Magic, Bird, Free Play and Deliberate Practice

Magic vs Bird and Play vs Work

The fascinating 30 for 30 Celtics Lakers reminds us how Play and Work shape us, our potential, our future and even sport itself. 

The Foundation of learning sits on a continuum of Free Play and individual deliberate practice.  

Jean Cote divided up up practices along a continuum. On one end is free play, unstructured, fun, immediate, intrinsic; On the other end is Deliberate Practice which is the opposite, not inherently fun, extrinsic, performance related.  One is "play"  the other is "work"  and they are both important.  

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When you are young, lots of free play is important.  Serious preparation for the difficult competitions of life are forged not through hard work but with imagination, fun, and joy of free play.  Bear cubs wrestle and play to prepare themselves for the demands of being a top of the food chain omnivore.  

And it works for kids too, especially in sports.  The streets have always produced the best, most nuanced, most inspirational players in all sports.  In soccer Ronaldo quit his youth academy team to stay and play with his Friends in the local pick up game, he is maybe the best striker the word has ever known, Zidane brought a new level of skill honed on the streets of Marseilles, Maradona, Messi, Cruyff, there is no greatness without free play. 

And Deliberate Practice is of course well understood.  It is the hard work without the inherent fun.  It is disciplined, structured and difficult.  It tends to be what we think about when we think about great aceivement--and it's mostly true: Hard work leads to success.

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Let’s look at two examples, from Basketball, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. 

Larry Bird grew up in a small town in Indiana, he practiced a lot, and much of it on his own honing his skills through hours of repetitions. It was not inherently fun, it was work.  

Magic Johnson on the other hand hated to practice.  He liked to play in the 3 v 3 games at the local park in Lansing Michigan. . The problem was that at his home courts the games were plagued by fights, arguments, games would break up with players upset leaving Magic alone with a ball…and he hated to practice on his own.

Magic had to figure out a way to keep the game going.  He would pass the ball, that made the others happy (he would go on to become one of the best passers in NBA history), he would smile (his smile became world famous). He learned how to keep the group happy and productive.  

These two were shaped by this upbringing.  Magic, as a rookie led his team to the NBA title, in the final game he did this playing out of position for the Injured hall of famer, Kareem Abdul Jabar. Johnson recorded 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, and 3 steals in a 123–107 win, while playing guard, forward, and center at different times during the game. Johnson became the only rookie to win the NBA Finals MVP award and his clutch performance is still regarded as one of the finest in NBA history.

He still had a lot to learn.  His technical skills (outside shooting, free throw shooting, for example) were not at the level of other parts of his game and needed to work on those things to improve, but, by the time he got the NBA Johnson was a social genius.  

Larry Bird on the other hand was a tremendous technician honed through hours of solitary practice.  No one had ever seen a 6’ 11” player who could shoot threes as well as play inside.  But socially he was not a leader as he came in to the league.  It took him a few years before he won a title. A famous tv shot shows Bird waving a flag on the bench, tentatively waving on his teammates—it looked like Bird was doing what everyone thought he should do, but he was learning and working at it. 

Magic had to work on his technical skills, Bird had to work on his social skills. So maybe maybe how we spend the hours in sport as kids shapes our abilities and hence our strengths and weaknesses in sport. 

So both Deliberate Practice and Free Play provide pathways to success.  


Next blog, how we divide FP and DP.  

I receive the news of two deaths in two days

The first was a very close friend.


He was in my wedding. We met when he was out of his first year of college. He was fast, humble and fun to be around. We became immediate friends. He did not play soccer so much for himself as for the group. He never needed to stand out. We proudly dressed on the State Select team together and later Mn Thunder. He started every game. He was my friend for life.


Johan Cruyff died today.


When I was just discovering the game in Northern Chicago isolated suburb I had one magazine on the 1978 world Cup that I paged through everyday. Finding information on this new game for soccer was not easy back then.They were talking about Total Soccer. Cruyff was not there—but yet he was everywhere in his ideas and movements. Fascinated, I came up with a plan. If they could do it in Holland, why couldn’t we do it at Trinity College? I drew up movement schemes—I was the epitome of the Rumsfeldian saying “we don’t know what we don’t know” but that didn’t stop me. I remember my teammates rolling their eyes in confusion.


Cruyff was the best player of his generation. He was an enigma—like soccer was in america at the time. It was complex yet simple, fresh yet with a deep history. It challenged us to think different.


“Live and die by your own ideas” —Johann Cruyff


Death comes to us all to soon. But, our ideas live on.


These two understood that soccer (and life) was not about themselves—it was about others. They understood a relationship with those watching. It is like a living idea hoping-- in this world of competition, of trophies, dominance, functionalism--to take hold in the heart of a 10 year old—only for him--an idea to live on. An idea that says it is about the beauty and the promise, that joy is out there and is only revealed in effort of play, imagination and discovery.


“Life is all about working to become the best possible version of yourself.” --Johann Cruyff


These two, one a close friend, one a world soccer leader, Died this week. Both are gone. But their ideas are not. Romantic in their vision, truthful in their search for beauty in the game, they understood why we play. Not for ourselves, but for others. We play for teammates and other team, and the spectators and our coaches and mentors who have guided us. Our parents who love us unconditionally, and the young kids and the old men watching. We play for the struggle and to win--but not to win in the score, this is clear and the other side's biggest miscalculation--the instead we play to win in the hearts and minds of everyone who ever hoped to be the best they can be--we play to pass along a brief glimpse absolute grace--we are role models for each other and for the future.


We play for each other.


Rest in peace JB an JC

How the Street will always overwhelm the Academies

The Street or the Academy? 

with Mario Zagalo at SoccerEx in Rio

In a recent Daniel Abrahams blog, (author of the great book, THE SOCCER BRAIN) Abrahams post thoughts from another Author, Matthew Whitehouse (author of ‘The Way Forward’ Solutions to Englands Football failings). Abrahams and Whitehouse lament the lack of high soccer intelligence of Wayne Rooney.  While I have no opinion as to Rooney's game intelligence  I do have a strong opinion about where Abrahams places the blame:

"For me, Rooney fails to appreciate space and tactical positioning. It is not too surprising when he considers that 95% of his development came from the streets as a kid. For me Rooney is not a modern player in the sense of using his brain, he is a street football who while effective, lacks the intricacies of the mind to achieve further greatness. Effectively he is a raw talent… never materialized... I feel the issue with Rooney and the reason why he is not on the same level of a Messi, Ronaldo or Iniesta is because he lacks the tactical nous and intelligence to dominate games.

and later 

And Van Persie’s development has come from his understanding of reading the game and becoming a thinking player."

This stagnation, he argues, arose from Wayne Rooney’s admission that he is %95 percent a Street player. Because at the appropriate he was not given the syllabus of creating, making, and using space like Iniesta and Van Persie.

His argument is that that lack of polishing produced a player not intelligent enough to understand the game at the highest level. And that the “street” training created a good, but not great players. There needed to be a sound syllabus of movement and tactical work beginning latest at the age of 12.

What to Teach and When?  The ever ongoing question. What was missing? What can we do better? what is it we are doing wrong? 

“Whenever we teach our kids something we prevent them from discovering it and therefore understanding it fully.”  —Piaget

It is more likely that Abrahams has it backwards.  That intelligence--at least how it's described by Piaget--is more likely to be developed on the street where the kids can discover and ultimately show us something new--especially at the early ages (and I will argue until age 16) And the academy, in their efforts to hand teach systems of the past (Spanish possession or the du jour German collectivism)  at ages as early as nine (now much earlier) they actually prevent kids from that discovery and therefore understand the concept fully.

Don't believe me? Let's look at some of the examples used by Abrahams

• Rooney joined Everton at age 9.  They were not doing street play at the Everton academy. In 2008 I attended soccer ex at Wembly Stadium spending the day networking and hobnobbing with Coaches and leaders from around Europe.  The club that everyone wanted to talk to was Everton.  They had just produced and sold a guy named Wayne Rooney.  They were selling something called “The Everton Way,” an online set of Everton academy drills, videos and activities and practice plans from ages 7-19. Mostly small sided space and keep a way games. (And they we dying to talk to me and sell to a club in the USA). My thoughts at the time were that it was too much passing and possession and tactics  for 11 year olds. (At the same conference was Girard Houlier saying that at Clairfountaine they only worked 3 things Skills, skills, skills). 

• Van persie played with friends everyday.  While he did attend a Dutch academy, he was more of a street kid than Rooney. Here is Nourdine Boukhari, a Dutch-Moroccan soccer player who grew up in an immigrant neighborhood of Rotterdam, recalling his childhood in a dutch magazine:

I lived more on the street than at home...And look at Robin Van Persie, Mounir El Hamdaoui and Said Boutahar. And I'm forgetting Youssef El-Akchaoui. [Like the other players Boukhari mentions, El-Akchaoui is a current professional soccer player.] Those boys and I played on the street in Rotterdam together. We never forgot where we came from and that we used to have nothing except for one thing: the ball....  What we have in common is that we were on the street every minute playing soccer, day and night. We were always busy, games, juggling, shooting at the crossbar. The ball was everything for me, for us.

• Iniesta was a dribbling ball hog. At SoccerEX in Rio, Ginez Melendez, one of the leaders of the Spanish soccer armada, sat me down in front of his computer to show videos of Iniesta at age 12, (pre Barca)  at Albacete, where Melendez discovered him—  All the kid did was dribble and shoot (and score).  Looked very street to me.

As coaches we greatly overestimate the academy and our abilities to pass on knowledge. Our systems are built to mold kids into something in the past, something we think we understand. We breakdown game intelligence into good and bad, smart and dumb all based on our experience. 

Again from Piaget:
The role of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.

If we define Game intelligence on the above, then it is built on the street, not the academy.  

What is the answer?

1) Believe in Play! Build Free Play in the Culture and Curriculum. Figure out to how get more play at early ages.  Set up support for min neighborhood games.  Build cool mini courts everywhere and let kids play on them. Keep the coaches away. Is Spain great because they have discovered how to coach Dutch style space making? Or because they adopted Futsal and small  sided play in every park and club in the country creating Europe’s most vibrant culture of play?

2)  Let them play until the age of 16. 
The greatest generation of Brazilian players, the 1960's and 70's, When brazil was so much better than everyone. What was going on? They were playing in the street until the age of 16, then transition them to deliberate practice.  It’s the end of adolescence, it is the time for boys to become men. The Brazilians that won three world cups out of 4 (Garrincha, Pele, Nilton Santos, Zagalo, Rivelino) joined the academy at 16 to be techni-fication. How much space training and game intelligence was needed for Carlos Alberto, Rivelino and Pele (all famous street kids)? Garrincha, he made his own space and the smartest brains on the planet were left flummoxed "Russia put a spaceship around earth, put they couldn't stop Garrincha." What our highest level coaches understand is that all the greatest players rise for the street.  As Piaget said they take us to where we have never gone before (Pele, Cruyff).

3) Focus on the person. Small and smart curriculum that builds and grows with the growing creative abilities of the person first, player second and team play third. the role of the coach then changes, from passing on tactical nous to helping kids create a new to environment shaping. To his credit Abrahams gets this right:  

Daniel Abrahams @DanAbrahams77 · Nov 27

The 21st century football coach will be the psycho-social coach. She will put technique & tactics to the back of her playbook & coach people

4) A best practice curriculum.  Play as Kids, work as adults. Each year build the curriculum slowly, but smartly, from the inside out.  The person, the person and the ball, the person, the ball and a friend, etc.  This leads them through technical, cooperative and competitive stages while providing them a tool kit for meeting the rising challenges. Soccer intelligence is a phrase we should use very, very carefully, like the gifted student, the math wiz, we need to be careful about focusing on results. The groundbreaking psychologist, Carol Dweck and her ideas on Mindset asks hard questions about this sort of environment. Are we creating  fixed mindset (intelligent or dumb; talented not talented) vs a mindset of growth (effort, adaptability--and create something new!)).  Her work is exciting because it gives coaches real, substantial ways to help kids of all ages. We should not be limiting Rooney if we feel he is not smart enough.  He is not a fixed finish product, we 

5) Create a growth mindset. Soccer intelligence is a phrase we should use very, very carefully, like the gifted student, the math wiz, we need to be careful about focusing on results. The groundbreaking psychologist, Carol Dweck and her ideas on Mindset asks hard questions about this sort of environment. Are we creating  fixed mindset (intelligent or dumb; talented not talented) vs a mindset of growth (effort, adaptability--and create something new!)).  Her work is exciting because it gives coaches real, substantial ways to help kids of all ages. We should not be limiting Rooney if we feel he is not smart enough.  He is not a fixed finish product, we should focus on building his ability to adapt, and learn and grow.  

When you think about a truly exciting growth mindset do you think of a play environment of the street or the cloistered antiseptic Academy system?



Like Zagalo's third goal in the 1958 final. Flying in against athletic, strong Swedish defenders he striped the ball with the softest touch, leaving the bigger men to flail over as if they swung at a ghost and off to tuck the ball in the net. As another author has  said "I guess the academies have yet to design those drills."

It s because of this play, in the early years, before the coaches limit and take ideas away—where true game intelligence--the ability to adapt, learn and produce something new is created.  It is not the academy—it’s the street, it’s the culture, it’s the community.

One final quote from Piaget:

Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.

The individual is more important than the team

The first page of Jose Morinho's coaching 'bible" is a simple statement:

"The team is more important than the individual"

This is true for adults, but for kids, my statement would be as follows:

"The individual is more important that the team"

While this seems at first almost blasphemous in our modern USA coaching culture--as we look closer we see some truths.

A great team like Barcelona is made up of great players like Messi and Iniesta (among others) both who as indivduals more than team players. (Ginez Melendez, who discovered Iniesta, showed me videos of Iniesta at 12 from his computer--I never saw him pass the ball once --just dribbled score goals). Only the developed individual can contribute to the group--the groups success depends on the highest possible inputs. Without the individual it there is no contribution to the group. Without the group receiving change and evolving there is no growth and the group fails to thrive.

And today we see the outcomes of this misunderstanding by coaches and soccer leaders across the country (and World) as kids drop out, we deal with Relative age effect, poor player development and unentertaining soccer focused on the team value of the win.

Last year I took a year long coaching course with the NSCAA "Advanced Director of Coaching Diploma,"  Led by Matthew Robinson of the University of Delaware it brought together some of the leading practitioners of Player Development in the US.

One of the assignments asked for us to read and review Steven Covey's Seven Habits. If you have not read it--it is an excruciating look at getting to know oneself and personal development.

As I read the book I saw unfolding an outline on personal development--but also a clear curriculum on soccer development. And a fresh look at precisely this problem of collective over the individual.

Personal development and soccer development are intertwined.

One of Covey's tenets is First independence, then interdependence.  This is an interesting idea that flows from the inside out idea.  We focus first on ourselves, sharpening our effectiveness before we seek interdependence of and efficiency of collectiveness. This applies directly to coaching development ideas where the player must first learn to stand on their own, comfortable on the ball, with the dribbling skills to declare independence on the field before they can seek to synergized, building relationships of the passing game of interdependence. 

But, interdependence is a choice only independent people can make. 

So how do we unleash our kids from the collectiveness that can hold them back?

1) Make the Person the Priority
Focus each of them to look inside to be true to themselves and search for excellence.

2) Player second
The best players play--the second best players compete. 'Players' with a more random and varied skill set to call upon--will always overwhelm those who compete (the trained, drilled, athletic, winning mindset, mentally tough--you name it, all of these are adult objectives projected on to young kids).

And if you want to be good at play you had better practice by playing, social, emotional, technical and physical problem solving.  Only Play until the age of 16. Kids who practice this the most will have the most to offer the group.

3) Team comes next
The team and the group become important as the boy or girl become an adult.  The change is overnight--kids at this age--sometime after later puberty--literally "grow up" at this age it is ok for them to lift weights--take on physical challenges. The prefrontal cortex close and executive function decision making is refined. Emotional, socially, holistically it is time for the individual to join the group. Now, at this age the team or group does take on importance.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.--1 Corinthians 13:11

Kids will let you know when that time comes. And if we can wait we can maximize that individual to allow for new and better contributions.  Like the Hunter and Gatherer societies that did not ask boys to  contribute before the age of 16, they were allowed to play explore and create--evolutuoin has taught us that this is the most efficient learning model.

How to divide work and play? A clue form Linguistics—Krashen’s Hypothesis

How to divide work and play?  A clue form Linguistics—Krashen’s Hypothesis

USC Linguist Steven Krashen stumbled on to something one day when he was trying to teach a young Japanese immigrant english.  He was force feeding her, trying to teach her to speak through a step by step academic like method and it was not working.  He knew that he was doing something wrong and began to see the overall process as a dichotomy, the two phases separate and best if one happens before the other. It led to one of the seminal theories in Linguistics, Krashen’s  Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis. Krashen believes that to learn a language successfully (fluently, without accent) one must go through two phases:

Krashen’s Monitor Theory 

 (Acquisition vs. Learning)  

The learner must acquire the language before they try to learn it. Acquisition is a unconscious process, while learning a language is conscious, focused on rules

and correct form.

Sounds a lot like the perfect model of developing expert performance in soccer.  The soccer player must “acquire” through play soccer before they “learn” it through Deliberate Practice.  

1-Early “play” where learning is unconscious, invisible, autonomous—this is the Acquisition phase 

2-Later “work” that requires focus, effort and feedback—this is the deliberate Practice phase

While there has been a great deal of attention paid to the “work” side of things. there has been very little understanding of play in development.  We argue that the perfect developmental model will utilize both, at the correct times when the brain is most open. 

At the younger ages 5-13, the brain seems adverse to FOCUS and CONCENTRATION, and open to PLAY and EXPLORATION.  At these ages learning takes place best in play—unknowing, the opposite of focus, unconsciously, feeding supercharged learning right into the autonomous skill bank. 

Here in the US our youth soccer this acquisition period is not well understood and we tend to only focus on the learning. But, if it was handled correctly, would the acquisition phase contribute to the growth of a player?

Roberto Ayala is small. Maybe 5'9".  He is soft spoken and courteous. He takes in everything and pauses to speak, and in this case he was taking a very log pause.  We met at Soccer Ex in Rio. He was a dominant center back, having  captained Argentina more than Maradonna and leading them and his club team Valencia (Spain) through many great competitions.  He has always been one of my heroes for how he can bring the ball down ("Soccer Tennis")   We asked him, what was the most important time in your up bringing as a player? He said when he was 12 and he joined River Plate Academy. But wait, we asked, what about before that? What was happening when you were 7? 10? 11? “oh, I played everyday,” he said, “morning noon and night.” 

Do you think that had anything to do with your development? We asked.

"I never thought of it that way...that the free play i was doing when I was 8, 9 10, 11 was important to my development...I thought I was just better than everyone else. But it must be true, because I was playing more that the others. Still, after signing with River I still played with my friends whenever I could."

Another example from an area where we do produce expert performers (at least in Minnesota) is Hockey. In a recent interview, USA Hockey Captain and Minnesota Wild star, Zach Parise was

asked a very similar question as Roberto Ayala, “What was the most important time in your development as a hockey player?” they asked “It was when I was a sophomore at Shattuck St. Mary’s.” (a famous Minnesota Hockey school where among others Sidney Crosby also attended).

I would argue (and maybe Krashen would as well) that it was not.  Zach’s father was the former NHL player JP Parise, he grew up around hockey, JP Parise ran the program at Shattuck. His early environment was surrounded by hockey a love of that was around Zach since birth.  The most important time I would argue, was the wonderful environment set up by his father.

Interestingly, both Ayala and Parise had an amazing acquisition phase of development and neither gave it much thought.

Last  year I did a Webinar  on Free Play for the NSCAA and Dave Newbery.  I was a lot of fun to get the word out--although I think i sounded dry.  But if you don't know much about the ideas of JOTP you may find it worth the 20 minutes.

I got some great contacts from the talk, Bob Bigelow the author of "Just let the kids play." Called and we shared thoughts and ideas.  We reconnect every few months--we have never met--but there is a real kinship--we both are out there swimming against the tide.   John O'Sullivan of the 'Changing the Game project' called to talk about the role of free play and how we can simplyfy things for families.  Ernesto Diaz of the great Youth Evolution soccer podcast who asked one of the questions below asked me to be part of his podcast which was a really cool experience.  

I recommend you follow the worlk of these three leaders, they are all working toward the same cause--a better, safer and healthier future for our kids.

I received some questions and Dave asked me to put down in writing...

Q1: a recent study showed that specialization is harmful and will increase injuries. Could you please explain to everyone how free play will not negatively impact the kids? Ernesto diaz

We encourage kids to play other sports, but we emphasize “play.” While in the past, at least in the US, kids played many sports but all at the park, all unstructured.  Today, US kids are structured in everything. They “work” at 4 sports, structured hockey, structured soccer, structured baseball and basketball (plus add structured violin and piano). The question is, are In soccer, every great player has put in at least 6,000 hours of free play without exception. That’s a lot of hours, and the worry would be of repetitive use injuries. But, studies have shown that in unstructured environments, where kids are allowed to make their own decisions, there is not the high rate of repetitive use injuries. Those types of injuries tend to include two elements: 

1)A high load of  hours of deliberate coaching early; and, 2) A high amount of competitive games. Neither of these elements fits into our developmental model.

Within an “unstructured environment” the kids themselves hold the locus of control.  It’s their tempo, their physical movements, their decisions. They get to know their bodies as they get to know the game—both growing together.

By contrast, in an early specialization model, the locus of control is held by the coach, or the parent, or another outside agent.  This outside agent determines the work load, tempo, repetitions, competitions, and intensity. And while Deliberate practice works, even when it’s done very early, the question is is it safe? Does it create situations of repetitive stress? Is it healthy? And, what does it do to long term motivation?

Unstructured play is not just safe, it has an unblemished record in almost every sport, from skiing to hockey to basketball to hockey as producing the healthiest, best athletes, and the most inspirational performers.

Q2: Does culture and socio-economics impact free play in America? Antonio Superbia

Yes. In ways you may or may not suspect. There are sub-cultures in america, like the hispanic culture, that does it right early. Soccer is everywhere in these cultures with the kids playing on the side space while their uncles are playing in a local league game.  There is food and mixing and a sense of something more important than the score. The adults are modeling the behavior and the kids are playing at that behavior for hours and hours during the game, after the game and during the picnic.  These kids are learning in the absence of trying to get better which paradoxically is an important element. 

Later, when the importance deliberate practice starts to ramp up these early sub cultures can lose out by missing those important learning opportunities. But things are changing, just look at the current make up of the youth US men’s Nat’l teams and you will see a lot of hispanic names.  It’s not because they are born better soccer players, their system (culture of play) outpaces the powerful youth programs we have put together.

At the same time, from my observation, the most play illiterate kids are the more affluent suburban areas where they have the uniforms, fields and enough money to hire the best coaches who structure things as best they can.  They have very basic issues in play environments, like conflict resolution, fair play, adaptive skills, and then there’s technical 

I will tell a interesting story from my time as DOC.  We have these three nice Field turf fields with a big hill above them. It was a nice spring day and after a long, cold winter and was a great day to practice.  We had 9 teams practicing and from the hill I was observing the general organization.  Off to the side, on the corners of the fields there were different groups of kids encroaching in mini free play pick up games—they just wanted to get on the only dry fields in town.  There was a group of Somali kids over here, a group of Ethiopians over there and a group of Hmong kids, all groups were a mix of young and old, all just wanted to play.

So we had this group of structured kids, and a group of free play kids.  I thought, both are 

important, but neither idea will work alone, Was there a way of putting these two ideas together?

So, yes, we need to change the culture. We need to help organizations understand how we can do so much better, not just in soccer but in all sports. There is really no need for travel until much, much later in a child’s development, certainly Free Play is important and needs to hold a place in the curriculum. The best soccer is closest to home, kids have the right to play, have fun and grow where they live.  We need to help that happen.

Q3: How can free play be introduced in the highly structured U.S club soccer environment? 

That’s the big, big question. And that is why we have but together this model. With the NSCAA’s help we are beginning to get the word out. 

First, education is the key. It is important to understand what the real best practice is in soccer.  It’s not a U10 elite team, it’s playing everyday with friends. It’s not by traveling to distant and expensive tournaments, it’s by playing everyday. I believe that most DOC’s and soccer leadership recognize this and want to happen but worry would they lose players? Would the parents react? So education comes first. 

Next their needs to be priority given to this. Setting up a cool field beside the training complex where there is only unstructured play, or experimenting with “play” days where you have a picnic and allow the kids plenty of time for games. Lots of mixing ages, genders etc. Just having 20 minutes of “play” at the end of training is great, but not near enough.Once it is set up on a regular basis you will see the kids drive it. They will tell the parents they want to get there early 

Lastly, it needs to be given time. Not only hours per week, but also patience to let the process grow over years.  It will take time, but if there is consistency you will begin to see the older generations model for the next, and now you have something.  

Now we have made it work here, despite beliefs by many, many of my peers that is was not possible, and would not work. That kids would just develop bad habits and end up being good at nothing. Kids would not come, and if they did, they would leave.  It started slow but now we are getting 700 kids a week during the summer. It can be done!

*Keep in mind that their appears to be an initial starting point, a first free play age. Sometime between the age of 5 and 9 kids want to step out into the game.  At this point you want to give them many opportunities for free play. But it can’t be forced to early, kids developmentally may still want to hang with their parent until they are ready. It’s ok to wait until they are ready.

Q4: Does unstructured mean unsupervised, or simply supervised without detailed control? 

On the Free play/Deliberate practice continuum, we rarely get to the far reaches of each. True free play has no adult within site. We know safety is important, how does this happen? In Brazil almost all great free play spaces are the same, it’s a small sided court about 20 x 30 yards with futsal size nets, fenced and of course, benches. Benches? Why the benches? Because the the kids need to spend time watching, the techniques, the social skills, acquiring the game.  Observing is important. Also, leaders are important and every court has one.  There is an old timer, a big kid, somebody serving as leader.  This is how we do things, this is how we play.  These are the rules, this leadership model has been passed down for generations. 

In great free play cultures like Brazil they have built in systems to keep it safe, fair and pass down through modeling and observing great skills and great behavior. So at JOTP  we supervise the games like the court leaders. We are the game protectors. We pass down the rules, “this is how we do things here.” And we let them take it from there. We want to help our kids have the skills on how to lead the games when it is their time.  In many 

ways this is the first thing to learn. 

We never coach, we try not to comment on winning, losing, even skills. We focus on building leaders for future games, are they getting along, resolving disputes, showing respect.  These “soft” skills seem to be as important if not more than the technical skills developed.

Q5: How can you deal with the issue that free play/deliberate practice can be as important, if not more, than a structured practice? David Wood

It’s all important at the right time at the right level. and we need to create a balanced curriculum to create balanced kids. We need to educate leaders, parents, coaches and kids. For me, it was a matter of constantly talking to parents. Letting them know that the benefits are not immediate, not to worry about lack of passing at early ages (a reality of this kind of development).

1. Competition. This is a strength in the US. we have layers of competitive leagues, individual id programs and academies like the US  Developmental Academies and ODP. We have a place for 

2. Training. This is good and getting stronger.  There is a hunger for knowledge and I can see training programs getting stronger and stronger.  But who are we training? We are way ahead of our kids who mostly are in a Free Play stage, wanting to just mess around with friends, but we have little patience for that and instead we work on “playing like Barcelona

3. Play. This is where we can improve.  Dan Gable, the great wrestler said, “if it’s important do it everyday, if it’s not important, don’t do it at all.

We need have all kids, best to beginners, spend more time playing together. Hours and hours If parents understand this it’s healthier, it’s best practice and that kids love it, they will get on board. Coaches must be patient, they must give it time and the rewards will come. Players will change, they will drive the process, they will determine the future game.

Q6: Will it be possible to have more fun with deliberate practices than free games? Giuseppe 

If you look at true DP, the definitions according to Ericsson is that it’s “not inherently fun” and I think what he means is that it’s not inherently pleasurable. It’s the very difficult work done to improve performance. It’s 400 yard repeats of preseason conditioning, or the difficult core workouts to prevent injury—very good for the long term.  These types of difficult Deliberate Practice can be very rewarding for the mature athlete—but organically, even though there may be benefit—not best for a ten year old. 

Even though the hard, focused,  Deliberate Practice will advance kids even at early ages (this is the early specialization model --and we do it because it works, at least temporarily)  Kids at the younger ages are supercharged by play--Older, mature athletes are degenerately, because they are ready and they have spent time in the acquisition phase now supercharged by Deliberate Practice --think of the gatorade or Nike "just do it" commercials showing extreme hard work--this is now "Fun" to the mature athlete and looked at as such.

The greatest players played (free play) as kids

They worked at it (deliberate Practice) much later--usually around the age of 16 when they first come into the beginnings of maturity

Here is a quote from the greatest Basketball player of all time that sums this up:

" I didn't have a coach until I was 16. I believe in Play early, Learn Late."--Michael Jordan

Q7: How do you reach the kids that really need your intervention if they cannot get a ride to your facility? Do you put the inflatables at various parks, etc.? Douglas Bambini

This is a big problem.  We do the best we can with taking our courts to communities, and 

events. We partner with cities to use their parks and are always looking for partnerships. This summer our center will be on the light rail line, a commuter line that will connect thousands of kids to JOTP. We also car pool and this summer are using bus services to bring in kids, but we are almost at max capacity at 700 kids a week in the summer.  We are working with other organizations to promote this idea as a viable way to bering kinds back to the park.Cities, Parks and recreation departments, leaders need to understand that we can bring communities together and create healthier environments with some work. Spaces and time need to be set up for this kind of play—in all sports.  Every community should have access to a safe place to play.

Q8: How do you get the funding to enable "Free Play"? Jonathan Poitevint

We are a non profit, and can receive donations, but from the start have sought to be 

sustainable. We offer programs that people can pay for and free play.  The programs pay for the free play.  We train coaches and use what we learn at free play, like the use of different balls and different surface, to provide interesting paid programs. The young kids do very little programs, as they get older we provide more program and learning opportunities to keep with in the Free play DP balance.

I would say that right now we have a maybe a billion dollar youth soccer industry focused on the top of the pyramid, competition and training, we should be able to find ways to pay for perhaps the most important part of a child’s and a communities.I think there are municipalities, Park and Recreation departments and civic leaders that would be open to this model. There are a lot of parks and tennis courts laying empty.  This can bring them back.

Q9: Are there differences in how girls and boys experience free play? d'Alary Dalton

Yes, and it a big, big opportunity.

Nowhere, in any sport, is there any such thing as girls only free play. The ratio at JOTP center is more guys than girls. I always tell the girls that there is not many girls out there, but, I say, there are not many boys either, there are just soccer players. Girls who are introduced early have no problems and enjoy taking part in free play along side boys, this is just my observation, but girls who start at later age 13, 14 have more issues.  If they are strong players they tend to look around measuring themselves vs everyone. They compete hard, but they don’t “play.”

Pia Sundhagen was just in town and I spoke with her at length about the US Women’s team.  She flat out said they are not near technical enough. She was limited on what she could do because of players basic comfort on the ball under pressure. She had grown up playing with boys at the park, the only girl. Now coaching the Swedish Nat’l team, she agreed that free play is integral to developing better players.

We work with all our kids about inclusiveness and fair play. And while it may tougher for girls to get involved and fit in, it’s more rewarding.  Because around the world, many, boys are learning from free play, but not as many girls are involved.  It can be a tremendous advantage for girls both toward skill development and long term enjoyment.

Q10: In terms of free play, in England we have to be very careful around age groupings, especially within an affiliated club environment. How do ensure that your environment is positive, safe and within National Governing Body criteria? Sam Turner

I am not sure what the rules and guidelines are in England, but I do know that England practically invented street soccer.  All the old timers I talk to speak about the good old days of We lead every game, especially in the early days.  We had to basically teach kids one by one how to play, kids had forgotten how to play together! 

But If I could not have ‘true’ Free Play I would set up something as close as I could. I would set aside time, space, with a diversity of kids and let them play without instruction. And I would do it 

Q11: What was the book that was mentioned about getting the most from practice? Daniel Something.

The book is Daniel Goleman's “Focus.” It looks at the true essence of Deliberate Practice and how to maximize learning.  I feel that he is right on, but only at a certain age, at a certain point.  Paradoxically, if it takes FOCUS to supercharge Deliberate Practice, we feel that the opposite of focus, a scattershot, divergent, daydreaming way of thinking supercharges Free Play.

This is back up by some studies that suggest that if you are participating in Free Play to improve performance, it does not work as well—but if you are just there for fun, to be with friends, to try things, then your development will be fast tracked.  Time and time again athletes will tell you, 

“we didn’t set up cones, or were concerned about getting better, we just did it because it was fun."

Like best practice in language learning you must “acquire,” (live in and around, the absorption, the culture) before you “learn,” (the skills, rules and techniques).

Q12: Where can I buy those inflatable soccer fields? Thomas Connolly

We had them designed and built. We do sell them as ways to promote free play to clubs and organizations, they are great fun, easy to put up and take down.  They attract attention. If interested contact me at Ted@joyofthepeople.org.

Q13: You mentioned Torbert games.  Who is Torbert? Brian Kibler

Dr. Marianne Torbert identified three interrelated concepts that when applied to play activities that enhance and increase the growth and development of children.

By using different balls, keeping it safe, encouraging fair play and diversity, we can sit back and watch the kids enjoy themselves.

1) Expansion

This is anything that increases the number of potential growth experiences.In youth soccer. For example, this could be more touches of the ball, reducing the down time between activities and selecting activities that allow everyone to play.

2) Equalization

Challenges that allow each participant to be challenged and grow at their own level. This is critical, and closely relates to the Slanty Line and Flow State models. As a coach make a conscious effort to select, design, and provide training sessions that motivate each player.

3) Interactive Challenges

This is where the more skilled players help the weaker players to achieve more. This is tricky to get right, but important to focus on. When each player is also a coach, great things happen. To get the players to work together the challenges must be individually posed, and with collective benefits.

We have seen these in action, if a game is unequal the game breaks down, if the game allows no expansion, the kids don’t enjoy it, if there are no interactive challenges (like everyone at the same level, age, gender) the games lacks organic authenticity and learning diversity. All three are important.