Turning Canadian Soccer Around - Paul James

[Gordon]

CIS produces Canadian football players for the CFL because of the quota system that props it up. if You drop the non-import quota from the CFL rule book, then you can pretty much kiss goodbye the usefulness of CIS football as a player development league.

The reality is that, to train to be a professional, you need to structure your entire operation around doing just that. CIS and NCAA simply do not train soccer players to be a professional, at least not according to generally recognized standards that exist throughout the world. The combination of Short seasons featuring highly compressed game schedules, inadequate training time, an unwillingness to hire the most qualified soccer people to work as Coaches (try getting a coaching job at a university with only a high school or college diploma...not going to happen but that disqualifies many excellent soccer people who are educated in soccer but who don't hold a 3 or 4 year degree), etc... makes it almost impossible for schools to be considered as viable for player development.

I generally agree with your thoughs regarding CIS, however, MLS does have a quota rule, and competition for those spots comes, at this point in time, largely from NCAA. IN teh CFL, CIS does a better job than Junior Fottball (I think the age factor is largely responsible) Secondly, not all schools want Ph.Ds in Kinesiology as their soccer coachs. The U of S hired a guy, a few years back, who didn't speak english and was a former assistant coach with the Yugoslav NT. He advanced the quality and style of play at the U of S by 20 years within 3 year sin the position. He opened a lot of eyes when he started one of the smallest players (but the most skillful) on the team at Centre back and teh team started playing the ball out of the back. The guy's influence on soccer in Saskatoon has been huge. The tale speaks more to the value of coaching than the CIS as a source of pro players of course, I just wanted to provide some counter evidence to a couple of your points.

[Vic]

Apologies for the attitude last night, it was completely uncalled for. Tough day.

Great story Gordon. Anything and everything to improve the game everywhere in the country.

[VPjr]

The U of S hired a guy, a few years back, who didn't speak english and was a former assistant coach with the Yugoslav NT. He advanced the quality and style of play at the U of S by 20 years within 3 year sin the position. He opened a lot of eyes when he started one of the smallest players (but the most skillful) on the team at Centre back and teh team started playing the ball out of the back. The guy's influence on soccer in Saskatoon has been huge. The tale speaks more to the value of coaching than the CIS as a source of pro players of course, I just wanted to provide some counter evidence to a couple of your points.

Thanks for this story. The need to upgrade coaching in this country is critical. Of course, it is really hard to do that with so few jobs available because there is so little incentive to make the necessary commitment to that career path when there is so little money in it.

Just to be clear, I never said there were no good coaches in CIS or NCAA. There are definitely good coaches out there. However, because most universities and colleges impose minimum educational requirements on job applicants, it disqualifies many people who bring a similar level of experience as the gentleman you have mentioned but who don't have that piece of paper from a post-secondary institution and thus reduces the quality of the pool significantly. That being said, it sounds like the players at U of S have lucked into a great situation and kudos to the school for thinking outside of the box a bit.

[Free kick]

I agree with Vic. IMO the CIS is probably the best place to start to try to draw Canada even with the USA at the youth to college levels. It's not ideal but the US has made it pay in both their NT programs.

Until Canada can afford to have a better CIS and/or pro clubs, we will still be sending players outside of the country. The Euro system would be the best but we don't have a domestic league nor pro clubs that can afford it. The only good example of a Euro sports system in Canada is the hockey development model. Here the Kids get into the Canadian system earlier than soccer, move away from home into billets, go to school and etc.

The Washington Post article above proves once again the USSF and it's community are forward looking. What is Canada doing other than sending our best out of the country? Nothing of course.

?

Sorry to say, but you are contradicting yourself. In the first two paragraphs you are lauding the merits of leveraging of off the CIS, defending the CIS as viable development option and stating that we should aim to close the gap between CIS and NCAA. Then you are defending an article that which basically acknowledge that college soccer is pointless. An article that is just reiterating what most people have already stated in this tread.

At the very root of this entire discussions of six pages is really about Womens soccer versus mens soccer. There is failure to by some to understand how the soccer lanscape is so different between mens and women soccer and that the paths taken by a Mia Hamm or Kristine Lilly or Christine Sinclaire are totally differnt than the paths taken by a Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney. And by extention, a failure to acknowldege by some that you cant extrapolate or apply approaches to development approaches to the mens game that you aplly to the womens game.

This had been an on-going disconnect that i have observed on this forum for many years now and it filters into the views in many discussions like this. Just like the fact that those who follow closely the womens game take more of micro view to soccer as opposed to the maco-view that followers of teh men's game do. The mens game is more about the entertainment business and ego whereas the womens game is more about athletetic endeavours and personal achievment and development. Thats because in the womens game at teh world the structures and heirarchie is less defined.

The internationl game at the mens level is played by the professionals in a spectator driven entertainment business. And its an elite group of professionals who attain that stature through a very defined and highly structured Hierarchy .

The sooner, we all understand this, the more we will be on the same page. And the sooner that decsion makers understand this, the better they will be able to help both mens and womens teams in Canada and US.

[jpg75]

I think the irony of the women's soccer development model is that young women develop faster physically then boys and would therefore be ready to compete at a high level much earlier. A teenager like Kara Lang was playing for at the U19 level as a 15 year old and soon after was playing on the NT. How much better could she have been if she hadn't had to wait another 3 years to go to College?

[Vic]

Very astute post Free kick. The women's game is definitely nowhere near as mature or developed as the men's game. But the continually overlooked fact is women and girls are half of Canadian soccer. We have one of the top teams in the world and on both representation and results they deserve a future driven by their needs that takes that into consideration and doesn't treat them as a lesser partner or re-jigged afterthought to our men's side. If that's possible, great. If not, give them their funding and let them do it.

Good point on age and who knows how good she could have been. I imagine she was in the Ontario NTC which isn't UCLA's intensity but it is a pretty high level of training. No idea about what was going on in Oakville. Because of the width of the talent band when Lang hit the scene young girls could definitely ascend the national foodchain much younger. The top of the women's game around the world has matured a bit since then (there are few speckled players like Rosie White at the Women's World Cup but they are very rare), but it's still easier than on the men's side. That said the women's program also has it's share of late bloomers and Morace debuted a lot of girls in the senior team this year from the university/college level.

[CoachRich]

Sorry to say, but you are contradicting yourself. In the first two paragraphs you are lauding the merits of leveraging of off the CIS, defending the CIS as viable development option and stating that we should aim to close the gap between CIS and NCAA. Then you are defending an article that which basically acknowledge that college soccer is pointless. An article that is just reiterating what most people have already stated in this tread.

At the very root of this entire discussions of six pages is really about Womens soccer versus mens soccer. There is failure to by some to understand how the soccer lanscape is so different between mens and women soccer and that the paths taken by a Mia Hamm or Kristine Lilly or Christine Sinclaire are totally differnt than the paths taken by a Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney. And by extention, a failure to acknowldege by some that you cant extrapolate or apply approaches to development approaches to the mens game that you aplly to the womens game.

This had been an on-going disconnect that i have observed on this forum for many years now and it filters into the views in many discussions like this. Just like the fact that those who follow closely the womens game take more of micro view to soccer as opposed to the maco-view that followers of teh men's game do. The mens game is more about the entertainment business and ego whereas the womens game is more about athletetic endeavours and personal achievment and development. Thats because in the womens game at teh world the structures and heirarchie is less defined.

The internationl game at the mens level is played by the professionals in a spectator driven entertainment business. And its an elite group of professionals who attain that stature through a very defined and highly structured Hierarchy .

The sooner, we all understand this, the more we will be on the same page. And the sooner that decsion makers understand this, the better they will be able to help both mens and womens teams in Canada and US.

You missed the point and I didn't say anything about "defending an article" The point is "once again the USSF and it's community are forward looking".

The US already has successful program in the NCAA so this next step to be pro driven is logical for the sport as the pro side becomes wider and deeper in the US (MLS, WPSL and maybe the NASL/USL). Canada doesn't have program like the NCAA yet and the wait for a pro driven program could be quite awhile in Canada. Hence the CIS is more together and a easier step than the pro side in Canada. I believe that was the point Vic had about the CIS and how it could be tweaked.

Great view on the difference between the Men's and Women's game which I would say is a traditional view on development pathways and levels of money involved.

The women's development structure with countries like Germany, Japan, USA, England and others is changing and becoming more like the mens. It is great to see this and those involved understand the difference in the scale of the 2 games and their current structures. Women do believe they have what it takes to have their own youth club to pro structure similar to the men's in a NSO and they understand the facts of scale associated to the business side presently as well.

Much like youth and adult clubs having multiple pathways of caliber levels (HP, Rec, House & etc) the same should should hold true for females especially when they rep about 1/2 the membership and population. Other sports like golf, tennis, figure skating and the likes have a pro side for the women that is similar to the mens and the structure to get there. Hopefully and very soon the game of soccer for females will join those ranks once those that run the game understand what needs to be done.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

^we're actually May to October and pre-season starts in March-April. That is a 7 month season but I would agree that is still a bit too short. However, clubs are putting plans in place to extend how long we are able to work with our players, especially the younger ones.

When people in the United States talk about the deficiencies of PDL they are comparing it to what happens in countries outside North America where youth players leave school and become full-time pros at around the age of 16 and play around 40 competitive games a season in a 10 month regular season. They don't have a semi-pro league in southern Ontario with a relatively short May to September regular season (October is primarily for playoffs in the CSL) of around 20 games in mind as the alternative model. A combination of NCAA and PDL provides more games than that with scope for full-time training in limited portions of the year. Once the youth academies of the three MLS teams and possibly some additional NASL teams get into full swing decisions will be made by the age of about 18 or 19 as to who gets the full-time contracts to stay with the senior team. For the > 90% of players who don't make it at that point pursuing an academic scholarship is not a bad plan B and will usually make more sense than continuing to chase the dream in a semi-pro league given in many/most cases it will ultimately turn out to have been more of a deluded fantasy.

[Alex D]

Here is the Official CSL release on the topic of the youth divisions. http://canadiansoccerleague.ca/news_archive.php?news_id=280578

Great to see the academies will be for both boys and girls from U12-U18.

Despite the criticism the CSL receives from some people, it is the only league laying the groundwork for proper player development, and that's something we all need to get behind.

^BTW BBTB, with the CSL indoor season they will be playing and training all year... Just saying is all.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

What would be bizarre is if it wasn't already happening, AlexD. I'm not a huge fan of London City but they've been involved in youth soccer for a very long time and I'm sure the likes of St Catherines Roma, Hamilton Croatia, Serbian White Eagles etc have been as well. Elite senior level clubs running affiliated youth teams both indoors and outdoors isn't exactly a novel concept. The top amateur clubs in and around London, Ont. have been doing it for decades (St Thomas for example were one of the pioneers in Ontario where futsal is concerned) and I'm sure much the same applies from coast to coast. The difference that TFC Academy has made is getting the top full-time pro level prospects in the GTA out of the youth soccer system and into an open age men's semi-pro league. The NCAA eligibility issue is what used to make that problematic in a CPSL/CSL context relative to top amateur leagues and that would probably still be a major issue for the CSL teams that pay their players.

[Gordon]

I should add, by the way, that the coach's name was Jovo Radovic. His last season as Head Coach was 2003-04 and he passed away in 2009 at the age of 74. The current Huskie Coach, Bryce Chapman, was an assistant under Radovic and seems to have continued in the same vein.

[mirokliment@shaw.ca]

Vic, I respect your point of view but I'm not sure there are many people in either the University community (outside of coaches already employed) or within the soccer community at large who are enthusiastic about investing already limited resources in this way. You might consider upgrading CIS soccer a no-brainer but I feel pretty comfortable stating that there is almost no appetite for that among the people who would be in a position to make those decisions and allocate the dollars needed for that type of experiment. Unless the schools are prepared to foot all the costs themselves to radically alter the university/college soccer landscape, it's not going to happen. The current status quo will continue (where a few schools care and invest and the rest won't even allocate the money needed for a full time coach).

From what I'm hearing, the USSF is currently getting ready to meet with a variety of different stakeholders in the professional soccer community to seek out alternatives for their best young talent as well, rather than see them go the NCAA route. At the elite level, the Americans are starting to clearly see the limitations of the college soccer system for the best of the best and are going to start working with MLS, USL and NASL to try and develop a better model.

Great job Dino,I couldn't say it better...You can't give the U-17 to U-22 years away to became a recreational universtiy student,if you want to have a crack at pro soccer...Everyone should finish high school and re-visit University later,if they wanna become pros in big soccer.

[Macksam]

What would be bizarre is if it wasn't already happening...

Not to this extent. It's getting a more serious and structured. The CSL now knows what it wants to be, and what it wants to do.

And as for you CoachRich, you're province better get on board or we will leave you behind, with your hand grasped around your penis wondering what just happened.

[Vic]

Just when I was thinking "you can't give the U-17 to U-22 years away to became a recreational universtiy student" was the most self-defeating argument I've read here in months, you swoop in like a savant and take the trophy.

[Macksam]

I was just using humour when addressing Rich.