ThiKu

Isn't Eustaquio a #10? Never seen him play tho.

Cloverdale would be a disaster. No one from Vancouver would attend - how many would drive from there? Few, at best.

Guessing none.

CSA doesn't rely on USSF coaching courses at all - that people choose to attend them is their decision. CSA offers all the necessary courses to coach in Canada.

If I am not mistaken some of the Whitecaps youth and senior coaches have been involved in this.

Yes a player has responsibility to do everything they can to develop. But, at what point do serious questions need to be asked of the Whitecaps development system that they are merely developing USL-level players, and have been since the academy started.

For me Petrasso is the biggest and best tournament surprise. Davies has 3 goals from open play, and that's wonderful but TBH not totally unexpected. Petrasso being a fairly dominant defender at right back - now that solves a tonne of CMNT problems!

You are correct over the long term. My point is how many quality players are we losing at the ages of 7-13 when coaches are coaching to win then, rather than develop. This is my point. Trust me, we're losing loads.

I understand your perspective. You and I want the same outcome. A better, tougher, more technical Canada. We just disagree on how the youngest kids should be guided in developing those skills. If I lived abroad I'd probably agree with your perspective. But, I don't. I live here. And I see how detrimental our "win first, teach second" mentality has been - and I see that people still do that now as soon as a trophy is available, ignoring educating the players along the way.

I understand that. Canada (and USA) are no other countries but our own - we do not have a soccer culture. We have hockey dads coaching our top youth teams.... You state what your experience has been. I don't deny it, or disagree with it. My experience here is that people will completely ignore development and play to win. Even right now in the current top tier of youth soccer in BC we have coaches telling players to leave their boots at home for an entire week because they are doing fitness as some sort of punishment. Please stop thinking Canada can do what other nations can do. We can't. Are the other nations wrong? Of course note. Are we right? We are right for ourselves, right now. When we improve our coach education, maybe we can start to adopt pro-rel at youth level. When we have the Canadian Premier League and youth clubs start to truly grasp what is needed to develop players for a level above local college soccer we may be able to put in place pro-rel in youth soccer. For now....we can't. You don't coach here - as far as I can tell - I have coached here many years. I see and hear it first hand every day. We cannot handle pro-rel, we can barely handle playoffs.

and here is exactly where you and I are on the same page.

Give this one a really good think and I am sure you will grasp it - because I am considering the greater good. What were the opposition learning? How many teams are playing like this? How many missed development opportunities are happening b/c coaches are coaching to win a meaningless u10 tourney rather than coaching to develop players?

"no balls above shoulder height" would be a reasonable rule if you are trying to develop skill rather than "kick it to the fast kid" I agree.

We cross paths on twitter - you and I agree on almost everything. In this we can't agree. Are you of the impression I am saying "no heading"? It was a tournament rule. It's one I completely disagree with (as did my players by the way). Settle down, and think before you post. ps-my players were able to clear the ball effectively, thus our opponent became completely unable to participate in the game - we ran over them after going down 2-0 early and figuring out how to deal with them (and guess what - it took no intervention fro me for my players to sort it out other than me asking one defender to drop off in case the first defender missed the ball).

In Spain it works. We are not Spain. We are not any other country. Come here and coach a u11-12 team. You will see what I mean. You can't tell me that a u10 team play 3 defenders, 3 forwards trying to win a semi-final by not completing a single pass until the 2nd half is in the players best interests. Coaches and parents screaming "don't pass up the middle!" is not in anyone's best development interests. Canada does not know better. Canada is an infant in this sport. We're in the wilderness on top of that. We're babies raised by wolves. Do not think because Spain etc do it one way, we can do it properly here. We have volunteer dads who have never kicked a soccer ball coaching our "development" teams....