Just so everybody knows I haven’t forgotten about this, in the two-city tsunami of music, social work and freelance writing that is my happy life.
We’ve reached the turning point in Canadian Soccer News’s special investigative series on coaching development in Canada. Weeks of consultation and interviews – both on and off the record – has produced a few telling points.
By far the most important:
- From an organizational, administrative level, we are simply not set up to train coaches who can train and develop professional soccer players.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
This is changing. It’s been changing a lot in recent years, with the rise of Canadian MLS teams and their academies. The Canadian Soccer Association is passing from the hands of the Old Guard, into control of actual professionals whose job it will actually be to actually get Canada to an actual men’s World Cup.
We’re also starting to see aggressive action at the provincial level in both Ontario and British Columbia, and Oakville soccer club – the continent’s largest – has just made a massive commitment to hiring and developing professional coaches, and shifting its focus to do everything it can to develop elite, professional players.
For now, though, the overwhelming focus remains on pay-for-play local soccer clubs. These are thriving businesses all over Canada, which is wonderful – except that they have no clue how to turn elite prospects into pro players, and there’s very little reason they should even care.
At the recreational level, these clubs collect fees, organize leagues, and give everyone a chance to play. There’s strong competitive focus on winning trophies, of course, but that’s a different – and conflicting – set of needs from qualifying Canada for the World Cup.
One of the biggest barriers? Parents who pay significant chunks of change so their young soccer stars can get a competitive game don’t often appreciate coaches treating their kids with the strictness, toughness and discipline needed to forge and foster professional talent.
There isn’t even that much incentive for the coaches, either. Because there are so few pro clubs in Canada, there are virtually no professional jobs to aspire to. What few exist are more likely to go to Aron Winter than a gifted teacher from the Okanagan.
From here, the fight continues on multiple fronts. Visionary clubs like Oakville literally try to change the game, the number of pro clubs gradually expands, and we wait to see how a reformed CSA will handle this.
The recreational game is huge, and strong. And it’s not even necessarily wrong here, either. If most paying parents don’t give a sideways toot about Canada’s national teams, there aren’t really a whole lot of convincing arguments to counter that. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to try.
But the real answer lies with the pro teams and the governing bodies. And it’s to the governing bodies this series will turn next.
The next round of interviews will feature the CSA, OSA and BCSA. A lot of busy schedules are involved here, so things have been a little hit-and-miss. I can’t give you exact dates, but the various deals will – soon – go down.
In the meantime – what kind of soccer structure do you want to see in this country, and what role – if any – do private, amateur, community clubs have to play?
Onward!
Also in this series: