. Similar to what a basketball team might do. Not that possession doesn't have it's fair share of threw balls as well.

Another reason has to do with player personnel. For example the typical Texan player will either be really big or really fast. They go for the athletic type. This is great for longball. Muscle the other players or beat them up top with speed. These teams are where North Texas gets it's reputation of "North Texas" ball. Or rough play, bang the crap out of the other team type of soccer. Typical Solar teams go for more skilled players. Players that may not be as big or fast but beat you with their technical skills and their creative play and brains. Not to say that Texans don't have some skilled payers and that Solar doesn't have some athletic players because they both do.

If your focus is to win games when they are young then definitively you want to play longball. Young players inevitably will cough up the ball and make a mistake under constant bombardment of longball. However, as the players get older longball is less effective. If you want to develop the players to have a "soccer brain" then possession soccer is the way to go.

However, this is carried over even in college soccer. For example the "Big Ten" is looked at as direct(longball) style of play where as the "Big East" is known as more possession style of teams (in general). You could even see it in the recent college playoffs that came through town. Akron, a possession style team, came to Dallas to play SMU, a direct play team. Akron pretty much sliced and diced SMU up for the first 2/3 of the game and had a 3-0 lead with their possession ball. In the last third of the game SMU's direct style finally paid off and they scored two goals before finally losing 3-2.

Another interesting note is the USSF Development Academy has even started ranking teams by style of play. They rank possession style very high (Solar, FC Dallas got high rankings) and they rank longball very low (Texans garnered a 2 on a 5 scale).

These comments are not meant to be pro or anti any specific club, they are just my observations which I am sure are not biased in any way.

My candidate for Post of the Year!!!! Well done.

Informative and accurate.

There is also a whole sliding scale of longball vs possession. Think Wimbledon (the 80s crazy gang) vs Barcelona. Most EPL teams play somewhere in the middle. Stoke play very direct and Arsenal play possession. Bolton had a lot of success last year because they could play varied style from direct to possession to quite a degree.

There has always been room in the game for different styles. Extreme longball isn't much fun to watch but can be effective. Definitely not the way to learn while young.

Novice,

Great post. Another thing that I noticed over the years is that when the kids are young, the really fast kids score a lot of goals. They would just outrun everyone. The drawback is they mistake speed for skill early on and think that speed is the ticket and they never really develop real ball skills. Unfortunately when they get to the Academy level they are no longer faster than the fullbacks. Now they have to rely on skill and since they didn't develop it they are almost useless as a forward. Have seen this a bunch in Academy.

My kid used to be that way when he was young. Big and fast. I saw his tactics early on and wanted to change it. Took him to the Brazilian coaches at old Inter and they introduced him to Futsal. Wonderful thing about Futsal it's all about ball skills and tactics. Making runs off of the ball. Speed, size and logball get you no where in Futsal. It worked for him. That is one of the things that I always loved about playing teams from ASYES. They were all trained well in technical skills.

Best topic, yet. Nice.

Indeed, the top 5 play POSSESSION ball; they have the best collection of footballers in NTx.

1: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B (GALL)
2: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B PREMIER (PINO)
3: SOLAR CHELSEA SC 01B RED (OGLESBY)
4: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B SOUTH (ADAMES)
5: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B (BAZAN)

Bazan is really the old Andromeda club. So all four local Academies are represented.

It didn't happen overnight. Savvy parents with precocious footballers have dipped their toes in the NTx soccer waters FOR YEARS to methodically try different coaches/teams until they gravitated to these squads. My guess is other teams STRIVE to play possession ball, but its really challenging when they encounter these five because of the skill and athleticism differences. They revert to the tried and true direct ball to reduce risk. When playing teams of the approximate same quality level, teams should try to play possession ball. But like personality, each team has their own style of play. It's hard to step out of a routine that feels best for each.

Yeah, the problem bigtex is that no one is teaching the big fast kid how to play.

You think xavi is a better 'athlete' than Theo Walcott? or even Maurice Edu?

The answer is 'no'.

But no one's going to argue which is the better midfielder.

The kids that may look like "better athletes" in the youth ranks have the artifical advantage of just being bigger for their relative age.

I've seen plenty of 'stud' 14 yr olds that were horrible athletes by the time they were 17 or 18.

In the end, a player has to have the right combination of skill, brains and athleticism to make it.

The only controllable variable then is to spend as much time as possible honing technique and the tactical side.

The physical side sorts itself out in the end...when it really matters.

bigtex75081 wrote:It's a lot easier to find a terrifc athlete and teach them how to be skilled with a soccer ball than it is to find a kid with terrific foot skills and teach them how to be an elite athlete. You can't coach somebody how to be taller and faster. You can coach somebody how to soften their control touch.

That flawed mentality has held American soccer back for generations and until we break that cycle of thought we are doomed to repeat it.

Look at the top soccer athletes in the world and overlay their physical characteristics with what the US considers "top athletes". It doesn't match up.


Tackle football athletes pride themselves as the most elite. They even crown themselves World Champions for winning the Super Bowl. The truth is, America is really on only place on earth the game is played.


We tend to believe we can take those athletic tacklers or basketball players and put them on a soccer field and they will dominate. And, in fact, they can as long as they are playing against similar opponents.


Internationally, the elite soccer players are not potential American tackle football or basketball players.


Elite soccer players are elite athletes. They just don't fit the standard definition of what our culture defines as elite.

bigtex75081 wrote:

finish1 wrote:

bigtex75081 wrote:It's a lot easier to find a terrifc athlete and teach them how to be skilled with a soccer ball than it is to find a kid with terrific foot skills and teach them how to be an elite athlete. You can't coach somebody how to be taller and faster. You can coach somebody how to soften their control touch.

That flawed mentality has held American soccer back for generations and until we break that cycle of thought we are doomed to repeat it.

The blast I keep hearing about why US Soccer struggles on the international stage is that soccer can't attract the best athletes here. So you're saying that soccer teams shouldn't want the best athletes and then coach them up? That's what is really wrong?

Yes Tex. I for one think that is exactly what is wrong. You hear fans and soccer dads say that stuff about US Soccer not getting the best athletes but our athletes are just fine. As a matter of fact instead of listening to US Soccer fans talk about it instead listen to opposing coaches talk about US Soccer. What do they always say? The US players are strong, physical, well conditioned and athletic. We are a big enough country from a population standpoint that even though we lose so many top athletes to other sports, Soccer still gets its fair share.

On the flip side of the coin, when was the last time you heard an opposing coach compliment us technically??? We are FAR behind in this area because as a nation we want to win first, develop second. The kid who isn't as big or fast but the ball seems to stick to his feet like a magnet when he recieves a pass and the kid with the great footwork, vision and touch is what we need more of. We have plenty of athletes right now. The problem is those types of players might not help you win as much at the younger ages as big and fast kids do. OR like was already mentioned some of these coaches get the big and fast kids and win with them and since they are winning (which lets face facts IS the goal for the majority of coaches AND parents in North Texas, not development) they don't pull back and focus on those kids technical skills.

Now that being said of course we would be better if a guy like Lebron James was raised as a Keeper instead of a BB Player. Or if Barry Sanders was a Center Mid. That's always going to be the case and it's never going to change. But we can win a lot more than we do now and the way to do it is by focusing on Technique and small sided games like Futsal rather than rushing them to 11 v 11 as soon as possible and focusing on wins.

finish1 wrote:Look at the top soccer athletes in the world and overlay their physical characteristics with what the US considers "top athletes". It doesn't match up.


Tackle football athletes pride themselves as the most elite. They even crown themselves World Champions for winning the Super Bowl. The truth is, America is really on only place on earth the game is played.


We tend to believe we can take those athletic tacklers or basketball players and put them on a soccer field and they will dominate. And, in fact, they can as long as they are playing against similar opponents.


Internationally, the elite soccer players are not potential American tackle football or basketball players.


Elite soccer players are elite athletes. They just don't fit the standard definition of what our culture defines as elite.

Very good points. I agree.

finish1 wrote:Look at the top soccer athletes in the world and overlay their physical characteristics with what the US considers "top athletes". It doesn't match up.


Tackle football athletes pride themselves as the most elite. They even crown themselves World Champions for winning the Super Bowl. The truth is, America is really on only place on earth the game is played.


We tend to believe we can take those athletic tacklers or basketball players and put them on a soccer field and they will dominate. And, in fact, they can as long as they are playing against similar opponents.


Internationally, the elite soccer players are not potential American tackle football or basketball players.


Elite soccer players are elite athletes. They just don't fit the standard definition of what our culture defines as elite.

I see what you are saying but I say we can have both. The great athlete, even in US terms, but he is also a great tactical player with skill. As far as the top soccer players in the world, many of them are great athletes, even in US terms.

1. CRonaldo--Could play cornerback in the NFL if he put on a little weight. Tremendous speed and quickness and agility. They have him race Bugatti's for goodness sake.

2. Messi--world class quickness and agility, the touch can only be so good and the quickness makes him a star. In the US he would still be one of the quickness most agile athletes there is.

3. Gareth Bale--Speed, Speed and more Speed. A great athlete by anyones standards.

4. Kaka--Have you seen this guy run? Speed galore....

These guys are all great athletes by anyones standards, even in the US, and they also have great technical ability and awareness. YOU CAN HAVE BOTH.

I don't understand the regular drumbeat that only the small little slow guys can be technical players and good with the ball and the fast big kids have bricks for feet. If I am coach, I want the kid that is big, fast and also has the ability and agility of the CR, Kaka, Bale, Messi.

The problem in the US is NOT that we focus on big, fast strong kid, it is that once we get them, we do not teach them properly.....

bigtex75081 wrote:It's a lot easier to find a terrifc athlete and teach them how to be skilled with a soccer ball than it is to find a kid with terrific foot skills and teach them how to be an elite athlete. You can't coach somebody how to be taller and faster. You can coach somebody how to soften their control touch.

Sounds logical. That's the scary part. Because teaching great touch, and great ball skills do not necessarily relate to someone who is big or fast.

I once had a chance to talk with Sir Bobby Charlton one year when Manchester United was at Dallas Cup. This is what he said.

American coaches spend to much time on getting big and fast players. In the end there is only one thing that matters. What happens to the ball when it leaves your foot. I have taken that to heart and that is what I have focused on with my son.

We used to have a kid on our team that the coach felt was one of the best players on the team. I never really understood why. He is a very good athlete. I videotape our games and sometimes analyze them with my son for him to learn from. This player turns the ball over anywhere between 60% to 70% of the time he has the ball. It's a perfect example of what Sir Bobby Charlton was talking about.

great post grinder. This is a perfect example why I give coaches in this country very little credibility when evaluating/assessing talent on the field.

The two kinds of players that get selected at the highest youth levels:

1. The 'dribblers'. Players with skill but horrible awareness and decisionmaking. (As evidenced by their laughably high turnover rate.)

2. The "athletes". Players who are blessed (usually)early birthdays and physical maturation. They tend to be single footed, have horrible first touch, vision and couldn't pass gas afer a chili cookoff. Typical classic league centerbacks.

Most coaches know this isn't the way to approach training players. But the reality is it is much easier to select players this way. It's much easier to manage an 11v11 game with these types of players than it is to train skilled, tactically aware players.

FGFF wrote:

bigtex75081 wrote:

finish1 wrote:

bigtex75081 wrote:It's a lot easier to find a terrifc athlete and teach them how to be skilled with a soccer ball than it is to find a kid with terrific foot skills and teach them how to be an elite athlete. You can't coach somebody how to be taller and faster. You can coach somebody how to soften their control touch.

That flawed mentality has held American soccer back for generations and until we break that cycle of thought we are doomed to repeat it.

The blast I keep hearing about why US Soccer struggles on the international stage is that soccer can't attract the best athletes here. So you're saying that soccer teams shouldn't want the best athletes and then coach them up? That's what is really wrong?

Yes Tex. I for one think that is exactly what is wrong. You hear fans and soccer dads say that stuff about US Soccer not getting the best athletes but our athletes are just fine. As a matter of fact instead of listening to US Soccer fans talk about it instead listen to opposing coaches talk about US Soccer. What do they always say? The US players are strong, physical, well conditioned and athletic. We are a big enough country from a population standpoint that even though we lose so many top athletes to other sports, Soccer still gets its fair share.

On the flip side of the coin, when was the last time you heard an opposing coach compliment us technically??? We are FAR behind in this area because as a nation we want to win first, develop second. The kid who isn't as big or fast but the ball seems to stick to his feet like a magnet when he recieves a pass and the kid with the great footwork, vision and touch is what we need more of. We have plenty of athletes right now. The problem is those types of players might not help you win as much at the younger ages as big and fast kids do. OR like was already mentioned some of these coaches get the big and fast kids and win with them and since they are winning (which lets face facts IS the goal for the majority of coaches AND parents in North Texas, not development) they don't pull back and focus on those kids technical skills.

Now that being said of course we would be better if a guy like Lebron James was raised as a Keeper instead of a BB Player. Or if Barry Sanders was a Center Mid. That's always going to be the case and it's never going to change. But we can win a lot more than we do now and the way to do it is by focusing on Technique and small sided games like Futsal rather than rushing them to 11 v 11 as soon as possible and focusing on wins.

At long last people have started to open their eyes and realise what is wrong here in the US, the problem is how do you change the clubs when its all about recruiting and winning? Not going to happen because they are busy trying to outdo each other than to worry about what really matters and thats the welfare & development of the players. Shame but until parents vote with their wallets its not going to change.

soccergrinder wrote:Below are my observations after my kids playing soccer in North Texas for the last 10 years.

You are getting your terminology mixed up.

Kickball is what kids do in rec. Kickball just means kicking the ball without ANY specific destination for the ball. Not normally seen in select soccer.

In select you have two distinct styles of play. You have possession soccer and you have longball, also referred to as direct soccer by college coaches.

Choosing between these two usually involves one or two things. It could be the coach, i.e. Texans Hassan & Hudgell play longball. A telltale sign is when the midfielders pass the ball backwards to the defenders and then the defenders launch the ball to the forwards. Where as coaches like Solar's KS play a possession style of play. The team works the ball through their midfielders and try to set up specific opportunities to specific players by working the ball around. Similar to what a basketball team might do. Not that possession doesn't have it's fair share of threw balls as well.

Another reason has to do with player personnel. For example the typical Texan player will either be really big or really fast. They go for the athletic type. This is great for longball. Muscle the other players or beat them up top with speed. These teams are where North Texas gets it's reputation of "North Texas" ball. Or rough play, bang the crap out of the other team type of soccer. Typical Solar teams go for more skilled players. Players that may not be as big or fast but beat you with their technical skills and their creative play and brains. Not to say that Texans don't have some skilled payers and that Solar doesn't have some athletic players because they both do.

If your focus is to win games when they are young then definitively you want to play longball. Young players inevitably will cough up the ball and make a mistake under constant bombardment of longball. However, as the players get older longball is less effective. If you want to develop the players to have a "soccer brain" then possession soccer is the way to go.

However, this is carried over even in college soccer. For example the "Big Ten" is looked at as direct(longball) style of play where as the "Big East" is known as more possession style of teams (in general). You could even see it in the recent college playoffs that came through town. Akron, a possession style team, came to Dallas to play SMU, a direct play team. Akron pretty much sliced and diced SMU up for the first 2/3 of the game and had a 3-0 lead with their possession ball. In the last third of the game SMU's direct style finally paid off and they scored two goals before finally losing 3-2.

Another interesting note is the USSF Development Academy has even started ranking teams by style of play. They rank possession style very high (Solar, FC Dallas got high rankings) and they rank longball very low (Texans garnered a 2 on a 5 scale).

These comments are not meant to be pro or anti any specific club, they are just my observations which I am sure are not biased in any way.

I think you have given the best explanation of the two styles of soccer. The question is which one wins more games and which one is BETTER. The common sense answer is the passing game wins more, is more fun to watch and takes the more skilled players. But it sounds like from your experience, the college coaches often want the Direct players for their schools.

Also, I think it depends totally on the refs as to which style will work for any certain game. In the EPL, the refs allow the larger players to run people off the ball, use their body, pull, tug, and plain out mug people on occassion with no call. In La Liga, the refs are tighter and call more. If a team like Barcelona was to play in the EPL for a full year, with EPL refs, I am not sure they would do as well. They would probably get tired of getting pummelled and seeing no calls. In the EPL, the direct style with bigger players may be more agreeable to the style of reffing.

Overall, I think we should teach the kids to play the small sided passing, tactical game, but If I were a coach, I would want the biggest kids I could find to be the ones doing it.

The problem is we skip steps to gain short term.

Nothing wrong with having, big athletic players...at the pro level.

But going that route (and skipping the emphasis on technique) is criminal.

Messi would have been cast aside in this country. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. So would Xavi and Iniesta.

And, to be clear, technique isn't just dribbling. It's receiving, controlling and passing the ball.

First touch is most important. Especially as the game speeds up at the older ages. But it is the most boring thing for most of our kids to work on. But necessary to build a solid technical base.

Again, 'winning' is not the big problem. it's taking shortcuts in order to win for the sake of winning.

If it was all about size, strength and speed...all we would see on the field would be a bunch of 6"2, 190 lb. "defensive back" types.

That mentality is not only wrong...it's stupid.

Guess more Americans would win the Tour de France if we had more Lebrons and Kobes competing..LOL!!

I'm sure this article has been linked here before.

A league of their own: inside FC Barcelona's football academy, churning out future Messis...for free

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1265747/Inside-FC-Barcelonas-football-academy-churning-future-Messis--free.html#ixzz1mJBnMtMR

Iniesta was fast-tracked to La Masia at the age of 12 because of his exceptional talent, moving from his village of Fuentealbilla in central Spain. Coaches still remember the trauma every Sunday when his parents, José Antonio and Maria, would go back home for the week having spent the weekend with their son.

'He was very close to his family and every goodbye each weekend would become a mini-drama,' remembers Albert Benaiges, the coach who would become like a godfather to the young Iniesta.

'Andres would be crying and he spent a lot of time at my house, and whenever my mother sees him smiling now she always makes a joke, because she remembers how much he suffered in those days

Among them was a timid and tiny Argentinian boy who spent the first few days cowering in the corner, speaking to no one. His name? Leo Messi.

Messi, the world's best player, is the current star product of La Cantera. He arrived here from Argentina when he was 13 with his family in tow after no Argentinian club would pay for the drugs he needed to treat his growth deformity. It is no surprise that Barcelona took on Messi, despite the fact he was half a foot shorter than his peers. Unlike in England, where size, strength and the ability to throw your weight around is highly prized by many scouts, Barcelona apply different criteria.

'Size is not important,' says Capellas. 'Most important is that the player has talent, that they can play with the ball, not that they are the strongest or tallest.'

Arsenal's Fabregas, who came here when he was 15 because travelling from his village in Arenys de Mar back and forth to training had become too much of a strain, agrees.

'It was the best year of my life and I made friends for life there,' he remembers.

Each morning the boys are bussed in to the best local schools. The importance of finishing their education is constantly impressed on them by the club, though the lessons are all in Catalan, a language that will at first be unfamiliar to boys from outside the region. They return at 2pm for lunch and siesta, with training from 5pm to 6.30pm, then homework with private tutors on hand to help. After dinner there is a short period of down time before bed.

newparent wrote:FWFC doesn't have enough talent. They have a few players but not enough to play possession soccer. If you're counting who takes the best dives, they have one boy who can take a dive better than anyone. It gets better the close he gets to the box.

Pino is the top possession based team. IMO

Solar Red and Gall are about the same. Big time possession players. Just a little behind Pino but not much.

FCD Blue. Not enough talent to matter.

The top 5 teams all play possession style soccer.
1: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B (GALL)
2: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B PREMIER (PINO)
3: SOLAR CHELSEA SC 01B RED (OGLESBY)
4: DALLAS TEXANS SC 01B SOUTH (ADAMES)
5: FC DALLAS YOUTH 01B (BAZAN)

The middle teams (6-12) lean on their speed and size way to much. Some (like DT Red and Partain) more than others.

The bottom teams (13-16) are just trying to stay in the game. When they play each other you'll see one or two kids stand out but they lack the depth of the top 10.

This bottom group (17-20) can "try" to play possession soccer but they lack the talent. One bad touch and the possession play is over. That's why teams like Waters are dead last. He's trying to play possession but can't. Some think he's the best coach ever but he can only work with the talent he has on the field.

Go figure, the teams with the most talent play the best soccer.

IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.IMO.

"newparent"..... that explains it. Who cares about your opinion after your "L" comment, beating on 3 good teams that work to compete at this level?

great discussion. Especially for u11 parents. At least the basics are being addressed.

The important thing to remember is that, at U11, the most important thing is what the kids are learning. Not their team results.

First touch/technique, close control and the basics of passing.

Most of these players will be changing coaches and teams later on anyway.

If they are enjoying themselves and improving (as individual players) that is what really matters.

And it is VERY rare, especially at this age, that they are both learning/developing AND winning most of their games.

Why? Too many coaches taking shortcuts...thinking short term.

Thanks everyone for all the comments to my question -- learned a lot!