Part 4 in a Five-Part Series | Read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3

Claudio Reyna is the new Technical Director for US Soccer. He addressed assembled youth coaches at the recent USSF Development Academy Spring Showcase in Sarasota, Florida. TopDrawerSoccer.com was there and is presenting a rundown of Reyna’s comments both to the coaches and in an exclusive interview with Managing Editor Robert Ziegler later that week.

(our interview continued)

Question: You have a very ambitious curriculum that you’re building for ages 6 to 12. A lot of it is about coaching, but what is the vehicle for getting clubs to follow through and implement it?

Answer: We can’t be everywhere at once, but there’s been an overwhelming response from clubs, directors and everything, that want to work with us. Everybody starting somewhere is very important. The idea that we’re here to support and help everybody work together is important, but the idea that I talked about is coaching. That’s the most important part. Great schools have great teachers, and that’s what everybody needs to think about. At the end of it all it’s not about one individual coach, it’s about organizations developing players. When you go to a great school, you don’t say this one teacher did everything for me, you say ‘I went to Harvard’ and that’s where you’re coming from. You may have a favorite coach or a favorite teacher, but through it all it’s the experience you have at the institution.

U.S. Soccer is the overall governing body, so our goal is to get everybody to think we are all developing the players, it isn’t just me, it isn’t a couple of coaches on our staff, it’s everybody. That’s what I want to get people to start thinking together. We’re going to work with them. We want knowledgeable coaches. We want coaches who are willing to learn, because there’s not a coach who can’t get better. Now we’ve got a bit of a plan and a structure so they see that final picture and vision that we’re going to, and really lay out some ideas of what we want development to look like and what we want it to be, and start striving for. Until we get clubs that look like the best clubs in Europe, we can’t stop. That has to be the goal.

Question: As the Academy continues to take root, is that going to start to mirror what takes place in the rest of the world, rather than having our best players all coming from one place?

Answer: Sure. We have to spread out all over the country. There’s players playing everywhere now. It’s more a population thing, where are players playing? There’s a couple of different markets that have more players and population that we’ll probably be working with first, and then we’ll get out to everyone. We’re going to provide information online about our plan. The coaching information is going to change as well, the coaching schools, so they mirror what we’re talking about and doing. So now the evolution of coaches understand our plan moving forward, so when they go to the coaching schools they start picking up what we’re trying to do and clearly picking up that groundwork and the base so whenever they go back they know that they’re working with us wherever they are.

That’s the important thing, to get coaches to get the idea, like I said, to work under a structure and a plan. It gives them a lot of flexibility as well. We’re not going to be policing everyone and it’s not about that, but general points we can improve on in all facets of the game, not just technique, not just tactics, but everything. There’s a lot of different pieces in developing a player. I’ve been able to meet some fantastic players who’ve been in great locations and clubs and what they talk about is the experience they’ve had there. It’s not even so much ‘what’d you learn?” but it’s like a kid going to a great school. They realized they learned a great deal but it was more that they loved being a part of that place and it gave them that base to go be a professional player. That’s what the goal of the clubs needs to be, that when they look back they will know they were part of a club and we just need to bring that back a little bit more into the U.S.

Part 5 : Claudio speaks out on the conduct of coaches and players, particularly toward referees

Missed a part? Read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3