What might junior Australian football (AFL) learn from association football/soccer?
As a coach of soccer/football and Australian football (AFL) I
have the opportunity to observe the player development pathways of both sports.
A recent twitter conversation stimulated by the English FA move to a 'Dutch
style' small-sided games curriculum for junior football game development got me
reflecting on my experience of the introduction to junior football.
With an Australian football background and sustained interest in the game our
three boys all did the AFL Auskick program, not once but a few times each over
2-3 years (e were lucky enough to have two Auskick centres within walking
distance from home – one at the local school and one at a local football club).
All three of our boys found themselves preferring soccer to junior Australian
football. I have often wondered why this occurred as I played football, their
grandad and uncles all played football. Soccer was never on the television at
home, it was Australian football.
As physical education teachers do, I found myself coaching my boys’ junior
soccer teams (and I am still involved in coaching the youngest in his U11 team
this year).
The first thing I noticed as a coach of both sports is that the junior football
coaching resources are very different. The soccer resources are frequently game
based rather than drill based. Horst Wein's Developing Junior Footballers
provides a good contrast to the typical Australian football resources. The
second point of difference I noticed was the emphasis on modified rules
small-sided game structures to maximise individual game involvement; providing
children more touches of the ball in junior soccer, compared to junior
Australian football where more traditional thinking about playing the ‘real
game’ seem to persist.
Playing small-sided games has been proved to give children an increased number
of touches of the ball while providing more goals and scoring attempts, more
one-v-one encounters and more chance to attempt dribbling skills. It is this
increased contact time with the ball that leads to children enjoying the game
more while providing better preparation for the 11-a-side a game introduced at
youth level (read Daniel Coyle’s discussion about Futsal in the Talent Code).
Greater participation leading to feelings of more enjoyment increases the
likelihood of continued involvement is a proposition that ‘makes sense’
intuitively: throughout my physical education teacher training the mantra was
‘maximum participation and active learning’.
It’s a shift in emphasis from teaching kids to compete to teaching kids how to
play. The Football Federation of Australia curriculum adopted a small-sided
games curriculum in 2009. I wondered where this emphasis originated.
My research indicates that the Dutch football system has had a major influence
on this small-sided games approach for soccer game development. Simply, the
Dutch system is based on a belief that soccer is best learned by playing
the game. This means that everything in practice should include progression of
the game – being able to attack, defend and transition. This begins in 4v4
soccer with U6’s where the objective is to learn to control the ball.
The curriculum develops from U7 to U9 where the objective is to learn the basis
of attack - beating an opponent to score. U10-U11, the focus is on learning to
play as a team and then U12’s learning how to prevent scoring by defending
through teaching the functions of positions. Playing as a team and then
learning to be competitive marks the transition from youth soccer to adult
competition at U18 level.
I have come to believe that this player-centred emphasis through a progression
of modified small sided-games that aim to teach the game before teaching
players to compete may in part explains the success of soccer as 'the world'
game. While the 2008 AFL Junior match day policy moves towards a modified
small-sided games model it lacks the specificity of the FFA curriculum and the
skill development structure of the Dutch soccer curriculum.
At entry and junior level a move from ‘skill and drill” style ‘Dad’s at the
front of the line’ directing the ball to players while they run off one at a
time to take their turn, towards the small-sided games model employed by soccer
would be advantageous for junior participation and player development. 6v6
(2-2-2) football at U8 with modified rules focusing player development on
learning how to maintain possession might be a good starting structure,
progressing to AFL9's (3-3-3) by U12's.
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