Youth soccer in Barcelona

Local youth soccer in Barcelona
12/14/2009
One of my hopes in coming to Barcelona was to find a youth team where Mikey could practice. We did that, but it’s turned out a bit differently than I had expected.

I tried a few avenues before coming to the city but none of them panned out. So the first day in our apartment, I walked the streets and found a big store not far from us selling soccer gear. I wandered in and asked whether anyone spoke English. They pointed me to one guy with curly hair, and he spoke enough for me to explain that I was looking for a local youth team for my nino.

He said he would make a few calls. When I returned, he said there was a team playing on a field not far away on Montjuic, the big mountain and park overlooking Barcelona. He gave me some vague directions, and said that he didn’t really know when they practiced but that maybe it would be OK to go there at around 5.30 or 6.

One of my city maps actually showed a soccer field in more or less the right area, so next day off we went – Mikey with ball and boots. The street was small, and steepened into a real hill to trudge up. But we could see floodlights ahead which gave hope. Right at the top a small gate opened through the wall – into a brand sparkling new turf field!

There was a row of changing rooms with a café at the far end, past the full size turf pitch and the small size dirt field. We walked over and found that we should speak to “Julie” who ran the place. He showed up a bit later, and we had a fairly comical conversation with someone speaking Spanish very fast with a thick Catalan accent while smoking heavily. The gist was that Mikey was welcome to train with the team but could not play in games – which we expected.

So off Mikey went. First he had a kick around with some older kids, then practice started at 7.

An older coach organized practice. A couple of runs round the field and they were quickly playing a scrimmage, which lasted till the end of practice.

Mikey will have his own story, so here’s what I saw.

There were a range of kids. This seemed like a neighborhood select team (more on that below). There were a few weak kids, but most were very skilled by US standards, some outstandingly so. One kid had really remarkable dribbling skills, beating three or four opponents with ease.

The coach did little coaching except to yell at the dribbler to pass the ball. No drills, and almost no instruction. No limitations (two touch etc.). Perhaps partly as a result, I saw soccer that was largely the opposite of the Barca one-touch style: every kid wanted to dribble, no one moved well off the ball, so the game was slow even though the kids were quick. Mikey seemed to have little difficulty fitting in – his passing was way above average, his foot skills well below.

The kids were great, going out of their way to make Mikey feel at home. No-one spoke English. One of the kids had a few words, but that was it. So Mikey had to quickly learn a few Spanish terms.

We came back a week later for the next practice. New, younger coach, completely different. Almost no ball work at all. Physical training only: many laps of the field, followed by a tag game, and then wind sprints. A crossing drill followed: two strong crossers on the right touchline, two runners into the middle (near post/far post). Many repetitions of pass down the line, big cross from the corner (which no kid that age can do accurately). Not a single goal scored in 15 minutes, during which the coach went off at one of the weaker players for misplaying a cross. Only two players ever crossed the ball, and only from the right corner. An even odder event came next: a game in which two teams scrambled fore the ball with one goal, and threw the ball (with their hands) so a teammate could score with a header. 15 minutes of that and they were done. Practice over.

Back another week later (fiestas constantly interrupt the cycle of practices. This time yet another coach. Three laps, followed by long ball passing practice – at which point the practice was canceled 20 minutes in by the club president apparently because the kids had not met commitments to raise money by selling national lottery tickets! Practice over.

Many things to think about.

This is not a rich club in a poor part of town. Solid working class. Dues are 30 euros a month. The club has been playing on this field since 1928, and fairly recently persuaded the city council to spend 600,000 euros to build the turf field with lights. Not surprising given the neighborhood that no-one speaks English. So the business with lottery tickets is understandable but the actions were by our lights very harsh.

I’m reminded a little of the kind of clubs one might expect to find in Pittsburgh or Leeds. Hard nosed, run in a fairly authoritarian manner. Maybe not too much science to the coaching with a strong emphasis on physical fitness. Coaching by former players. Of course I may be generalizing too soon, and the language barriers makes things harder, but still…

The structure of practice left me angry. I thought it badly wasted precious time on the field. Time is allocated in one hour slots, and no-one had apparently thought to have the kids do their physical training first on the dirt field or by running laps outside the field. Coaches were clearly not concerned about their limited time – typically, they sent a kid off to collect balls or equipment and everyone stood around while that happened. Every coach had the kids standing around for ten minutes or so doing aimless individual stretches while the coach talked (but did not demonstrate). Having talented kids on a 600,000 euro field and not using the ball is – to my mind – just short of criminal. So the lack of thought and lack of organization imposed a heavy burden on the kids, though they of course thought all this perfectly normal.

But worst of all, I saw almost no actual coaching. Not an single demonstration, not a single walk through. As a result, the kids played high skill poor quality soccer. It seemed like a visit to the coaching time machine, back to mid-1960s when scientific training did not exist. It surprised me to find this in Barcelona of all places. And made me realize that the there is an upside to the professionalization of coaching in America, for better quality teams at least.

We’ll be back one more time, so I’ll update after that.