La Finca's Training Methodology

by Jed Tucker

The conversation that takes place behind closed doors, among coaches across all levels of clubs, is that we’re getting it all wrong. Everyone seems to agree, the mainstream approach to youth development leads to dead ends for far too many talented kids, and leaves many many more out of the pathway entirely.

Even the most successful clubs would embrace a change if they could figure how to sell it. But this is not just another diatribe about how money corrupts youth soccer in the USA. Enough of that ink has been spilled.

Here, I want to share some thoughts about a new training style we’ve been developing at La Finca to fix this national crisis. We’ve been experimenting for a while now. And I’m finally ready to give it a name, Group Dynamic Training, or just Dynamic.

Pickup is the Guiding Principle

It’s as certain as the sun that the key difference between youth development in the US and the professional soccer countries throughout Europe and South America, and now Japan and Iceland is not the lack of formal training environments but rather the absence of a futbol culture, the everyday, local, informal game environment. These days it’s fashionable to call it street soccer; throughout time it’s been known as pickup. Every sport has a version of it, and in most of the world it’s how most kids learn sports. That is, learning the fundamentals of sports takes place outside of, and typically before, formal instruction. Hold onto that because US soccer is the unfortunate exception.

Something went awry in the US when soccer migrated to the suburbs, and all the trappings of suburban sprawl infected futbol — the limitless big fields, the drive to organize even casual gatherings and, of course, the iconic minivans making the time devoted to soccer playing as much about long distance family travel as the player’s time on the pitch. This and more, tragically, killed pickup. And now that the everyday life of even our cities feels more like the ‘burbs with shopping malls eating up downtowns and manicured public parks policed like Disney, I’m not optimistic that we’ll every see the right conditions for pickup again.

The wholesale embrace of club soccer from even the earliest youth divisions (U4!) has been a kind of acceptance of this loss. Or perhaps it just shows a lack of creativity. How can formal club sports organizations replace an informal cultural tradition? It’s no small challenge. It may not even be possible.

It is commonly argued that the financial rewards of youth soccer make it too attractive to even consider another way, but I don’t think so. Yes, aspects of it are exploitative. Charging exorbitant sums for a false promise doesn’t sit well, but that’s not the business of most youth clubs. We also can’t just blame the folks providing a service others desperately want.

The real challenge is how to develop a sustainable alternative system. And one that actually delivers where club soccer has failed. Keep in mind, we’ve been refining our bizarre system for decades and it hasn’t produced widespread soccer excellence.

In Comes Group Dynamic Training

Changing a cultural tradition is no small task. It takes a lot of buy-in from the locals and in a fractured society like ours today, I’m not waiting for street soccer to present a serious challenge to mainstream club soccer. So instead, at La Finca we’ve taken another tact. Because to be crystal clear, we are one of those believers — we’re bordering on ideological about this — that oldschool informal play is the only way to develop real soccer talent.

We don’t see it as merely unfortunate that youth soccer in the US lacks pickup. For us, there’s simply no hope of ever breaking into national futbol excellence without it. We point to the last 200+ years of soccer in our country as all the evidence we need (yes, our tradition goes back that far. We started playing soccer even before American football).

Our answer is Group Dynamic Training.

If your exposure to soccer has been through the conventional system you might be underwhelmed by our sessions. If you know soccer, you’re just as likely to love them. They’re even fun to watch. You may feel a sense of relief after your long journey, but you too may walk away wondering, hmmm, that looked fun but was is real training? Dynamic is different because while it is definitely not pickup, it is deeply rooted in pickup’s key characteristics. Things like mixed age play, level-adjusted play, an emphasis on player decision-making, game-based activities rather than drills (where are all the cones?) and nonstop competitive action. These are some of the characteristics of pickup that make it such an indispensable tool of youth development.

Trainers in a Dynamic session are more like guides than coaches. First and foremost they are all high level players themselves. The power of learning in an informal environment is that it’s about mimicry rather than curriculum and instruction. Inspiration first, then practice. We don’t teach stepovers by slowly walking players through the move; our trainers are encouraged to juke kids out in games and to make a big deal of it. There’s nothing quite as motivating as getting your ankles broken. It is inspiring this kind of desire that leads kids to practice a move until mastery.

Our head trainers are also pros in the art of youth instruction. They’ve raised this to the level of a craft if not an art. What does this mean? Any kind of youth instruction is more successful if it’s fun. All coaches nod in agreement to this simple idea, but when it comes to their sessions far too many coaches worry more about impressing the parents than about the kids enjoyment. They stick to their Man City lesson plans because yes, it’s true, they “look” professional. Kids pleasure be damned.

Here’s what gets lost in this trade. If the kids love to train then they’ll go home and play more. They’ll dribble around the house. They’ll dribble around their little siblings and grandparents. They’ll dribble around Sam’s Club. They’ll play keepaway from their dog. These kids will master the ball and this technical mastery is the foundation of professional play.

We’d all do better to listen to our kids. If they don’t want to go to soccer practice — arguably one of the most pleasurable activities on earth — there’s something very wrong with the program. There may be other ways to achieve the same goal. Other systems of training equally as exciting. In fact, there have to be. Not all kids are alike. And artists work various ways to inspire their audiences. The point is we have to start insisting that formal practices create an environment of such joy and pleasure that it inspires kids to want to play more, period. Practice is not so much where they master the technique as where they gain the inspiration to play and train more.

The Difficulty of Group Dynamic Instruction

Despite what might look like a loose or absent structure, Dynamic Training is not informal, and it is very difficult to instruct. Where conventional sessions max out at 15-16 players, Dynamic Training can operate successfully with twice that, space permitting. In fact, because of the emphasis on dynamism, competition and high-energy, a crowded pitch is advantageous. A reporter visiting the Nigerian national team once recounted being baffled to see the entire 2-hour training taking place inside the goal box. He kept waiting for the session to start. Dynamic is not just for kids.

Tight space training represents an approach increasingly shared by many of the professional clubs in the world. Managing a large group of youth in a tight space is a skillset few coaches have mastered. The wrong mood shift in a large group of kids can quickly derail the program. Though the rigid seasonal training maps of conventional programs present challenges of mastery too, the Dynamic trainer must have hundreds of alternative games to turn to. Kids are very demanding customers. Keeping their attention is no small feat. Games for 1v1s and 2v2s, games for 1 ball-1 player for 10 kids for 20+ kids, games for teaching defensive tactics, games for finishing with all 24 players!

Playing my entire life and now building this program, I have spent a lot of time at youth soccer practices, both those of other clubs and my own. I’ve watched a lot of trainers. And I’m still impressed every time when La Finca’s head trainers manage to introduce a new game. It feels there is no limit, and this gets to what is perhaps the most important point about Dynamic Training.

“It’s About Principles!”

I remember an early conversation about trainer training with our Director of Coaching, Alan O’Keeffe. While we are still in the infant stages of formalizing how we develop trainers at La Finca it’s something we are very committed to. I voiced my concern that it would take too long to impart all these drills and games to young trainers. (My sense of urgency is because I want to see the US men’s team win a World Cup in my lifetime.) Alan pushed back. It’s about understanding principles, not knowing the catalogue of games. Being a good trainer, it turns out, is much more of an art than a science. If you master the principles you can invent new games on the fly. It reminds of something Bruce Lee must have said :) and I’m certain this is the only explanation for Alan and his crew’s seemingly endless catalogue.

The advantages of Dynamic Training are many. First and foremost they are a blast. If you love futbol you’ll enjoy training with us. And while there are surely other ways to get there, we feel strongly that young kids brought up in Dynamic Training Futbol learn to move efficiently in tight spaces, to make good futbol decisions and, if successful, we think, they will all learn to attack the goal in the style that modern futbol now demands.

Having been at this for some time now it’s more than just a feeling. If you haven’t played with us yet, we invite you to come down and see La Finca kids in action. We guarantee your kids will thank you.