Episode 250: Quality Pro Player Development or Recreation? People don’t know the Difference.

(The original article and all of its comments can be found here.)

A line must be drawn between two camps:

1. Those who ultimately view soccer as recreation.
2. Those who are about creating professional footballers of the highest quality.

Both have vastly different requirements.

1) Recreation

This does not mean the ‘rec soccer community’ – as in reserved for AYSO or its analogues.

No. This could include anyone, anywhere throughout the soccer pyramid. From those having a role in Bronze level club to Development Academy, to college, to MLS, to the National Teams themselves. And to any organization and its supporters.

What we’re talking about here is a state of mind.

That, in and of itself, will be reflected in what your product is, and who it’s for.

2) Professional

If you apprentice under a master violinist, you go to reach the maximum at the violin.

Again, you go to learn the god damn violin! You don’t go for mathematics, morality, or treat it as some extra-curricular activity.

It is the curriculum! It is the passion!

This goes for both student and master, and their expectations of one another …
the person doing the mentoring has little place for pupils of a recreational inclination.

Hopefully you can tell this is a vastly different mindset:
You’re all in, or you’re all out.

The Requirements

Here is where we have a severe problem in the soccer community.

FAR GREATER than 99% at any level fall in the recreation camp, and can’t seem to distinguish between the two. Most don’t even recognize, or want to recognize, this line – let alone explore it.

I can accept that.
What I can’t accept is when the recreation mindset pollutes the discussion and policieswithin what should be an unwavering commitment to quality pro-player development.

That’s a huge problem and reason for this country’s mediocrity.

The requirements are so different, they are essentially opposites.

• “It’s all about the kids”
• “They’re only 12″
• “Playing time issues”
• “Well rounded”
• “Just let them play”
• “Cutting players is horrible”
• “Winning vs Development”
• “Diving”
• “High School vs Academy”
• “Referees this and that”
• “Unlucky”
• “Don’t run up scores”
• “Mourinho’s a piece of garbage”
• “Balotelli’s a piece of garbage”
• “Suarez is a piece of garbage”
• “Coaches should shut up on the sidelines”
• “It’s a player’s game”
• “The team just needs to ‘gel’”

These are all artifacts of the recreational state of mind (non-exhaustive of course). And that’s ok … for recreation.

Sure these things have a place in the professional camp, but the frequency and magnitude with which they arise – along with the context – is a dead giveaway on which side of the fence one resides.

If you want to pursue footballers and a field product of the highest quality, you do not apply the recreational mindset and requirements.

Doing so leads to recreational products.

And that’s what we’re living with. Essentially one big AYSO community operating under the guise of ‘competitive’, ‘academy’, ‘professional’.

Couple Brief Examples

• The pro camp relentlessly pursues the scouting, identification, and recruiting of thebest possible players – which of course requires the identification and releasing of the weakest players. Something demonized by the rec mentality, and something the rec community wants to dictate and attach certain terms as to how this should or shouldn’t be done.

• The pro camp relentlessly pursues both winning and development. This discussion is closed!

What Camp?

Now, if you don’t churn out quality professionals, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the ‘recreation camp’. Similarly, if a quality pro happened to have come from one of your teams, that doesn’t mean you’re in the ‘professional camp’.

I think the differentiator is the following:
If you run your ship with genuine and extraordinary commitment to the understanding and execution of the professional mindset (and the requirements that come with it), you’re not a rec person or program.

Key Takeaways

There exist two camps:

1. Those who ultimately view soccer as recreation.
2. Those who are about creating professional footballers of the highest quality.

Both have vastly different requirements.

And finally, since FAR greater than 99% at all levels are in camp #1, whatever few camp #2 people exist have enormous pressure to conform and pander to camp #1 mentality (ie mediocrity).

Never miss new episodes:

• Subscribe to 3four3 FM on iTunes
• Subscribe to 3four3 FM on Stitcher
• Subscribe to 3four3 FM on Spotify