Lakeville Soccer Club Coaching Newsletter May 2017

Lakeville Soccer Club Coaching Newsletter May 2017

"They might be athletes" or why many sport talent identification schemes fail http://www.sportkidproject.com/article.php?art_num=43

Large athlete talent identification projects undertaken by national sport governing bodies are ill-conceived and wrongly based on the premise that sport officials can somehow predict who will become a great athlete sometime in the future. Young, "talented" athletes are identified based on current ability, physical attributes, sometimes results of sport specific testing, and the skill and knowledge of the evaluator.

Contacts: Chad Moore Director of Coaching

The results of these talent searches thus far have been unsatisfying mainly because we don't know how to identify talent yet and empirical evidence suggests that the current process just doesn't work. It focuses on youngsters who may simply be showcasing precocious abilities, or youngsters who have received some instruction in an activity performing against a backdrop of many others who have not. Neither one of these scenarios tells us anything about an athletes current or future ability. So why does this kind of search persist? Mainly because they're easy to do and require very little long-term work. But they also persist because the assumption they are built on -young athletes who show current ability will be better athletes later on -- seems intuitively right. It's only after looking into what we know about human growth and development patterns that the present practice loses steam. Researchers calculated the chances of a 10-year-old who is the best in a sport in his community also being classified that way when he got older and found they were somewhere around 25%. Certainly not high enough to build a talent identification system around.

Lakeville SC Fantasy Premier League

Leader after Week #36: UnitedXI Chris Cox



Large Group Activity: Chipping

Upcoming Match Schedule

The setup: • 4 v 4 inside grid (targets on each edge) • 40 x 40 yard grid • Team in possession scores by chipping the ball to the hands of any target player • Adjust numbers and size of grid based upon number of players present; age & ability of players Technical coaching points are: • Knee slightly bent and plant foot pointed toward target • Toe on kicking foot pointed away from body; ankle locked • Body leaning back allows for foot to strike lower part of ball • Very short follow-through



June 8 time 6:50pm MNT v Trinidad & Tobago (WCQ) June 8 12:30pm WNT v Sweden June 11 12:00pm WNT v Norway June 11 time tbd MNT v Mexico (WCQ) July 1 3:45pm MNT v Ghana July 8 time tbd MNT v Panama (WCQ)

Coaching Education



Lakeville Soccer Club coaching education sessions have been posted to the website. Please see Coaches > Education. Match Day Analysis (will take place during tournament games) May 19-21 (times tbd once schedule posted) June 16-18 (times tbd once schedule posted)

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