Preliminary results on physical activity in U9 soccer...

As you may be aware, late last year I started taking a closer look at U9 soccer, specifically the number of ball touches per minute (TPM) that players were getting in the games. Along with help from Stu Hackett, the LISA treasurer, I was able to look at 10 games all played on the same day on the same field and with the same 6v6 format.

The results were in my mind surprising and a little disappointing when it came to touches on the ball in the game. To recap the results that we saw over the day we watched

•          89 players  play 250 minutes of soccer giving a total of 3,464 touches of the ball

When we collated the data we found that the most active player in terms of touches of the ball had 91 touches in the game which equated to a TPM of 1.82.

When we looked at he data as a whole we found that on average only 31% of players were getting more than 1TPM resulting in almost 70% of the players getting less that 1 touch of the ball per minute over the course of the game. The biggest surprise for me was that 30% of players were getting less than 25 touches of the ball during the course of a 50 minute game.

We are planning on some more research into TPM’s this year but for now I have turned my attention to the amount of physical activity that our players are getting on any given weekend soccer game in the U9 age group.

About a month ago I spent a Saturday morning with some U9 players and their parents. We strapped them up with accelerometers which measure the amount of physical activity over a period of time. The levels of activity are broken down into 4 categories, sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous. The physical activity guidelines call for 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA).Before I share my findings with you its worth noting that a study from 2009 showed that fewer than 2% of Canadian children and youth get 90 minutes of MVPA on at least 6 days of the week and only 7% of Canadian children and youth are meeting the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines of at least 60 minutes of MVPA per day.

Well, I was disappointed with the TPM results in terms of developing technique in the game but I have to say that I am a little more pleased with the data that I got from the accelerometers. First of the numbers for the girls team and the boys team were almost identical. On the girl’s team the averages were:

28% 15.7 minutes in sedentary

10% 5.4 minutes in light activity

29% 16.3 minutes in moderate activity

33% 18.6 minutes in vigorous activity

On the boy’s side the averages were:

26% 14.1 minutes in sedentary

12% 6.2 minutes in light activity

28% 14.8 minutes in moderate activity

34% 17.9 minutes in vigorous activity

As you can see the figures are very similar and I will leave you to take your own conclusions from that.  Once I have more data I will make my own conclusions and give you my opinion. The key numbers from this exercise is the amount of time in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA)

The girls spent 62% of the game which included half time in MVPA which equated to just less than 35 minutes and the boys also spent 62% of the game time in MVPA totalling just short of 33 minutes. When we tidy up the figures to remove half time our percentages will rise but the minutes in MVPA will probably stay consistent, of course when I get the cleaned up data I will get that out. As I mentioned previously the TPM numbers were disappointing but I find these numbers encouraging as it shows that the 6 a side game is doing a pretty reasonable job of providing a good level of physical activity for our players during the course of a game.

The key to these numbers though is the number of players on a SQUAD, not the team. This data is taken from two teams that had 8 players available for a 6 a side game. I have some data with a team of 7 and over the next month I will be working to get data on squads of 9 and 10 players to see what effect the number of subs has on the average time spent in MVPA. Once we have that data I am hopeful that we will be able to justify smaller squads and less players on the bench.  I understand that logistics can play a part in squad numbers when forming teams, but at some point we must put the needs of the children first and look at some different options when it comes to organising our programs.

I believe its time to take a long look at our small sided games program in Victoria and start investigating the options of spring and summer soccer. We have a good number of turf fields in our district and from personal experience I can tell you that watching soccer in short sleeves and a pair of shorts is much more fun that watching bundled up or from the front seat of a strategically positioned vehicle!

In closing…

I would like to pay a personal tribute to the greatest coach I ever met and the person who had the greatest effect on me as a coach. Roy Rees, who took the US U17 Men’s team to four World Cups and beat Brazil, Argentina and Italy along the way, passed away in November at his home in California. Roy, and his wife Anne, played a big part in my life and pushed me in the right direction whenever I was considering a wrong turn. Roy could be a hard person to work for but he always made me a better coach and in turn a better person and I owe more to Roy and Anne than I can put into words. What more can a person ask from another, than to simply make them better. Alongside his duties as national team coach he was kind enough to step in as best man at my wedding after the starting best man had to lay down 10 minutes before the kick off due to a previous injury from the night before. Both my wife Joanne and I will always be grateful for his performance that day!

Roy Rees, a great man, a great friend, and the greatest coach I ever met.

                                                                             

Transfers and boundaries.....

It’s an interesting time in the lower island district, and the reason for the interest revolves around the number of transfers that each club has per team. Since I arrived in Victoria in November of 2008 the transfer and boundary discussions have never been far from the surface and it doesn’t take too long for people to voice their opinion on the subject.

In this blog I would like to discuss the idea of unlimited transfers which equates to open boundaries, if you have as many transfers as you like then the boundaries cease to be relevant.

I would also like to make the point that this opinion is my PERSONAL opinion and not the opinion of the Lower Island Soccer Association.

From 1993 to 198 I worked in the United States where there are no boundaries or transfers. During my time there I saw many coaches work the system to recruit players for their teams in order to try and win a state championship.  In time the recruitment of players morphed into recruitment of coaches who then brought their whole team into a new club. I keep hearing that open boundaries and unlimited transfers give players choice and is the best system for ‘player development’. Its true that unlimited transfers give people more choice but there is no guarantee that it leads to ‘player development’

Here are a couple of examples of things that I have experienced as a coach during my time in the United States.

Neighbourhood FC run a responsible program and their technical director and technical committee recommend that coaches work with a team for a period of two years and then the team is reassigned to a different coach who has a skill set that is compatible with the age group. The coach of the U13 Neighbourhood FC boy’s team doesn’t want to ‘lose’ his team and ‘his’ players, after all the game is about him, not the players! He whips the players and parents up into frenzy, calls are made, emails are sent and meeting are attended. Neighbourhood FC stick to their guns and bring in a coach who can help the players continue to develop. The soon to be replaced coach meets with his team and presents them with an option. “We can move our team to Big Club FC and we can all stay together! Let’s go”. Mean while Neighbourhood FC have lost a whole team even though they have a responsible player first policy to coaching appointments! That’s player movement and choice but it’s probably not in the best interests of the players, and what happens to the players and families who at the last minute decided to stay with Neighbourhood FC, where do they play?

Things are not going so well at Big Club FC, the technical director and board are at war and the TD is looking to leave the club at the end of the season. He has been talking with key coaches and parents in his club and they have decided that its time for a change and they will all be moving to Biggest Club FC next season. Big Club FC will be losing 6 coaches and 8 teams in the summer and now the integrity of the club is threatened as many more individual players are looking to land elsewhere.

Big Club FC are now in turmoil, they cant make teams and a number of players are left without a team to play as all the other clubs are full. They need to hire a new TD; do they hire a good coach who can put together a long term plan or a used car salesman who can recruit players into the club?

Now, I am not suggesting for one minute that if we instituted unlimited transfers in the LISA boundaries, these scenarios would take place, but there is no guarantee that they won’t and in time I think we will see this type of behaviour in our district.

The major downside to unlimited transfers is the lack of club stability it provides. Even the bigger clubs are not immune to losing a chunk of players and the lack of certainty means that clubs are not able to make major plans as there is no guarantee of their numbers from year to year. How do you plan to build a turf field or clubhouse when you can’t honestly project your registrations and revenues from year to year?  What financial institution would lend money to a non for profit organisation with no real guarantee that the club can afford to make the repayments from year to year.

So, I don’t like the idea of unlimited transfers and I am not supportive of zero transfers as we do need to offer families a choice, and there is always the situation where a player and coach just don’t get on. My son Oliver is not involved in soccer as he had a poor coach and wasn’t able to move teams so restricting movement totally is not something that I, as a parent, could support.

We need to give players a choice, but at the same time preserve the structural integrity of all our clubs at this moment in time. If we lose a club, for whatever reason, then we will lose more players and we can’t afford to lose more players.  In the future if clubs choose to merge as Cordova Bay and Gordon Head did then so be it, but that is a better option than clubs ceasing to exist.

We should provide choice for our families but if we were to open the boundaries and that led to a loss of clubs then all we have done is restrict choice. An equal number of transfers per club is, in my opinion, the way to go. That number needs to allow players who have transferred in past seasons to be able to stay where they are so that they can continue to enjoy their soccer, which after all is all this should be about.

In closing, our next coaches association meeting is this coming Friday, Match 9^th at Braefoot. We will be looking at midfield shape in front on the back four and I hope to see as many people as possible. Remember to bring your boots!