Special Feature
Article from DC United web site
D.C. United Academy European Tour Review
August 26, 2003
Relaxing in a German hotel on the back of a two week tour of Europe taking in three countries, half a dozen academies and seven games against leading youth teams, D .C . United U - 17 coach Todd Hitt and Youth Technical Director Richie Burke discussed various aspects of the pioneering tour for a US pro youth team in an interview with Ross Emery.
The tour had just culminated with 2 games in Germany having collected a 3-1 victory over a wonderfully technical, but young Bayer Leverkusen team, and a 0-2 defeat at the hands of a very physical Kaiserslautern outfit.
In a series of questions posed to the two coaches, they reviewed the tour, the experience the players have gained, the lessons learned and what the future holds.
What were your expectations and objectives for this tour?
Our primary objective was to establish a strong academy presence for D .C. Youth and develop good links with European counterparts. For the players, the tour was put together to expose them to the different playing styles, tempo of games and professional standards that are involved in European academies and help them understand the lifestyle and matchplay that is required to succeed at the top of the game.
On a general note, we also wanted to see how the top youth team in the US could fair against European teams – a ‘trailblazing’ tour.
Do you think you met these expectations?
In visiting the clubs, we have met and established some good initial links at all the clubs we have played, especially at Tottenham, Celtic, Hibernian and Leverkusen. We met a lot of the head staff members and chatted with them, exchanged ideas and discussed approaches to youth development.
The exposure of the players to professional standards and setting them new, tough challenges has been vastly exceeded.
How was the standard of games compared with the US U-17 teams?
The standard is much higher over here. Their overall technical ability and depth of quality in their rosters was particularly noticeable. The European academy players have better fundamental skills (not by much!) probably due to high levels of coaching from the younger ages of 8, 9 and 10.
The European players have more ‘football savvy’ and can read the game better, therefore they posed us far more challenges for us both offensively but more noticeably defensively.
We found we had to ‘match-coach’ a lot more compared to when we are in the US because the game is so much quicker here and US players aren’t use to the continual speed of thought and decisions under pressure at this tempo. So we have had to help them along more with information during the game compared to when in the US.
It’s far more noticeable how the technical players and those who read the game standout more in games here, whereas in the US it’s the physical capacity and presence that stands-out.
What are the key differences between English, Scottish and German teams?
German teams seem to have more technical ability in carrying out the basic elements of the game and their speed of play (i.e. two touch play) is better than UK teams. They play shorter passes more often and link possession through the 3rds of the field more. The defenders are better at playing out than UK defenders.
English teams play a basic 4-4-2 system and try to get the ball wide very quickly when in possession. Less play goes through the middle and defenders are less comfy in possession.
Scottish teams seem to use three players in the middle of midfield more and tried to play off of the front man more before going wide to create 2v1 overlap situations.
The UK game seemed to revolve a lot around getting crosses into the box and the 1v1 ability of wingers seems to be higher at the better teams.
What have been the key things the players have learned from the tour?
The whole team has learned that a theme exists in the pro game, especially in the UK, that you need a base level of work-rate, tracking back, playing with heart and team play to succeed – you can’t just rely on being technically good. To make it at the top level, they realize you have to have a combination of the two.
Some of the ‘special’ players, when in our team, have realized that you can’t be inactive for 70 minutes of a game before you do anything, either defensively or offensively. To make it in Europe they need to be in the game more.
They have also learned that they need to play quicker and more accurately in the midfield and final 3rd to create space and go forward more effectively.
And what have the coaches learned?
We have learned that certain work-rate levels with quality and football knowledge needs to be ingrained into US players a lot earlier.
The player-coach relationship is different in the US compared to UK academies. The US coaches are very interactive socially with the players and a US coach is far more involved in the mentoring and personality shaping. We have more of a culturally accepted ‘remit’ as coaches to develop players as ‘whole’ individuals (e.g. promoting College placements). But in the UK, the Academy coaches remit is different. In the professional club, the academy coach seems to have the ultimate aim of developing it's team professional and perhaps neglect the other side of youth development but that is due to the professionalism of the game and the cut-throat nature. A happy medium is needed at DC to be successful.
What has been the most pleasing aspect of the Tour?
The fact that we had our pre-tour expectations and they have all been met, which is all you can ask for.
We are also very pleased with the respect and acceptance by the Academies of the DC concept, approach, professionalism and standard of play, as well as the exchange of ideas between the staff members we have met.
We hope to have left a good impression with them.
What would you do differently on you next tour?
This was a pioneering tour for DC and to set the ground for future tours.
We would use ‘training time’ far more on the next tour and maybe reduce the number of games we play. This would then enable us to help educate our players on what happened during games and how they could have improved in things. This would be more beneficial to their long-term development rather than playing game after game. We would incorporate the use of a briefing and debriefing on the training field pre and post games.
What have you learned from European Academies to take back to the US?
We would like to use the blending of age ranges in our academy. European teams are happy to mix age ranges (i.e. U15, U16 and U17 for a U17 team) to play games, whereas US teams are more rigid in sticking to their age ranges. This rigidness perhaps stifles development of young players who can meet the challenges of their own age range and need to test themselves in the more professional environment of the older age groups.
Facility wise we went to seven Academies and saw six superb, state-of-the-art complexes that were a cut above most things in the US. At DC, we can begin to move toward this with incremental steps such as introducing an onsite laundry room and medical storage which will help the players to feel more pro in their training attitude by focusing on soccer alone and not having to worry about forgetting kits or bringing tape.
Also, the issue of sending players to college or holding on to them for 1or 2 years to train with the pros full-time needs to be addressed by DC, the MLS and NCAA.
What is the future plans for DC?
We will provide a report, make a presentation and put forward a proposal to the DC board that will show our findings and ideas from the Euro tour and see how this matches up with their plans.
Ideally, we would like to see the introduction of a full-time system for some of the senior academy players and play high standard games continuously throughout the season. We would like to introduce a method whereby a U-19 player can train and play with the pro team without effecting their college status as this is what the European teams do as this is very important to develop top-level professionals.
What do you think ISOS have brought to this tour for you?
Many operators in this field promise far too much, but ISOS met every request we had and every promise they made. The places we trained and played were first class and the out-reach that ISOS has in the pro game is like no other. We would not have been able to arrange all the fixtures and logistics of this tour with such precision if we had organized it ourselves. Their ability to organize fixture with the clubs in a non-tournament environment at the clubs own facility is excellent for development purposes. The professionalism of ISOS is also very high and we would like to take this opportunity on behalf of D.C. United to thank ISOS for all their help and organization on this tour.
Any other comments?
It is very important to look at these tours from a developmental perspective and not from a results-orientated view, because when you go to Academies in Europe, especially when playing friendlies, the result is not key for them, so they use different squads, mix the age ranges, frequently rotate the subs and therefore are not looking at winning but at player development. So we have to take a similar view and analyze our performances and development in each game and not go all out to win as that does not really help the players show us their development.
Thank you to Todd Hitt and Richie Burke for their views.
Interview by Ross Emery
ISOS - Europe
Article from DC United web site
Other D.C. United Youth Team News
- 08.18.03 United U-17 Boys Continue Tour
- 08.11.03 Fulham Rains on U-17 Parade
- 08.09.03 United U-17 Boys Spurred onto Victory
