SoccerAbility

How much should I train?

2024-12-23T21:31:26Z

Summary:
This article examines the optimal training regimen for young soccer players, challenging ideas like the "10,000-hour rule." It emphasizes scientific research over anecdotal evidence, highlighting the importance of periodization—balancing intense training with adequate recovery—to maximize development and avoid burnout. It stresses quality over quantity, suggesting that a young athlete's weekly training hours shouldn't exceed their age, and advocating for holistic recovery encompassing physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The post ultimately promotes a balanced approach that prioritizes focused, intense training sessions followed by deep recovery periods to achieve optimal growth.

Science vs Myth

What does it take to be the best? How much time, energy, and resources does a young soccer player need to spend in order to develop the expertise necessary to reach their full potential? How frequently do young soccer players need to train in order to gain a 'competitive edge' in the sport?

These questions are on the forefront of every parent, coach, and young player's mind when deciding what, how often, and how much to train.

To help answer this question, we often turn to the personal experiences of those who seem to have 'made it:' professional soccer players and top coaches within the sport.

A popular opinion on this topic is the "10,000 hour rule", which posits that an individual must spend at least 10,000 hours deliberatley practicing their trade to become an expert.

However, as much as success leaves clues, it is more difficult for human beings to really know exactly what is causing their success. Players often over-simplify their success, attributing it to just a couple of factors, such as family support, individual "technical" training, and growing up on the streets.

Unfortunately, development is not as simple as boiling it down to just two or three factors. In addition, our personal experiences and testimonials are often oversimplified and extremely biased - we only understand our experiences based on current frameworks we possess. We see things that aren't there, and miss things that are there. Our memories are often unreliable.

It might be that the support of a specific coach contributed to the development of a player's expertise. But it could also have been the player's experiences with his/her family. It could have been their physical or cognitive growth and maturation, causing things to 'click' more smoothly. Maybe it was the influence of friends.

That's the issue: we don't know.

This is why scientific research can be an extremely valuable tool in uncovering the reality behind athlete development (and many other fields both related and unrelated to sport).

The scientific method can create a relatively unbiased experiments and measurements of variables causing certain outcomes. The data provided through these experiments can then either confirm or disconfirm common myths and conceptions surrounding player development.

From this evidence, we can draw principles to inform our methods, maximizing the likelihood of individual success within the sport.

So what does the science say about how much, and how often we should train in order to maximize the speed and trajectory of soccer development?

The Science of Growth & Development

In order to grow and develop, such as learning, getting faster, stronger, etc., our bodies and minds must undergo a stimulus.

In other words, we grow by being put under stress.

For example, in order to grow intellectually, we must put our minds under stress by venturing into domains of knowledge that we have not yet learned. To grow physically, we must put our biological structures (i.e., muscles, bones) under stress through activities such as exercise.

The damage induced by these stressors are then repaired stronger and more robust by our immune system.

After our minds and bodies are put under stress, they adapt to be able to cope with the heightened demands.

However, stress does not automatically lead to growth.

In order for stress to promote growth and development, we must be equipped with adequate amounts of time and resources for our minds and bodies to recover and adapt.

During the recovery period following a stressor, our performance and ability to learn new skills decreases.

The pattern of stressors, followed by adequate recovery over time, leads to long-term growth and development.

On the flipside, stressors followed by inadequate recovery over time, leads to stagnation, risk of injury, and burnout.

There is a common misconception that children are like "rubber bands", meaning that they can train as much, as long, and as hard as they want without recovery, and still escape the negative effects of overtraining. In other words, it is often accepted that overtraining is not really a "thing" for young athletes.

This myth has been overwhelmingly debunked by scientific research in both psychology and exercise physiology. Whereas children may accumulate less fatigue and recover quicker from intense bouts of physical activity than adults, they, too, have a finite (limited) stress coping mechanism.

This means that overtraining, even (or especially) at young ages, leads to an increased risk of injury and burnout, and may be actively hindering young athletes from progressing optimally.

Lastly, it's important to consider the fact that every process in our body, including the balance between performance and recovery, is governed by our central nervous system.

This means that any stressor, including physical, mental, and emotional stressors, will affect a young athlete's ability to recovery and perform. Seemingly unrelated stressors, such as school and family life, can affect fatigue.

In fact, even coaching and parenting styles can put athletes under more stress, and, therefore, contribute to the accrual of fatigue, increasing the amount of time and resources needed by the athlete to recover and adapt.

Quality over Quantity

So how much training is required for optimal growth and performance development?

Malcom Gladwell popularized the "10,000 rule" in his book Outliers, hinting at the idea that individuals must spend at least 10,000 hours deliberately practicing their trade (e.g., soccer) in order to develop expertise.

This concept may fuel the idea that children must do as much as possible, as early as possible to gain an "edge" in their sport. If they don't, they may fall behind.

According to the data and evidence in long-term talent and athletic development, this is simply not true.

In fact, the researcher whose work was the reference for Malcolm Gladwell has openly stated that the data has been misinterpreted, and that focus should not be placed on the accrual of a certain amount of hours of training.

To get good at something, you do have to do it a lot. But more is not always better.

In Exercise Science, the Principle of Diminishing Returns states that past a certain amount of training and effort, we do not see more results.

Instead, our results flatline, and if we continue to train, we accumulate more fatigue.

We call this "empty training."

Whereas it is impossible to prescribe an exact amount of time that is optimal for each and every player, there are well-researched guidelines we can use to reliably predict how much may be appropriate for each athlete.

One of those factors is the growth and maturation of the individual.

Scientific research very clearly highlights the dangers of early sport specialization, referring the amount and type of training in sports from early ages (e.g., pre-puberty), which includes increased risk of injury, burnout, and mental/emotional disturbances.

This calls for developmentally appropriate guidelines regarding training dose.

Dr. Neeru Jayanthi, one of the leading experts in Early Sport Specialization and Developmental Training recommends that a young athlete's training load in hours per week should not exceed their number in age (up to 18).

In fact, some of the top player producing countries in the world, such as the Deutscher Fussball Bund (German Soccer Association) limits the amount of time a player is allowed to play during tournaments according to their age. What's interesting is that these restricted amounts of playing time are outlined for tournament play, which is arguably more performance- than development-based.

If playing time is limited during performance-based activities to minimize overtraining and allow enough recovery to return to baseline performance levels (i.e., maintenance), what should be done during development-based activities, where the goal should be to allow enough recovery to move above past baseline performance levels (i.e., adaptation)?

Balance is Better

In defense of "more is better", many people use quotes similar to this one from Johan Cruyff:

They then claim that kids just need to play as much as possible.

This often expresses itself as 11 year old children training and "guest-playing" on 2-3 teams at once, sometimes training and competing in multiple training sessions and games in a single day.

First of all, quotes from a professional player is a largely oversimplified and often unreliable source of evidence (as outlined at the beginning of this article).

Second, a deeper look at this quote through a scientific lense can reveal some important principles.

Cruyff claims to have trained only a couple of hours per week in a structured, coach-led environment, and a couple of hours per day in an unstructured, player-led environment.

Remember that fatigue and recovery are not just physical, but also mental and emotional.

Would a player need more recovery after training in a high-pressure environment led by coaches who often rigidly demand & prescribe? Or after playing a competitive game with some friends on the street?

Based on the evidence, we hypothesize that a player could get away with playing more soccer in unstructured, player-led environments.

They don't need more coaching. They don't need more structure. At least not until older ages (often around ~16 years of age).

If fatigue is affected by our central nervous system, then we need to focus our recovery on things that allow physical, mental, and emotional recovery.

When it comes to recovery, it's more about what you don't do, as opposed to what you do.

Time off, sleep, relaxation, and proper nutrition are some of the top things athletes (and people) can do to not only recover, but maximize adaptation from training.

Some research is even suggesting that leisure time, where athletes are not focused on their sport at all, but rather just enjoying and experiencing life, may a be a key for psychological recovery, reducing risk of competitive anxiety, contingent (performance-based) self-worth, and burnout.

However, the same way you cannot "outrun a bad diet", no amount of recovery can make up for overtraining.

With this in mind, we should focus on the quality of our training, as opposed to placing more emphasis on the quantity of training.

Instead of finding 2 or 3 teams to train and play with, we need to fill our training time with training activities and coaching that will give us the largest return on investment.

We discuss the quality of training for skill development in this article.

Instead of training more frequently, we need to provide a quality, highly focused & intentional, intense training stimulus, followed by an equally deep recovery period.

Less, but better.

Higher highs (intense and focused training).

Lower lows (deeper recovery).

The Science of Tactical Ability

2024-11-20T00:14:03Z

Reading Time: ~15 Minutes
Audio: Listen
Video:
Knowledge Base Article:

Summary:
Tactical skill goes beyond simply following coach-prescribed strategies and involves the player's ability to detect certain cues and patterns of movement during a game that tell them how to act. This involves processes of individual perception, decision-making, and execution based on real-time analysis of the game. Scanning the field is important to develop a cognitive map of the game. Early emphasis on team strategies and complex formations can hinder individual skill development. Developmentally appropriate practices prioritize individual tactical abilities over intricate team tactics. Training tactical ability should be focused on autonomy, mastery, and game-like environments where players can make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes. Small-sided games are recommended as an effective training method, especially for younger players, as they promote individual skill development and create a more manageable environment for learning.

Contents:
-What are Tactics?
-The Science of Tactics
-Training Tactical Ability
-Small-sided Games

What is Tactical Skill?

When we think of tactics in soccer, most of us likely imagine someone like Pep Guardiola scribbling aspects of his strategy of positional play on a white board in front of his treble-winning team. Or maybe Roberto de Zerbi enthusiastically instructing his team during a training session on when to slow the game down vs speed the game up. Does a team want to play out from the back? Or do they play a more direct, vertical style? How does our back line shift as the opposition switches the ball from one side of the pitch to the other? What about team shape when we have the ball approaching the opposition’s goal?

Coaches at every level, from professional down to youth, often spend immense amounts of time and energy trying to explain and implement these types of strategies and styles of play within their team in an effort to get them to come together seamlessly during a game.

From very young ages we hear coaches and parents screaming at 5-year-olds, telling them to "Spread Out!" By about 12 years old, as kids transition into 11-vs-11 game formats for the first time, adults are trying to teach kids intricate pieces of Guardiola-esque positional play.

We then get frustrated when players don't make the exact decisions during games they were prescribed during training.

This type of tactics is geared toward optimizing team cohesion (teamwork) and is critical to the success of sports teams.

After all, soccer is a team sport in which individual players must learn to work together with teammates toward a common goal. At it’s most fundamental level, this means winning the game. These team-based goals can also be broken down into smaller objectives during a game, such as defending the space around your own goal to stop the other team from scoring, and attacking the space around the opposition’s goal to score.

However, there is a difference between team strategies and individual tactical ability that must be acknowledged if we are to optimize long-term player development.

The Science of Tactics

Team Strategy

Team strategies are geared toward enhancing what’s called team cognition - verbal and non-verbal communication and coordination between teammates to achieve a common goal.

Strategies put forth by coaches act like blueprints, prescribing players clear expectations for how they are supposed to act in certain situations, and in certain areas of the field.

Individual Tactics

On the other hand, individual tactical ability is the player's ability to perceive what is occurring in their environment, such as open spaces, teammates, defenders, the ball, position on the field, and so on. Players must then make meaningful connections in their brain, and then decide how to act (execute) to achieve their desired outcome, based on their current abilities and cues they've learned from past experiences.

Tactical decisions are about the why behind the player's actions.

This process is largely driven by our cognition, referring to the processes humans use to perceive, analyze, think, interpret, judge, decide, remember, learn, concentrate, prioritize, and make sense of the world around us.

In other words, our tactical ability in soccer is what connects our bodies to the game (i.e., our environment), giving meaning to the movements we perform.

Physical and technical actions during a game are the execution of our tactical decisions.

Perhaps this is what Italian maestro, Andrea Pirlo, meant when he poetically said that "Football is played with the head - your feet are just tools."

From the way we move off of the ball to the decisions we make with it at our feet, every action performed during a soccer game has a strong tactical underpinning.

A quality movement performed in the wrong place and at the wrong time that does not achieve the desired outcome can hardly be labeled as 'skill.' In the words of current analyst and Liverpool legend, Jamie Carragher, "It’s getting the decisions right which is key in football.”

Being able to perceive more of the field accurately in real-time will aid in the player's quality and speed of decision-making.

The more a player scans the field, the better they will be able to create what authors Leonard Zaichkowsky and Daniel Peterson describe in their book The Playmaker's Advantage as a cognitive map of the entire pitch - "the best players are able to create very complex models of the entire game with all the players in space and then time-advance that now and over time" (Zaichkowsky & Peterson, 2018, p. 108).

Nelson Falcão Rodrigues, Brazilian playwright, journalist, and novelist was quoted saying that, "In football, the worst blindness is only seeing the ball."

When players get caught "ball-watching" for too long, they often don't perceive other things occurring in their environment, such as the movement of players and the opening and closing of spaces, all of which provide information on how they could decide to effectively act.

With this in mind, Arsène Wenger, current chief of global football development, argues that "a top player has a head like a radar."

In fact, current research in soccer performance is clearly showing that higher-level players scan the field more often during a game, allowing them to perceive the game more accurately in real-time, and, therefore, make more effective decisions.

Higher scanning frequency also increases the likelihood of successful technical actions, such as successful passing and dribbling, depending largely on the player possessing the technical capacity to perform that action.

The importance of tactical ability and scanning has been expertly summarized by Arsène Wenger:

"The problem in football is that you learn how to play the wrong way round - first execution, then decision-making, and perception last.

I have lost many top players because their head was on the ball and they were not seeing what was around them.

As a player, whenever I get the ball, I have to analyze, then decide, and finally, execute.

Perception plays a huge role in this.

What is interesting is that very good players scan 6-8 times in the 10 seconds before getting the ball and normal ones 3-4 times.

More importantly, you have to analyze the quality of perception and decision-making. My challenge is to get my players to know what the best choice is and make the optimal decision every time."

Training Tactical Ability

The development of individual tactical ability is best achieved in autonomy-supportive, mastery-oriented, and developmentally appropriate game-like environments.

Autonomy-supportive

The term autonomy-supportive refers to the players being able to make their own decisions.

Too often in youth soccer, coaches ( and parents) adopt a prescriptive and directive style of communication, feeling the need to impart all of their knowledge to the player as it is occurring.

However, this style of coaching, whilst being effective at achieving short-term performance results, has been shown to blunt players' long-term skill development, as the decisions are being made for the player and solutions are always given by the coach/parent.

Mastery-oriented

The approach a player has to competition can have important implications for skill development.

A mastery-oriented approach means that a player’s main goal is not solely results (e.g., winning), but rather the mastery of skills.

This is not to say that the player does not want to win.

The drive to win is rather an objective that motivates the player to compete, work hard, and further develop their abilities.

Mastery-oriented goal orientations, as opposed to performance or outcome-based goal orientations, have been shown to elicit more intrinsic desire in the players to compete. Goals focused on results are more likely to be extrinsically motivated, where players are driven more to please a coach or parent, or are overly tied to the score of a game.

Intrinsic motivation allows the player to come up with more creative solutions on the field (i.e., perception & decision-making), with less fear of making mistakes.

In fact, overarousal and concern about making mistakes may even directly narrow one's perception and field of vision.

Game-like

The development of skills that are transferrable from training to games cannot be developed in isolated environments.

Tactical abilities, such as perception, decision-making, reaction time, and anticipation, can't be developed through mobile applications, by holding up a colored cone, or by reacting to a screen changing colors.

A player will not develop the ability to perceive, make decisions, and execute during a game, if they constantly train in an environment where the only thing to perceive is the ball and some cones, and the decision on what to do with it is already predetermined by the coach (think of passing and dribbling "patterns").

A player develops skills by strengthening the connection to the environment in which they are supposed to perform during training, not by pulling away from it.

Game-like environments include elements of a real game: attacking, defending, and the transitions between the two.

Tactical abilities are developed by learning to perceive, decide, and act against real defenders, with real teammates, and with real direction.

Players progress by learning from the consequences of their decisions and actions. How can a player experience the impact their decisions and actions can have if they are constantly training in an environment not representative of the one they are supposed to perform in?

Developmentally Appropriate

The most game-like activity a player can participate in is a real game.

However, the average player is directly involved with the ball only 2-3%, or less than 3 minutes of a given 11-vs-11 match.

The more players on each team, the more complex, and tactically demanding, the game. Younger and less experienced players often get lost in games and activities that are cognitively overloading for their current developmental level, and do not receive sufficient amounts of repetitions for optimal development.

Sometimes this is due to training age, or a player's experience with the game itself. More often it is due to their biological (physical), cognitive (mental), and psychosocial (social/emotional) maturation - a process that cannot be forced to progress faster than human nature will allow.

This is why game formats at younger ages require smaller numbers (4-vs-4, 7-vs-7, 9-vs-9).

Coaches often come across activities and ideas implemented by professional teams, and try to emulate that with their youth team.

However, we must recognize that professional players are at different developmental levels than youth players.

The methods implemented at the pinnacle of sport are not the same methods that aid the player on the road to getting there.

Team strategies emphasized and implemented too much and too early in a player's development often over-constrains the player's autonomy (ability to make decisions freely), especially when winning a game is emphasized more than the mastery of skills and abilities.

Whereas players can be developed within certain game models, such as Barcelona's La Masia developing players "the Barca Way," according to the European Club Association (ECA), over 75% of the world's leading professional academies follow some form of periodization across a youth player's career.

This means that they set developmentally appropriate goals, informed by biological, cognitive, and psychosocial development, for different ages within their academy, and then implement methods that match these developmental markers.

Small-sided Games

One of the best tools we have to promote the development of skills, including tactical skill, is the use of small-sided games (e.g., 1-vs-1, 2-vs-2, 3-vs-3, etc.).

A general rule of thumb is this: the younger the players are in their development, the smaller numbers should be on their team during small-sided games in training. An emphasis should be placed on individual skills and abilities (including tactical ability), as opposed to larger team concepts.

Although larger numbers of players on each team may stress the development of tactical skills, young players still have to continually perceive, decide, and execute in smaller games involving fewer players, such as 1-vs-1, 2-vs-2, and 3-vs-3.

Perception and decision-making can especially be emphasized if players have multiple targets to attack towards, such as having the option to score in 2 goals instead of just 1 (this format is called Funiño, and is implemented in youth player development in both Germany and Spain, especially in pre-adolescence).

It often isn't until about the age of 16 that larger team systems and strategies become more heavily taught and emphasized, and participation in larger small-sided games in training (e.g., 8-vs-8, 9-vs-9, etc.) becomes more frequent.

1. ECA Report on youth academies. European Club Association. (n.d.). https://www.ecaeurope.com/media/2730/eca-report-on-youth-academies.pdf
2. Gray, R. (2021). How we learn to move: A revolution in the way we coach & practice sports skills. Rob Gray.
3. McPherson, S. L. (1994). The development of sport expertise: Mapping the tactical domain. Quest, 46(2), 223–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.1994.10484123
4. Parry, T., & O’Rourke, L. (2023). Theories of skill acquisition: implications for tennis coaching. ITF Coaching &Sport Science Review, 31(89), 51–56. https://doi.org/10.52383/itfcoaching.v31i89.391
5. Turner, A. N., & Stewart, P. F. (2014). Strength and conditioning for soccer players. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 36(4), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1519/ssc.0000000000000054

The Science of Skill

2024-11-19T23:59:59Z

Reading Time: ~10 minutes
Audio: Listen
Knowledge Base Article: A holistic approach to technical skill in soccer

Summary:

Technical skill in soccer is a complex web of interrelated factors that must be trained together, rather than in isolation. Technical skill is not simply the result of exceptional ball mastery, but rather the ability to perceive, decide, and execute actions within the context of a game. We must train in game-like environments, such as small-sided games, to develop this interconnected web of skills. The traditional focus on isolated drills may develop individual 'action capacities,' but are widely overused and do not necessarily translate to game performance.

Contents:

-A Holistic Approach to Technical Skill
-Why We Move The Way We Do
-What This Means For The Player
-A Better Approach to Training

A Holistic Approach to Technical Skill

What makes a player technically skillful?

Is it their ability to perform stepovers, drags, and body feints to beat a defender? A player's range of passing? The ability to control a ball out of the air without a single bounce? Or the finesse on a perfectly placed set piece?

We often try to reverse engineer and compartmentalize skill in soccer into four key areas:

Technical Ability - skill with the ball.
Tactical Ability - understanding of the game; “soccer IQ.”
Physical Ability - physical qualities, such as speed, strength, and agility.
Mental Ability - “mental toughness,” motivation, confidence, concentration, etc.

These areas are separate, yet fit nicely together additively like puzzle pieces to create a sum: player performance.

On the surface, this makes sense. We take away the other three components in order to focus solely on one area, leading to improved ability in that area during a game.

For example, thousands and thousands of dollars each year are spent on "private trainers" to help kids develop "technical skills," such as dribbling, receiving, passing, and shooting. Hours and hours of training later, the player is able to effortlessly dribble through and around cones, manipulating the ball with ease and precision.

This, then, gets labeled as 'skill.'

However, a deep dive into the science of skill in sports calls for a radically different approach to player development. We must break down those barriers between the different domains of ability (technical, tactical, physical, mental) and take a more holistic view of skill development.

Why We Move The Way We Do

The field of motor behavior and development studies why we, as humans, move the way we do, as well as how we learn to do so. When applied in a sports setting, this becomes the field of motor skill acquisition.

Research performed extensively in these fields highlights at least three key influences on why we move the way we do, including the skills we perform during a soccer game:

The Environment - what is occurring external to the player (e.g., the field, teammates, defenders, the ball, position on the field, etc.)?
The Task - what is the desired outcome (e.g., scoring a goal, passing to a teammate, beating a defender, etc.)?
The Individual - what capacities and abilities does the player possess that will help achieve the desired outcome (e.g., speed, strength, quick thinking, tight ball control, range of passing, etc.)?

Achieving the desired outcome, given these three constraints, is called a movement solution.

Whereas there may be certain types of techniques that may be more effective in producing outcomes during a game, such as striking a ball with the laces to produce power behind a shot, there is no such thing as an "ideal technique," as long as the outcome is being achieved.

Consistently coming up with movement solutions during a soccer game is the true essence of skill and creativity.

What This Means For The Player

Arsène Wenger, legendary Arsenal coach and current Chief of Global Football Development for FIFA, once said:

"The problem in football is that you learn to play the wrong way round - first execution, then decision-making, and perception last."

Players must learn to perceive the game unfolding in front of them (environment), make decisions based on cues they've learned through experience (task), and then physically be able to execute those decisions (individual).

Players learn to hone this process by learning from the consequences of their decisions and actions, and adapting as necessary.

This process of perceiving, making decisions, and executing, is occurring every second of every game, whether or not the player is consciously aware of it.

It also inherently involves ball mastery, tactical, physical, and mental capacities and abilities all working in synergy, not as isolated systems being put back together like puzzle pieces.

As opposed to separate pillars being changed one at a time and then added together to create a sum of performance, they interact like different points on a web, where, as researcher Willis Overton (2013) writes, "entities and ideas are represented, not as pure forms, but as forms that flow across fuzzy boundaries."

Each area is a network working with, and within, other networks, to create a product: performance.

Therefore, the training of these networks is just as important, if not more so, than the training of these domains in isolation. Training this synergy is best achieved in autonomy-supportive, mastery-oriented, and game-like environments.

A Better Approach to Training

Research in psychology posits that, for an individual to be intrinsically (self) motivated to perform a task, he/she must have at least three psychological needs met:

Autonomy - the person must feel their choices are their own, and not that of somebody else (e.g., coaches, parents).
Competence - the person must feel they possess a certain level of ability regarding the task.
Connectedness - the person must feel a sense of belonging in the setting in which the task is taking place (e.g., the team, family, club, etc.).

Intrinsic motivation is crucial to physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy long-term athletic development. Extrinsically motivated goals, such as pleasing a coach or parent, especially out of fear of making mistakes, likely stunts skill development in soccer players.

Creating a training/game-day environment that fosters intrinsic motivation in the players is called an autonomy-supportive environment.

Players must have the correct experiences within autonomy-supportive environments in order to develop skills that lead to in-game performance development. In other words, the activities they are actually participating in must transfer to performance during real games.

The best way to ensure skills performed in training are transferrable to a soccer game, is to train in game-like environments. One of the best tools we have to create game-like environments in training, whilst still ensuring players are getting enough touches on the ball for optimal skill development, is the use of small-sided games (e.g., 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, etc.).

In fact, some of the top player-producing countries in the world, such as Spain, Portugal, and Germany, ensure that no less than about two-thirds of each training session at the youth level is made up of "active decision-making activities" such as small-sided games.

It's also no secret that many of the best players in the world, such as Johan Cruyff, Pele, Zidane, and Messi, attribute much of their success to their time playing on the streets of their home towns.

Not only is the use of small-sided games in training more effective for skill development, but it is more enjoyable for kids to participate in, increasing their intrinsic desire to be a part of the game.

Does this mean there is little value in structured, reductionist training for youth soccer players?

Not necessarily.

Rob Gray, researcher and author in the field of motor skill acquisition, calls individual points on the performance web action capacities.

These action capacities, such as speed, dribbling ability, and pass accuracy, provide players with their individual constraints (think back earlier to the three influences on our movement). A player with a higher number of more refined action capacities will see more opportunities for action in their environment.

Whereas action capacity can be developed and refined in isolated environments, it is important to recognize the difference between skill and action capacity:

If action capacities are individual points, or characteristics, on the performance web, skill is a network of interconnected points working in synergy to achieve an outcome, given the environment the task is being performed in.

Since this is the case, a rule of thumb could be that the expression of action capacities during games can only be as strong as their connections to the whole.

True skill can only be developed in game-like environments in which freedom of expression and exploration is allowed.

Cone, J., & Smith, G. (2023). Player development: The holistic method. Routledge.
Clemente, F. M. (2016a). Acute effects of different formats of the game. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology, 67–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0880-1_4
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