The following report comes from MYSA Associate Director of Coaching John Curtis. John attended the Boy's U14 National Team Camp recently held in Massachusetts. He had a chance to talk to National Team staff and work with players from Region II and Minnesota. The podcast from the U14 National Team head coach is particularly interesting.
U14 Boys Identification Camp
Middlesex School, Concord, Mass.
July 30 – August 5, 2006
[excerpt taken from ussoccer.com]
In August of 1997, U.S. Soccer started the U.S. Under-14 National Development Program for boys, knowing that to continue to compete with the elite countries on an international level, the U.S. would have to build a base of soccer players from the youth level up. The Under-14 program introduces young players to a level of soccer they would not otherwise see at such a young age and allows the country’s top youths the chance to experience soccer at its highest level and in an international setting.
“One thing we have always tried at these camps is to make the game itself the teacher,” said U.S. Under-14 Boys Technical Director Manny Schellscheidt. “We let the game and the situations guide the teaching. Just to see the talent of some of those 14-year-olds is amazing. With programs like this we are putting ourselves in a position where the young players coming through our Youth National Team system can play with any other youth players in the world.”
More than 120 players from around the country have been invited to participate in the weeklong camp, 25 of those were from region II and three from Minnesota (Isaac Kannah of Brooklyn Park, Eric Miller of Woodbury and Dylan Xiong of White Bear Township).
At the camp a typical day would involve breakfast at 7:00 am, training from 9:00 – 11:00 am, lunch at noon, rest in own rooms from 1:00 – 2:30 pm, game at 4:00 pm, dinner at 6:00 pm, meetings 8:00 pm, in own room 9:45 pm, 10:00 pm lights out.
The first day and the last day are considered travel days. On the first evening after getting settled into our rooms, having dinner and receiving our training gear we played 8v8. Each day after that we had a 75 minute training in the morning and 70 minute 11v11 game in the evening. The goalkeepers would start an hour early for a 75 minute training and then join their teams session. Midway through the week they started moving towards a select group with teams 5 and 6 being the top 40 players in the camp.
The best thing about the camp other than the coaches’ games were that the players came first. Results of the games were never kept and no trophies were handed out. Letting the players, developing a better understanding of the game at the same time developing a greater passion for the game created an excellent environment for players of this age.
Listen in as Schellscheidt talks about the U14 identification camp and the entire U14 program.
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