If, as everyone seems to agree that youth football is primarily about development, how developed are our coaches to be able to impart the knowledge necessary to enable our youths to be competitive on the international stage? Do they have the resources at their disposal to be able to do the job properly?
One thing I notice with teams like a Barcelona or a Man Utd and it harks back to the days of watching my favourite ever club team, AC Milan of Baresi, Gullit, Rijjkaard, Donadoni, Van Basten etc...is that as great offensive teams as they were/are, their work OFF THE BALL always fascinated me. These offensive stars would work extremely hard to put pressure on the opposition to win back the ball when they didn't have possession.
Look at Barca and check out Iniesta and Xavi in particular. Their work rate is incredible. And it's not wildness going all over the place peltin tackle. Is puttin pressure on their man, oftentimes nicking the ball away and it invariably falls to a teammate. So how come it falls to a teammate? I've come to the conclusion that the same way they ensure that the man on the ball has 2 or 3 options when they have possession, similarly the same options present themselves when they DON'T have the ball, so that when the ball is nicked away, the chances of it falling to a teammate is high.
I look at T&T and that's a skill, a mindset that's conspicuously absent from our game in general. Carlos Edwards does it to some extent. So too Birchall. Whitley did it in 2005 as did Yorke. But that's about it.
So I asked someone what do these big clubs do to get their young players to buy into the concept of playing off the ball and working hard to get it back. The person said a couple of revealing things:
1 - Clubs train their minds at a young age what they need to do when they lose the ball. In essence, they condition their central nervous system to react a particular way.
2 - Competiton. You have X amount of time to prove that you really want it. If you don't, you're out. Competiton for places is the biggest motivator.
I totally understood the competiton thing, but the conditioning the mind thing surprised me, but it makes a lot of sense.