|
Parents, Players and Coaches,
I hope this finds you well at the end of the spring soccer season. I just wanted to contact you all regarding this season’s evaluation that took place a few weeks ago. I would firstly like to say a huge well done to all players that attended the evaluations. All players behaved fantastically and contributed to the evaluation process running very smoothly. I also just wanted to give you all a breakdown of the evaluation process and highlight why NASC uses this process.
For many clubs, one of the biggest and most political problems they face is player evaluations. NASC's philosophy is that every young player will ultimately succeed and reach their maximum potential if they are allowed to proceed at their own pace within a supportive environment. For many players, evaluations bring about a lot of pressure and they fear they will fail to perform or give true reflection of their ability. From a club's perspective, evaluations are often viewed as a means of elimination. NASC prefers to see the focus of your evaluations as a day to assess skills. Our NASC's exclusive evaluation process is truly one of the best around because it recognizes players' strengths and weaknesses and allows assessors to create a personalized plan and recommendations for each player to reach his or her fullest potential.
NASC's evaluation process is built from our own exclusive National Curriculum, from which we taken five activities for players in each age/positional category to participate in. For each practice, there are four key factors that the assessor is marking. The maximum score for each key factor is 5 with the minimum score being 1. The scores are broken out as follows: 1 - Needs Work, 3 - Good and 5 - Excellent. A player can score a maximum of 20 at each practice to a maximum Total Overall Score of 100. Evaluation sessions are divided into two areas--technical and tactical--with different skills evaluated over five practices. These five practices allow players from every position to excel. Therefore, a defender who is normally only seen chasing an attacker in a tryout game can now earn points from their performance in a defensive practice. The areas were set out and the scorers remained at the same areas for the duration of the process to ensure consistency of scoring. The players, therefore, moved from one area to the other. All players were identified with numbers on the back of their shirts.
The NASC's evaluation process was designed by our then President, and now Director of Business Development Nick Dunbar . Nick has been with NASC for 15 years and holds every major coaching qualification given by both the English F.A and the NSCAA. Nick is also an NSCAA staff coach for both CT and MA.
The process allows players to be seen as individuals as well as within game scenarios. Every player has the same amount of time to be scored and also the same equal opportunities as any other player being assessed. Also, every player that attended the evaluations were seen and scored by a minimum of 3 different professional NASC's coaches. The coaches selected to assess and evaluate the players, were brought in from all over the country. All NASC coaches have been through a day long training workshop on how to run, score and evaluate players using this evaluation process. Every coach, will score at the same level, as they are using the same marking criteria and have all been trained the same.
The evaluation process is designed to evaluate the entire soccer player in all aspects of the game. It highlights players strengths in certain area’s of the game and also their weaknesses in others. It is the aim of both NASC and LOLSC to develop the entire player, not to mould a player to become pigeon holed in one position. Youth soccer is entirely about the development of the whole soccer player and they will therefore play a number of positions throughout their early years in the game. This is done so that the players can become comfortable on the field of play, and develop the specific tactical and technical aspects required to play in all positions. The evaluation process aims to view players in all positions to evaluate them as complete soccer players, and not just attackers, midfielders or defenders.
Having run this evaluation process with clubs all over the country, and having evaluated thousands of young soccer players, we at NASC have had the opportunity to monitor and assess a number of different abilities of players.
We recently evaluated an ODP player in MA, who was playing for her town team with her Father as the team coach. Following the evaluation process, her Father was not at all happy with her scores and demanded an explanation. Nick Dunbar, the man that created the evaluations, happened to be the assessor on the station that his daughter scored the least amount of points. The girl was physically more developed then the other girls at the evaluations and was therefore stronger and quicker. On the dribbling station however, Nick Dunbar scored her poorly. This was due to the fact that the girl simply relied on her speed to beat her opponents and had neglected the skills required to beat an opponent that she would require as she grow older. She therefore scored poorly on, ‘uses fakes to beat an opponent’ and ‘changes pace and direction to take on defender’. What was working for this girl as a 12 year old would not continue to work for her as she, and most importantly, the girls around her, developed as they grew older. I myself have witnessed this plateau first hand from coaching the Southeast Premier U14 boy’s team. When I first began coaching the boys as 11 and 12 year olds, they lost a lot more games then they won because the teams that we were competing against used the strength and speed of their players to dominate the Southeast boys. However, over these 2 years, results were irrelevant. We focused on teaching the players the correct way of playing the game. They all focused on their individual skills, such as different passing techniques, the ability to both dribble and run with the ball etc. We also allowed every player to play in every position. Even our goalkeepers played out field to gain a better understanding of the game. As a result, after almost 2 years, the boys now hold the best record of all premier teams in Connecticut . Size and strength cannot be relied on any longer and the skills and techniques of the players becomes the focus.
Success in soccer is not monitored over 1 season. It is monitored throughout a child’s entire development. If a child enjoys having a ball at their feet and they are eager to learn, that is the key to their development, no matter what level they play at. Players develop at different rates, and therefore, the abilities of players continue to vary over time. Eventually, if a player has focused on the key areas of their game, and has not relied on one or two strengths throughout their youth, then this will be evident when the plateau of abilities occurs.
In conclusion, this process of evaluation carried out by NASC, was done so to highlight the areas of the game that every player that attended is both strong at, and also needs to develop. Development is key in order to improve as a soccer player. Good players never rely on their strengths where they lie now, but rather they are constantly looking at ways their game can develop. If a player does this, then eventually they will gain success. Whether that success is playing in a World Cup final for their country, or playing for an A team in their town.
For those players that have been selected to the town teams, congratulations. Play with a smile on your face, a ball constantly at your feet and a willingness and desire to improve and get to the next level, whatever that may be. For those of you who did not get selected this year, remember that age in on your side and you have the chance to continue your development through looking at the feedback from the evaluations, and highlight areas for development. Success takes time, and young soccer players have this time on their side. Good luck for the season and I look forward to hearing great things about LOLSC.
Kind regards and if anyone wishes to contact me at any time, please feel free.
Tom Butler
Regional Director of Coaching
North American Soccer Camps
One Fort Hill Road
Groton, CT 06430
866-721-0181 x8
|
