You Might Not See What You Think You See

A few years ago, the stat you see above came out, showing that Michael Carrick played more forward passes than any other midfielder in Europe. This was met with nodding approval by a small (and smug) minority, but with howls of disbelief elsewhere, even among some Manchester United fans. "But he plays so many sideways and backwards passes!" went the common objection. This ignored two important points:

1) The claim wasn't that Carrick played a majority of his passes forward, or that he played a lot of them, in general; just that he played more of them than anybody else. He did, in fact, play a lot of passes sideways and backwards, but so do most players, and for good reason: those are the best options that are available to them most often.

2) Confirmation bias prevented many people from "seeing" the pattern of Carrick's forward passes, even if they did see each individual forward pass. A fan who had already decided Carrick "never" plays the ball forward will greet each one as if it is an anomaly, perhaps with a sarcastic cheer or a bitter "Finally!" Confirmation bias - the tendency to interpret any new information in a way that supports your pre-existing opinions - is rife among supporters, because supporters are passionate and biased, and watch matches in a state of heightened anxiety and emotion. Supporters also tend to make absolute statements about players - Valencia "never" uses his left foot, Defoe is "always" offside, etc - statements they don't take seriously themselves on the surface, but which can still affect their perceptions.

Hint: He's Good

Not every aspect of this free-flowing game can be accurately measured and judged according to statistics. But many hard numbers can be quantified - number of crosses, number of tackles, aerial duels won, etc. I would argue it's impossible for any one supporter, especially when watching his or her own team, to accurately sum up every player's contributions to a game. In fact, we are often way off in our assessment. I'll use myself as an example.

When I was coaching at NC State, we used a service called ProZone. You may have heard of it. ProZone uses a set of cameras placed around the stadium, and extremely meticulous and tedious work by its analysts, to track and graph every action throughout a match, and represent each pass, shot, tackle, cross, run, etc as a computer graphic (with a link to a video clip of each action). There are a number of similar services, and they are growing in popularity among coaches.

ProZone confirmed something I had suspected of myself: despite over 20 years in coaching, I am just as vulnerable to confirmation bias as anyone else. Here's how it might work: during a match, as I watched on in a typical state of anxiety (if you don't know anything about the U.S. university level, just know that coaches get fired for bad results, just like at the professional levels), our midfield #7 might mis-play a pass, then do it again a few minutes later. And under my breath, I might mutter, "Having a nightmare."

But then the ProZone analysis would arrive the next day, and I would see #7 with a 92.2% pass completion rate. Okay, but maybe that was because of all the easy ones, the sideways and backwards ones. ProZone lets you apply a wide array of filters to the results, so let's look at only forward passes: 77% successful. Hmm. That's a very good percentage for forward passes.

ProZone screen shot, showing successful passes in blue, unsuccessful in red

The reason I might feel so frustrated by the player in real time is obvious: I want to win, so I want every pass to be perfect, and it's easy to over-dramatize "failure" in this context. Also, some "failures" are going to loom larger in the mind of a coach/supporter than others. For example, when a clear chance to counter is on, but the midfielder plays a bad ball, you're going to notice and remember that one much easier than the previous five nifty little balls played right into feet. That's because such a ball stabs you directly in the heart. "We had them," you cry, and then you probably tweet about it.

Confirmation bias plays an important role, too. In a game where I expect our left back to have problems with a speedy winger, I'm going to nod sagely to myself any time the winger gets in a cross. "We're getting killed down the left," I might think. But ProZone might show that the left back won 12 of 16 tackles, and the winger got in only two crosses. My expectations unfairly conflated the outcome.

But hang on - what if those two crosses both resulted in goals, and we lost 2-1? Well, then we really did get killed down the left. But such an outcome indicates problems beyond the left back, such as the high percentage of crosses that get turned into goals.

Human comprehension and memory also don't work nearly as well as we think they do (as court witnesses regularly prove). A supporter at a match might watch his side concede a goal, fume that Jenkins didn't pick up his man, then see the highlights later that night, only to realize it wasn't Jenkins' man at all. In the last professional game I played, I recall conceding from a header, looking at the defender who was out-jumped, and magnanimously deciding not to shout at him. Good thing, because when I watched the video later, it wasn't him who was out-jumped.

Once I analyzed a few matches with ProZone (in full disclosure, this was the main responsibility of others on our coaching staff, but I was often present, and we talked about it a lot), I tried to temper my responses in real time. I saw a stray pass or poor cross for what it was: a statistical necessity, and also possibly an outlier, rather than a microcosm of the player's overall performance.

One of the things ProZone, and stats in general, does an excellent job of is illustrating trends. If your side struggles to get balls into the box, or passes into the feet of strikers, or change the point of attack in midfield, you're going to see it right there on the screen, in glowing red lines and numbers. What no stat or app can accurately do is put these moments into context. A midfielder who only rarely switches the play might be a victim of teammates not moving into proper space, or might simply be on the end of too many hospital balls, and not have enough time to see the entire pitch. A coach or supporter is still going to judge players and performances largely based on what they see in real time, and this at least has the potential to give you a fairly accurate overall assessment. But there are simply too many players, involved in too many actions, to be able to judge for certain. Tools like ProZone help fill in the gaps, and take away the bias, from what we see.

What 'Development' Really Means

The word 'development' gets thrown around youth soccer circles a lot. Everyone agree it's a good thing. Everyone agrees it's a major goal of every youth club. But not everyone agrees on what it actually is.

It's simple enough to define: 'development' means that individual players get better at soccer. The club exists for this reason. To help define it by contrast, let's look at the NC State women's soccer team, currently ranked #24 in the country in the latest NSCAA poll. I was an Assistant Coach at State from 2013 to May of this year, and now do color commentary for their home games on ACC Network and ESPN3. NC State, and all college soccer teams, are not 'Developmental' - they are Results-Oriented. The goal - the only goal - is to win games.

How are developmental and results-oriented teams different? Don't we want and expect Developmental teams to also win games? Don't we want the players on Results-Oriented teams to improve? Absolutely! But there are three key differences, starting with...

1. Results-Oriented teams have role players; Developmental teams do not.

In every team, either Results-Oriented or Developmental, there is a best player, a worst player, and players occupying every skill level in between. On R.O. teams, the best players start every game, are on the field in all key situations in close games, and in general are the team. Lesser players serve to give key players a rest for a few minutes at a time, or to play 'garbage time' when a game is already won or lost on the scoreboard. They also provide opposition to the starters in training games. Players can go from starter to reserve, or vice versa, but this is always a zero-sum situation. If a reserve becomes a starter, that means that a starter has become a reserve.

On Developmental teams, there are also best and worst players. But while a coach may generally start with his or her more developed players (understanding that every youth player is a work-in-progress on the way to being the player they will become), the non-starters also get significant game time*. This is because in order to improve, players must play in games. Not only must they play, but they must play in all game situations, including critical moments, such as near the end of a tied game. Again, a player can not develop unless they are put into these situations. A 14-year-old soccer player who rarely plays in games, even on a very good team, is not going to improve.

* This changes at the older/higher levels of Developmental clubs, such as our older Alliance teams, and becomes more like college teams. But we're focusing on the developmental-age players (U16 and younger).

2. Results-Oriented teams have Specialists; Developmental teams have Generalists.

There are versatile players at NC State, capable of playing multiple positions. But you'll never see a player play in both defense and at striker in the same game, let alone the same season. This is much more common at the Developmental level. Especially at U13 and younger, players need to be exposed to all positions as part of their soccer education. Eventually, a player will develop a skill set and physical characteristics which make some positions more suitable than others, but it is a process of discovery and experimentation to get to that point.

3. Results-Oriented teams train TACTICALLY to win specific games; Developmental teams train TECHNICALLY to improve their soccer skills.

Let's examine how NC State trains to win games. When preparing to play a possession-oriented team such as Virginia, training time and film study will be designed to make sure players are tracking runners (as opposed to chasing the ball) and staying in compact defensive shape. When preparing for a high-pressing, high energy opponent such as North Carolina, training time will be spent conditioning the players to pass the ball as quickly, with the fewest possible touches, so they don't get caught in possession. Specific opposition players will also be studied and highlighted, either as dangers or potential weaknesses to be exploited, and specific NC State players will be tasked with dealing with these opponents. Finally, an 11v11 training game will be held, with the 'squad' players replicating the formation (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, etc) and style of play of the opposition. These are tactical training sessions: the team training to play a certain way, in preparation for a specific opponent. NC State also does technical skill training, but much less, for two reasons: the players have already mastered the basic skills, and they are at an age where continued technical improvement comes in only very small increments. Any individual's incremental improvement will have much less impact on the outcome of games than improved team tactical cohesion.

A Developmental team will work on general tactical principles, which apply equally to all opponents, but will spend more time on technical activities to help players develop and refine the basic skills of the game, such as first touch, ball striking, passing, shooting, and playing under pressure. There is a lot of repetition in training - coaches need to find new ways to work on the same half-dozen things. All this is in service of helping the players improve.

4. Results-Oriented teams have time to train everything, and have control over the players' diet and daily schedule; Developmental teams do not.

Young players improve, but it is not usually a fast process. Over the course of a three-month Fall season, a team trains three times a week. This is not a lot, and it also doesn't account for sessions cancelled for lightning or wet fields (thankfully rare, with all the turf fields we now have).

Some aspect of technical improvement are also conditional, to a degree, on the player's strength and physique. An 11-year-old with perfect technique is not going to be able to shoot as hard as a 16-year-old with sloppy technique; but by the time that 11-year-old turns sixteen, she will be able to shoot much harder, and more accurately, too. Technique is everything, but for things like ball striking and tackling, the body does matter. Keep in mind that sometimes a player's technical ability actually suffers as they grow or go through body changes. A player who goes through a growth spurt, for example, may need to adjust to new coordination and agility demands.

NC State players train or play six days a week through the Fall season (August-November), five days a week through the Spring season, are enrolled in professionally monitored Strength and Conditioning programs (incorporating Speed and Agility training), have a full-time nutritionist at their disposal, and play high-level competitive summer soccer in the WPSL (Women's Premier Soccer League).

The point of highlighting these differences is to note that a young player who genuinely wants to noticeably improve their technical skill level has to do more than attend their team's training sessions. The easiest and least-expensive way to improve is to simply play pickup soccer with friends. It takes a lot of touches to master the ball and all related skills.

5. Results-Oriented teams are under multiple pressures to win.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. College coaches get fired if they lose too much. Fans boo if they don't like what they're seeing.

What Results Mean for Developmental Teams

So, we know the difference between Results-Oriented and Developmental teams. But developmental teams also play games, and also want to win. What does it mean when they don't?

Scores don't lie. If a team is losing lots of games by lots of goals, the most likely reason is that they are competing, at no fault of their own, at a level not appropriate to their stage of development. It's not ideal to think of them as being 'not good enough'; they are simply not yet ready. Ideally, young players are allowed to compete and develop at a competition level that allows them to experience all variants of game situations: wins, losses, ties, blowouts, etc. Losing every game 6-0 is no fun, but it does at least come with some hard lessons. Winning every game 6-0, on the other hand, is of limited use for young players. A lack of real competition only leaves player unprepared for when that competition does eventually arrive - and it will.

What about Hustle, Aggression, and Determination?

Parents are sometimes mystified why their children don't exhibit these qualities more often in games, especially games they are losing badly. There are some reasons for this. The main one is that some young players react to disappointment by 'shutting down': they expend less effort and affect an appearance of nonchalance. This is protective (and, often, subconscious), an attempt to ward off further disappointment by 'not caring anyway.' It's worth noting that any player resorting to this does care; that's precisely why they're doing it. They just haven't yet found a better way to process disappointment. Eventually, they will.

'Aggression' is a bit different from hustle and determination. We think of it in terms of physically battling for the ball or winning tackles. Aggression is a mindset, and it depends largely on belief. A player who doesn't believe her team can win the game has a hard time 'buying in' to the idea of winning small battles. What's the point, they think, if we're just going to lose anyway?

Grown adults can see the flaws in this thinking, but young players, still on their way to emotional maturity, often cannot. Coaches and parents alike can exhort, encourage, plead - but if the player lacks belief, they will also lack aggression, as well as effort and focus.

Some players, win or lose, are simply timid, or genuinely afraid of contact. These players will stop enjoying soccer - and therefore stop playing - at some point. That's another key thing to remember about developmental youth teams: some of the girls are still deciding how much they like soccer, and some will decide to stop.

Finally, aggression, as we know, is not always good. Some players channel frustration and disappointment into a kind of aggression that is reactive and impulsive, playing without control. There are some teams who play this way by default, whipped into a frenzy by their coach (there is a team like this in the 01 Division). At young ages, teams like this can sometimes win games based on intimidation and physical prowess, but in the long run, those players are being done a disservice. When they get older, and can no longer bully 'little girls', they'll find themselves lacking aspects of the game they were never taught or were never encouraged to develop. It is a very common story on the college recruiting cycle: the physically advanced 15-year-old who dominates her league and gets on every college coaches' radar, only to become 'just another player' at 17, when everyone catches up to her size.

In Summary

Development is about players improving. It is a process, during which players have to enjoy what they're doing and be invested in improving. Frustration and disappointment come with the territory of competing. Young players don't always have the 'right' response to disappointment.