Commentary
TCM Survey: Youth soccer players who don’t practice at home are more likely to quit
Results from The Coaching Manual's survey.
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All Commentary Articles
The massive importance of free play
The best athletes PLAY sports. They don’t work them, they play them. Soccerwire.com featured columnist John O'Sullivan looks at the role of play in the training and advancement of aspiring young athletes.
The Fourth Path: Rethinking early player development in the United States
When it comes to the development of young soccer players in the United States, many parents and coaches come to that proverbial fork in the road, and are unsure what path to take. Best selling author and SoccerWire.com columnist John O'Sullivan says we need to blaze our own trail at that fork, we need a "Fourth Path" to how players are developed in the USA.
Organized Chaos: The key to Brazil’s soccer success, Part 2
NWSL player Kika Toulouse returns to SoccerWire with another thoughtful passage inspired by observations from the futsal courts of Brazil during her offseason stint in Cotia, São Paulo.
Getting it right: Why “talent selection” doesn’t work well enough
Highly trained, professional coaches cannot say with certainty who will make it to the professional level and who will not, even at 15 years old. So why, wonders SoccerWire.com's John O'Sullivan, are U.S. youth coaches making similar judgments about players as young as 10 years old?
How much is a good coach worth?
How much do you really know about that guy or gal who showed up to coach your team? With the explosion of youth soccer in the U.S., many clubs are beating the bushes for coaches at the grassroots level, and that means parents should try to become discerning observers, says Dr. Wendy Lebolt.
Our Biggest Mistake: Talent selection instead of talent identification
Many youth sports coaches claim to be great talent identifiers, and point to the results of their 11-year-olds' all-star team as proof. Yet they are not talent identifiers. They are talent selectors. The difference could not be more striking, and it's keeping us a step behind in international soccer, says SoccerWire featured columnist John O'Sullivan.
Raising an MVP: How does your kid measure up?
How does your kid measure up? That’s a pretty dangerous question, but we keep trying to find an answer, says SoccerWire blogger Dr. Wendy Lebolt.
Organized Chaos: The key to Brazil’s soccer success
Washington Spirit player Kika Toulouse makes her SoccerWire debut with a thoughtful blog post on her offseason stint in Brazil, where she is experiencing a whole new attitude towards the beautiful game.
