The man Utd academy anaolgy is nonsense, they lose to other top class academies.. not northern league reserve teams...
As for Edge understanding player development that is also nonsense. Do you think Man Utd's academy director would prevent his players playing for their country or would only allow himself to coach them etc..
Edge is well meaning but unfortunately a little mistaken in his beliefs around the 10,000 hours theory. This is research that says basically, that it takes 10,000 hours practice to master a skill, for the sake of this argument, to become a professional athlete.. The research goes on to say that a large % of these 10,000 hours come from unstructured play, the old fashioned kick abouts between players of diffeerent ages etc that many european, south american etc.. kids grow up playing. Edge is trying to ensure that his players have 10,000 hours under his structured tutorledge.
These players are technically proficient but have little or no understanding of the game and how, when, why etc...
For years now they have passed the ball in safe areas, where they have been allowed to pass it by opposition teams. Having 70% of the possession in your own half under no pressure then conceding goals on the break when you finally try to get into the oppositions half is not developing these players for a career in football.
I have seen both Edge's side play and the NZ U17s. I do say there are one or two players in Edge's side who could have made the U17s BUT HE STOPPED THEM FROM ATTENDING TRIALS!!!! One left Edge's group in order to make the side! I would also say that the NZ U17s have a number of technically very good players too, they are far from being a team of giants and athletes as has been suggested..
In a final thought, are Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Drogba, Ronaldo, Xavi etc etc not good athletes too? The modern game of football REQUIRES players to be athletes. Without athletic ability AND technical ability a player would find it almost impossible to make the grade in the modern game!!!
Having played with Declan years ago I am not surprised he has polarised opinion so much!!
It is commonly accepted that to become an expert in anything you must committ 10,000 hours of deliberate practise towards that particular discpline ie... music, maths, sport ext....
deliberate practise = engaging in an activity that is specifically designed to improve your performance.
In regards to your suggestion that unstructerd play or as the acdemics call it (Deliberate play) is the key to acheiving the 10,00 hours is not quite correct.
The european perspective on this is to actually focus their training around deliberate practise at very early age. Granted the 10,000 hours can not be completly filled will focused practise. Up unitli the age of say 12/13 kids are encourged to multi sport and play sport for fun, these hours are counted. Once kids hit 13 yrs there training will increase to at least 4 contacts per week. Still plenty of room for these kids to take part in deliberte play also unitil they go full time at 16. Don't tell it is the deliberate play component is what is going to give them expetise in football! he Ajax seems to work?
Within south American culture a huge amount of kids will engage in just playing street football (Deliberat play) . These are ofetn the kids that have not been picked up. In essence all that is happening is that the pro clubs have huge base of uncoached raw players to pick from if the boys they currently have are not developing. Don't be fooled to think Brazlians just play fun games of football and become experts, quite the opposite. I read an article in 442 about a Brazilan club they had 1000's of kids on it's books. Kids travelled from all round the country to get into the acdemy.They trained x2 a day 6 days a week, they worked hard to stay the club because they know there are 20 others just as good on the street that have not been as lucky.
If you are interested in actually understanding these concepts fully have a read of Bounce, The Talent Code, Outliners and Talent Is Overrated
The young player from the age of 5-13yrs should be involved in a lot of Deliberate play ie futsal, small sided games, school yard football ext... but after the age of 13yrs Deliberate practise must take over, that's not to say the coach can not still utilise deliberate play from time to time.
I look at players like Xavi, Fabregas, Inetsai, modric, scholes and ask myself if they were born into the NZ system would they have developed into top class football players, probably not. Why, because of exactly what is happening with the current crop of u17's , the players that are putting the hours in and willing to sacrifice everything to become a player are not being identified and looked after by NZ Football. Cain has already took a team to a World Cup and failed to get the boys playing, why , becuase they had not put the hours in. Same will happen again, I was told they could not get the ball off the Aspire academy (Similar standard to a good young european u17 )
Why not try something new, why not get behind what is actually going on in your own back yard and support these boys. Decaln has not got all the answers not by a long shot, his main weakness is that he thinks he has. What he has done is light the fire for some of these boys to chase there dreams. The boys I have mentioned need a new challenge, a different coach with fresh ideas and a platform to actually show their abilty.
Some of the boys did trial ,Steve was never going to pick them, us 1 favs were already a shoe in. The boy that left Decaln to join u17 was asked to leave by Decaln as were 2 other boys. The u17 was his only option because HBHS were not doing anything for him, hence why he has left.
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