From the Technical Director.
The following piece is designed to trigger discussion.
I will just present what I was told and allow you to consider your own opinion.
A tournament took place earlier this month in Barcelona, Spain.
Taking part were dozens of academy team from around the world, all of them affiliated with
Barcelona football club.
There were teams from such countries as Russia, Brazil, Spain, Croatia, Dubai, Canada, India,
Japan and many others.
The tournament was played at the training grounds of the Spanish club.
Many games were televised and all were watched by coaches and training staff from Barcelona.
At some stages, the Barcelona first team had or were training on adjacent fields. That means
stars like Lionel Messi and Neymar were close by.
Different age groups were involved at the tournament, under 8 through to teenager.
Scores were kept.
A few days ago I had a long conversation with one of the coaches of one of the teams from
Canada.
The coach, originally from Central America, said he personally was perturbed at how serious all
the major teams were in comparison to Canada.
With some exceptions, he said the Canadian players were nowhere near as focussed to the
task in hand when compared to teams from other countries.
He offered up several examples of what he means.
Moments before the start of one game, which was televised, a Canadian player told the coach
his grandmother had just arrived and asked if he could leave the field to say hello.
At another game, a Canadian kid interrupted the coach during a team talk to ask if the hotel pool
would still be open by the time they got back.
A Canadian team was assigned a dressing room the Barcelona first team had just used.
The kids were sitting on the benches that had just been used by Neymar and Lionel Messi.
One Canadian boy complained that the dressing room was smelly and could they get changed
outside instead.
During games, he said it was only Canadian players who had to stop to tie up their bootlaces
and only Canadian players who stayed on the ground after knocks.
Other team players, he said, got up and got on with it. The Canadians, he said, had to wait for
training staff to treat them, more often than not unnecessarily.
Not only that, the coach told me, but when kids were victims of tough tackles it was only
Canadian parents who jumped up yelling and screaming (I have always found this one intriguing
from a country steeped in hockey).
But perhaps the one incident that even the Canadian coach said he could not handle was how,
after a defeat, he wanted to talk to the players and all the parents and kids wanted to do was go
off and get an ice cream.
The coach and I chatted about the reasons for what he said were incidents that he admits will
give him sleepless nights for several weeks.
The vast majority of the countries taking part have a culture that is steeped in soccer. In some
places, such as Brazil and Spain, it is a religion. In these parts of the world soccer is played
anywhere, 24/7.
In many of the countries, soccer is a passport to a better life. For some, a professional contract
means food on the family table.
In such countries, the competitive level at every age group is fierce. Players do not have friends
on the field, they have rivals who stand in their way.
In just about every country taking part, the youngsters have role models to look up to and copy
and professional teams to watch and see on television every day.
As a result, when these youngsters travel to a tournament it is serious business, not recreation.
They don’t go for sightseeing, they go to play soccer.
It is not a vacation, the coach argued.
By the way, he said, two teams from Brazil, one from Sao Paulo and one from Rio de Janeiro,
won two age groups and the most technically proficient players and focussed players he
observed were from Japan.