I had the pleasure of speaking to John Giles tonight and even got a signed book. John is on the same wavelength as us and totally agrees that the small sided games needs a complete restructure.

The “Walk of Dreams” is a national fundraising campaign to help build stronger clubs, schools and communities throughout Ireland. At 3pm on Sunday 27th of March We Walk the “Walk of Dreams” and we want your club to join us!

This is a unique opportunity for all clubs in Ireland to walk together and demonstrate the importance
of football in Irish life.

Clubs that sign up to the “Walk of Dreams” will receive a Fundraising Pack. Members taking part in the “Walk of Dreams” fundraise in their local community using the sponsorship cards. 50% of all monies raised go to your club and 50% to the John Giles Foundation to be reinvested in your local community.

Check out http://johngilesfoundation.com/walk-of-dreams.html for more information, this is a fantastic idea so everyone please get you and your club involved. This will be the biggest day in Irish football ever, lets show the rest of Ireland how big our community is!

Wow, about time too! We need more than the age change tho…

So the SFAI have backed the FAI new policy on age realignment and it will operate from August of this year. However there was talk that this would not happen as some leagues had put in protest to it happening. Why? The whole of Europe operate this system and as per usual we are last to follow because of some washed up committee members who haven’t a notion about how children learn and the best environment for them to do so.

The rule works that existing age groups will skip a year so under 13s will now become u15s at the start of next season and this basically means that we are the same as Europe; so no longer heading abroad and playing kids younger than our age groups anymore.

They have also decided that the Menton Seery aka the All Ireland Comp u11s cup will go ahead featuring teams that are playing 9v9 system this season and next, the only difference is for the cup games they will have to play 11v11. (Considering the winners of the cup goes onto play 9v9 in the Danone cup, what the hell would you have kids playing 11v11??)

So teams have to change from 9v9 for league games to 11v11 for cup games. Who comes up with these great ideas? The same people who have always come up with these ideas. Why not leave it 9v9 or just get rid of it altogether, if we really wanted to come in line with Europe why not change to 7v7 until u12s and at u13s go 11v11 for leagues and cups but having teams play two system in the same year is so bloody Irish.

What happens if your knocked out early in the cup, what do you do with the extra 5-6 players for the rest of the season? Once again decisions being made without considering the kids.

All these leagues care about is the badges, they don’t give a rats about player development, they all have their own agendas and long term youth development is not one of them. We introduce young kids to competition at the age of 7 even before they have mastered how to pass, run and kick a ball properly.

This is a kids game run by adults, for adults egos, that has very few benefits to the kids themselves. Some serious changes need for the loner term benefit of the game in this country. A Proper pathway and coach education is lacking. We are years behind the rest of Europe. 

I always like to hear your opinions. Please comment below or email me info@thecoachdiary.com If, you don’t have anything to add then please forward this on to a friend. Thanks for reading. I’m also on twitter @Coachdiary

David Berber from DB Sports Tours and The Coach Diary brought FC Barcelona to Carton House Kildare Ireland this February.  Footblogball asked Antonio Mantero from The Coach Diary a few questions with regard to youth football in Ireland and the Barcelona experience.

Q1. There seems be a big discussion, you could almost say a crisis within the youth coaching system in England. The standard of player needed to keep up with the rest of Europe, South America and Africa is just not being produced, despite Ireland having a smaller population can we say that there similar problems in Ireland?

Football in Ireland is so competitive that kids don’t enjoy playing it as much; the pressure on coaches to win is not good for them as people. We need to be teaching kids more about the technique and having fun, about being a good person and teaching them that trying tricks and running with the ball, dribbling is good and not bad. Let the kids be spontaneous and take risks, they should be smiling. Kids haven’t even learnt the basics and they are thrown straight into leagues and expected to do things straight away. In Spain, Portugal etc emphasises is on development, winning comes later age 16, 17 and up. We are pushing kids to win at age 7 its totally wrong. Kids don’t need to be pushed to win by parent or coaches at any age, they naturally want to win anyway but they need to be doing at their expense and no one else and under their conditions

Q2. When we want to help young kids (7-11 years) with their development are we over coaching them? Do we take the fun out of the game? Are club coaches to blame for stunting creativity? Do we as coaches still define success as winning?

I thing we are over coaching tactics and under coaching technique, but again our leagues systems are failing us as coaches. Every coach wants to win but I also think every decent coach wants whats best for his/her players and as long as we have competitive leagues at under age it’s going to be very difficult to change all the others. Take away competitive leagues and coaches will have to concentrate on development. Introduce weekend blitzes for age 7s and start non competitive leagues at a later stage. Kids are naturally competitive whether it’s a game in the park or a game with the club colours on. We the coaches and parents aren’t allowing them to have fun, there is too much pressure on kids to win, to develop quickly and be the best. The fact is that there is only ever 2-3 kids who stand out in any one team the rest are team players. So why are we putting so much pressure on these bundles of joy to develop quickly. A lot of kids develop at a later stage then others and generally the late developers are the ones that make it and not the special kid at age 7 who was better than the rest.

How many times have you heard someone say, “how is a professional footballer, he was never any good when we were kids” well the late bloomers usually make it because they never had the same pressure on their shoulders as the kid who everyone thought was going to be a pro. The fact is that some kids are born talented and have it all, but they only come around once in a while, aka Pele, Maradona, Messi, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and whats special about all of these, they came from the street and played with a ball day, noon and night and some are born to play football. A full team is 11v11, so stop trying to pushing your kid to be something let him make mistakes and be creative and stop making kids run around a pitch and do boring drills, kids need to be kids and kids enjoy having fun.

Q3. You recently had the Barcelona Academy over with you in Dublin. How was that and who was there representing the Barcelona academy?

We had Albert Benaiges FCB School Director, who has been at Barca for over 19 years and as nurtured the likes of Reina, Valdes, Iniesta, Fabregas, Arteta, Pique, Pujol, Xavi, Busquets, Pedro, Messi to name a few and that only the current crop. He brought with him translator Juan Mari, and Academy Coaches Enric Duran Diaz (International Coordinator) and Franc Carbo Pujol (Academy Coach). We ran the clinic at Carton House Hotel, a 5 star football facility in Kildare Ireland. The same content over 2 days to cater for coaches who played Saturday and those who played Sunday. It was truly and amazing experience and apart from the rain which was nonstop over the 2 days, it was a total success. The drills they did were to the eye very basic but it’s getting the kids to do them at a high tempo with demand on 1 to 2 touch football only, movement and quick thinking is where they differ from the rest and the fact that everything they do at U6s to senior is identical and always with the ball.

Albert quickly stepped in to show the kids what he wanted and every time it broke down he would correct and insist on them doing it right. He had away with the kids that was truly amazing, in fact all the coaches did. Benaiges said “ No doubt this style can be applied to any player but they must have the desire and right attitude they must be a good person as well as a great technical player, without these you cannot be a Barcelona player ”Benaiges would stop the players every so often and get them to check their pulse to see how hard they were working, he stressed that kids did not need to run a around pitches or up hills that working with the ball in high tempo “Rondos” ( 3v1, 6v1 in a tight space, with one touch and can be 6v6 + 2 jokers, 6v3v1) was better for fitness and they did it with the ball. When he stopped the drills to check heart beats all the kids in the middle were working far less than the kids on the ball.

Q4. What was the response from the Irish coaches in attendance?

The response was amazing with had over 143 coaches on the Saturday and 127 on the Sunday. We wanted to keep numbers at 120 per day but unfortunately went a little over. From our questionnaires we had 95% positive feedback on the Saturday and we were able to rectify these issues with the coaches for Sunday. The main concerns were the demos and more interaction with the coaches and not so much with the players, but sometimes with these clinics there can be too many questions at pitch side which in turn slows down the session but overall it was a total success. We had coaches come from Irish FAI, Portugal (Sporting), England (Tottenham, QPR, and Birmingham), and Hibs in Scotland, Germany, Cyprus, Spain and Italy. Next up Sporting Club De Portugal in May

Q5. Are there possibilities in Ireland to adopt similar philosophies and approaches to the game? What are the obstacles?

The problem in Ireland we have no playing method; if you look at other nations they all have a playing style but if Ireland we don’t. The player path way should be a journey and with every journey you have a destination but we don’t seem to have one yet! I believe by better development more emphasis on technique and having a vision of playing great passing football with that douggit Irish attitude we can be something different. However you need to create the platform first and then work back to how we can achieve it.

Footblogball.wordpress.com would like to thank Antonio Mantero from The Coach Diary.

Most small side leagues will start back next weekend, you can expect more of this adult dominated sport which is supposedly meant to be for kids. Don’t get me wrong we need adults to keep this sport going.

All over the country thousand of children will be playing in organised games, with hundreds of adults watching and cheering on as parents and coaches.

There will be joy and triumph, but there will also be trouble. Some parents are busy chatting amongst themselves. Others Parents and Coaches are prowling the sidelines, almost like generals barking orders and demanding that their child/ Player excels and listens to what they are shouting. This is the reason why the wife no longer comes to games and the kid will eventually give it up for good.

This madness has to stop!!

Many adults are wonderful mentors but we also have misguided coaches who will end up causing hurt for the children who play. Such is often the case in youth sports. There is a disconnection between in what adults say versus what children want and need to hear. Most of time the time what adults want and need for football is often not what children want and need. In some cases is seems that adults and children live in different world and speak different languages.

Adults need to look at youth sports through the eyes of the children and to serve the wants and needs of those children at play. This will require a change in adult attitudes but also a change in football leagues systems at under age. The system is failing our kids and putting so much pressure on our coaches.

The kids are paying a price at the expense of what coaches and parents want and need, underage football should be about fun, learning, team development; our system often deny individual children fair opportunities to reach their full potential, we are being robbed of quality players, by not allowing them to be children and putting the added pressure on them to win at an early age we sacrifice the present and the future of the game.

I’m all for children playing hard, competing in games and winning and losing, kids should experience disappointment its part of growing up, but I believe in systems that primarily have the children’s wants and children’s needs and not those of adults in charge.

Children need to enjoy and experience children’s world and not adult world, they only get one chance at this.

Kids play sports to have fun, get exercise, be around their friends, work with teammates, show off their skills (if they’re aloud) and grow. When adults make winning the goal, their choices to often hurt some players.

So many potential gifted players have moved away from soccer and into other sports where systems are favourable toward the children’s needs and not the adults needs.

To the FAI and SFAI, I hope you’re reading this, because you are killing this beautiful game. So many people are caught up in “The Way Things Are”  that they cannot see clearly to “The Way Things Should Be”

My vision of changes for the better of the game are only a league/FAI meeting away; by following through with these changes will cut to the core of the misguided structures that adults have developed for children.

The more our adult rules and adult mentality stay out of it, the better off those bouncy bundles of joy will be.

Our Goal is player development, lets us “The Coaches” get back to that and “Let The Kids play”