When hearing about the great composer Mozart, we usually hear the word "prodigy."  A "prodigy" is a person, especially a child or young person, having extraordinary talent or ability.  In reality, Mozart was no prodigy.  What is overlooked, is that by the time Mozart was six years old, he had studied nearly 3,500 hours of music with his father.  When we think of Mozart and his craft we think to ourselves, "I can never be that good at anything." In reality, anyone can be great at anything they want to as long as they put in the HOURS.

Genius Explained, Talent is Overrated, The Talent Code, Outliers, and The Little Book of Talent are just a few of the recent books that go into detail about the 10,000 Hour Rule.  Malcolm Gladwell writes that his studies have shown that "ten-thousand hours is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert, in anything." 

In recent years I have started to track how many hours some of my teams accumulate throughout a season.  In 2014, I was a head coach of a varsity boys team in Michigan.  The United States Soccer Federation has a requirement that their Development Academy teams must receive a 3-to-1 training-to-game ratio.  Youth academies around the world have ratios of at least 4-to-1 and in extreme cases 7-to-1. (Maybe that's how our Men's National Team can lose to a country the size of Massachusetts?)  So, in 2014 I kept track of hours trained and the hours accumulated on a game day including the warm-up.  Overall, we had 46 hours of training and 57.5 hours of game day activities.  Now, high school soccer is not the best environment for soccer development but this shows that the training-to-game ratio is nowhere near where it needs to be.  In fact, it would take 96 seasons just like this one for a player to reach 10,000 hours.  We don't have 96 seasons to get it right with our young players.

Dan Coyle is the author of "The Talent Code" and has recently been working with the United States Soccer Federation.  Coyle writes, "compare your youth soccer training schedule to those around the world and in upper level training academies.  Most United States youth players practice twice a week for one to 1.5 hours.  This is during a season that lasts 12 weeks.  Play spring and fall and your training time might be as little as 48 hours a year.  Compare this to some development programs where young players might receive over 700 hours a year.  A simple reinforcement of the fact that much of the technical training a youth player needs must come from outside organized soccer."

A lot of factors go into determining how many hours your player is receiving and not all of them are your clubs fault.  Most coaches in the United States would love to train their teams 3 or 4 times a week but simply cannot due to the amount of teams some coaches have or field availability for training.

This is where PlayMaker Training makes its IMPACT!  PlayMaker Training has the ability to train players from all organizations any day of the week.  Each training session is focused on raising the level of of each players technical foundations, something that is often neglected in a team training environment where tactics and training to win come before individual player development.  Let PlayMaker Training help your player reach 10,000 hours while they are still young!

What if I told you that in the amount of time it takes you to read this article, was the amount of time a soccer player gets on the ball in an average professional soccer match.  A professional soccer match is 90 minutes long.  For players that play the entire duration of the match, on average, spend only 2 minutes on the ball.  That's around 2% of the game spent on the ball.

What does this mean?

It means that players need to cherish their time on the ball.  It means that players cannot give away the ball cheaply.  No opportunity on the ball can be wasted.  My focus in player development is on these 2 minutes.

Most of the players I train are not professional players.  Which means they don't play in 90 minute matches.  Most youth leagues in the United States also do not have substitution restrictions which greatly effect the amount of playing time for players.  These players most likely play on teams that at least 4, 5 or 6 subs sitting on the bench.  How often has your player played in a 5 minute shift and got the ball once or twice in that time span?  So our youth players may be getting only 30 SECONDS of time on the ball in each game.  This is unfortunately the nature of soccer.  What they do with that 30 seconds is vital in player development.

So how do we make sure that our players cherish their time on the ball?

First and foremost, they must become more confident on the ball.  They must limit the careless giveaways due to panic.  They must be able to problem solve.  They must be able to pass out of pressure, and they must be able to hod onto the ball with strength when passing lanes are not open.  They must take advantage of a goal scoring opportunity, because it may be the only opportunity they get in the entire game.

In a culture of "team development" and "winning at all costs."  PlayMaker Training bucks the trend and focuses on individual player development.  My philosophy is that you cannot introduce advanced tactics until you have players that have advanced technique.  Cherishing every touch.  This is the primary focus of PlayMaker Training.  My focus, is on the 2 minutes.

Within the first six months of bringing PlayMaker Training to Western New York, I have had the pleasure of training over 100 youth soccer players.  My primary focus and philosophy is to make as large of an IMPACT as I can in each of my players development.  I have had local club coaching opportunities that I have frankly turned down due to the IMPACT I would be making.  Local clubs put restrictions on coaches regarding how much of an IMPACT they can make.  At these clubs, I would have been given one or two teams which would equal me being in contact with anywhere from 10 to 30 players over the course of an entire year.  Coming from a rich youth soccer atmosphere in southeastern Michigan, I can see that youth soccer in Western New York is behind, and coaching 10-30 kids for an entire year won't help me in impacting the youth soccer culture in Buffalo.  Like I said before, I have already trained over 100 players in the area through PlayMaker Training and having ZERO club affiliation allows me to work with players/teams from all over the Western New York area.  ​#PlayMaker