Bridging the gap: youth team to first team

How do you create a football factory? Surely there must be more than one answer to that question. Have a look at a table posted recently by Training Ground Guru (Source: Mark Crane) and you’ll see that Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham are the top four clubs to produce academy graduates that have played at least 1 league match in the 16/17 season.

These clubs certainly have the money to throw around for facilities, coaches, equipment, and transfer fees for youngsters but; Charlton and Crewe also make an appearance in the top 10 talent producers, in terms of numbers. Without being disrespectful, there is no way that Crewe and Charlton can compete financially with four clubs vying for Champions League football and silverware in any cup competition they enter (Insert Arsenal jibes here of your own free will!).

So how do the little guys do it if they don’t have the same resources as the big boys? Maybe a better example can come from Scotland. The last club I worked for in Scotland was Partick Thistle – Glasgow’s third club behind Rangers and Celtic. A million miles away from television money of the English Premier League, and sprawling private training grounds that many English clubs use for their daily football operations. Thistle are lucky enough to have a private backer for the Academy, but that only covers up to U18 level. The U20’s fall under the tab of senior football and must pull their own weight. Looking at the U20 squad I worked with during the U15/16 season, no less than 10 players have gone on to play senior football, with 7 having played in the top division of Scottish or Irish football. Not bad for a squad that only had 13 members, and was mostly supplemented by the U18s and 16s for games.

So how do Thistle do it? Partick Thistle don’t have a huge first team squad so, when it comes to playing games in training, or if the squad is hit by illness, injury or suspension; the 20s are called up – and they get called up to train with the first team regularly. Manchester City carried out research showing that 83% of players in the quarter-finals of the Champions League over the previous 10 years had played first-team football from the age of 17. Now, I don’t think even the most ardent Jags fan will be expecting Champions League football in the next few years, but they have been seeing progress. Is the shortage of first team players the reason for youth player development? Is it a manager, Alan Archibald, who has shown more than a touch of willingness to bring in and develop youth players in training, and give them game time? Maybe, but let’s look at the coach they work with day in day out.

Scott MacKenzie, had a 16-year career that saw him pick up league and cup titles with teams including Falkirk, St Mirren and Ayr United. Having assisted Scott with the U20s, I know that he emphasises quality passing, movement and first touch in every session. He also challenges the players with exercises that pit them against each other; not just in games (which are often played as a series of 3, 4 or 5), but passing, shooting and possession exercises. In a world where we hear all too often that youth leagues are full of pretty play, but results don’t matter, and therefore players don’t know how to control, manage and see out games; challenging them to do this every day might just help players develop these skills.

In addition to a first team manager that is willing to give youth a chance, a youth manager that has high standards for quick play, and doing the basics well everyday; Thistle also have someone heading up their sports science programme that knows the game. Junior Mendes had a career that started out in Chelsea’s youth team before playing for teams up and down the length and breadth of Britain, and internationally with Montserrat also. Since retiring from playing, he has devoted himself to the sport science side of the game gaining professional and academic qualifications to help develop the Thistle players physically. Have a look at Thistle’s injury record to see how effective the physical prep and injury prevention programmes have been.

So that’s it, a willing gaffer, a determined youth coach, and someone who can get players ready to play with the big boys. Well, not quite. That may be part of Partick Thistle’s development plan, but what about clubs that demand success every season? During my UEFA A Licence, the Scottish FA had a guest speaker who had been manager with a Spanish La Liga club. This club has notoriously fickle fans who remember league titles, cup wins and Champions League finals from the not too distant past. When asked about the youth team of this club, the coach was brilliantly honest saying, “I didn’t care.” There was a moment of stunned silence from the on looking coaches. The coach qualified his answer by saying that he didn’t have time to nurture youngsters into the squad. He was given a task by his chairman who fired the previous manager for not hitting his specified targets. He needed to get the first team in order, appease the chairman, endear himself to the fans, and finish in a good enough position to get himself into his second year in charge of the team. Not one of the coaches I spoke to after that interview criticised his view. Many of the coaches on that course work at a level where results equal ‘in work’, or ‘out of work’.

Many of England’s clubs will be faced with a difficult, yet welcome, decision over the next year or two. After a year of success at multiple international youth levels, will those young Englishmen get regular first team football? Will they be farmed out to clubs at lower levels, or will they fall off the radar completely? Youth coaches need to develop 'Tomorrow's Footballer', they need to see where the game is going and give a player the tools to deal with the future game. For some players that game is tomorrow, for others it might be next season, but how will they cope with the style of play, the system, the manager, the teammates, the opposition, the tempo, etc. etc. when that day comes? That is the preparatory job of the youth coach.

Every fan loves to see a young player making their debut for the club at which they learned their trade. I believe that fans of even the most successful club will give a manager some leeway (maybe not a lot, but some) if they see that the future of the club is being put at the feet of ‘one of their own’. Will the suits upstairs allow a season or two of reduced prize money to give a potential star game time? I’ll leave you with some homework – look at what Borussia Dortmund did when they were in serious financial trouble. See how long results took to arrive, and ask if you would be ok if your team went through that process.

(Originally published 6th November 2017)

#YouthDevelopment #YouthTeamToFirstTeam