The world's finest youth academy is not the best developmental system

The world's finest youth academy is not the best developmental system.

Last Summer we brought in the youth academy coaches from GNK Dinamo Zagreb Academy of Croatia, in 2013 they were named a top 6 academy in the 2013 ECA report.  You can read that report here.

I met their Director, Romeo Jozak at the Indianapolis convention,  and he proposed bringing in some academy coaches for a week in the summer working with kids during the day and coach education in the evening.  

It was a a enlightening week. 

During the day the Croations introduced their methodology, they ran formal, precise, functional sessions focusing on simple play with both feet. "We will do everything with two feet."

In the afternoon we would inflate a couple of courts so the kids could play unstructured.  The normally hardbitten coaches immediately lightened up, "these are great, we need some of these" They would sit on the side of the inflatable and watch the game.  THey would join a team and try to hold a court. 

In the evenings they laid out their academy.  It was very good stuff. There are a couple of DVD's I would highly reccomend.  This is certainly a top academy. And they knew it.  They were making the case that it was not just a top 6 academy, it was the world's finest.  Organized, well thought out, systematic. U6 to U20.

One of the evenings they wrote the amount of transfer fees they were receiving and one of the players was Mateo Kovacic.  Inter Milan had paid 17 million Euros for him. My friend Tod lean over, "that guy is an interesting player,."

I was curious to see what characteristics this sort program would produce so I took Tod's advice and looked up Kovacic  on you tube

Ok this guy is interesting.  Look at the sequence at the 24 second mark, Kovacic dribbles into a den of defenders then zips right out again.  He doesn't look like a soccer player brought up in an academy and this little movement gives us a huge hint to his development.   He scoots out so fast, he looks like he's on skates and pulls off a seemingly impossible turn at full speed.

This is a very unusual movement. How do he do it? It's all right footed, he turns the ball with the outside of his foot leaning over and turning the corner at the same time.  The most incredible thing of all is how the heck did he learn it?

I can see it, If a Zagreb coach was there he would say, "hey, Kovacic, what are you doing' use your left foot to make that turn!"  And then they would have 200 perfectly designed repetition progressions to work it out. 

It would make sense that if he had been shaped by an academy with progressive two footed training, his ratio of touches with his left and right would be close.  So I went back to the video and counted touches:

123 touches with his right foot, 9 touches with his left foot. 

Wait, what about "both feet or else?" It was obvious that Kovacic had NOT grown up in their two footed system.  He looked like a street kid to me, confident on the ball, the ability to penetrate, the ability to see around him.  I began to think that Kovacic was NOT a product of this academy.

 So the next day I asked the coaches, 

tell me about Kovacic

What do you want to know?

Well, when did he first come to your academy?

He was 13. He's special. We recruited him .

What was he doing before he came to your academy? 

He was with a small academy, he was a street kid, playing everyday.

So Kovacic, growing up outside the structure of perhaps the top academy in the world, was able to outpace their system playing on the street. He was able to develop that 80 miles an hour right turn, he was able to culture his right foot and  By the time he was 13 he had developed skills so unusual, so effective that he was labelled "a natural" and brougt into the academy. 

And, in order to bring him in they had to release one of their players who perhaps had been in their system since when was 6 years old. whose only fault may have been coming to Zagreb so young. While he is six and working in Dinamo's formal system,  Kovacic is six and PLAYING. 

The world's greatest academy is not the best system of development.  That system, especially early,  is Free Play. 

Roberto Ayala, he came to River plate at 12, before that,  Free Play. Captained Argentina more times than anyone else.

Andreas Iniesta, Discover by Gines Melendez at 12, before that  Free Play. 2010 WC Game winner.

Ronaldo (Phenomeno)  Free Play until 16, WC leading scorer all time.

Mario Zagalo, Free Play until 16, 5 world cups.

"I was not coached until the age of 16. I believe in Play early, Learn Late."   --Michael Jordan

The formal  technification strategies of Dinamo are important, but perhaps, as in the Kovacic model, only after the requisite Free Play has been logged allowing the child and the game to grow together.  Waiting  allows children to gain the maturity and cognitive skills through play necessary for formal work and prevents them from becoming frustrated and discouraged by attempts to handle material they are simply not yet ready to understand. 

TK