| Why Brazil? (March 2008) |
What makes the educational experience worth the time and expense?
By Al Albert
Since 2004, the NSCAA has been offering coaches international courses in Brazil. The trip is long, airfare is expensive and not many of us are fluent in Portuguese! Why Brazil? What makes it worth the time, the trouble, the expense?
Having been to our two previous courses at Atletico Paranaense, I can speak from personal experience. It is the perfect environment to learn and improve as a coach.
While coaching college soccer for more than 30 years, I went abroad numerous times – taking teams, recruiting players and attending coaching courses. During my active coaching career, for one reason or another, I never made it to South America. The largest country on that continent and the only five-time winner of the World Cup, Brazil is known throughout the world as the greatest exporter of soccer talent and by transitivity, the top producer and developer of soccer players in the world.
Foreign clubs in Europe, Asia and the Middle East consistently have lured players from Brazil with lucrative contracts that their domestic clubs cannot match, and it is obviously great business for Brazilian clubs to sell those contracts to fund their operations. There is a constant migration of talented young players overseas and just as steady a flow of younger players coming up into the first team from the reserves and youth systems.
The fact that more Brazilians play outside their country than any other nationality is due in part to the amount of physical talent that exists in a very large and diverse population. However, it also is due in great measure to the way in which their players are developed and the flair, skill and presence that they bring to teams worldwide.
Several years ago, the soccer video “Ginga” portrayed a number of different ways in which Brazilian soccer uniquely embodies the passion and spirit of the game. Soccer is woven into practically every aspect of Brazilian society – the street soccer culture, the beach soccer culture, futsal and the fanatical support of professional teams through generations – but there also is a very strong and organized player development infrastructure. What the “Ginga” production did not highlight was the role of the coaches and the clubs, which in my opinion deserve much of the credit for Brazil’s success and status. These great players do not just “grow on trees!” In my experience, Atletico Paranaense has as professional an approach to player identification and development as any club anywhere in the world. Its recent investment in its stadium and training center has made them the envy of the rest of South America.
Atletico has numerous non-residential clubs and youth leagues under its umbrella in the state of Parana and all over Brazil. Many of these youth players play only in futsal leagues, but are under the club’s microscope as well.
They constantly are searching for talent, bringing players in for objective testing and evaluation, sending them back into their home environment and then bringing them back again to the training center. Only after exhaustive scouting and evaluation will a young player be offered a residential contract as a fulltime youth professional.
At the center, Atletico pays attention to every aspect of youth player development – nutrition, training load, education, medical and dental care and social development. Testing and re-evaluation is a constant part of the process. Once a year, usually in June, players receive an annual evaluation and either are released or offered a spot in next year’s residency. As a result of this highly organized and competitive developmental system, Atletico has produced more players than most clubs in Brazil. In 2004, after finishing second in the league, they sold 18 players to other clubs in Brazil and abroad, the most of any team.
In May, the NSCAA will host an Advanced National Diploma course for 60 coaches at the Oscar Inn and Training Center, another outstanding training facility in the state of Sao Paulo. The site is owned and developed by “Oscar,” former World Cup star from Brazil and former New York Cosmo. Oscar has his own residential developmental program for young players at this center, as well as a soccer resort which many teams, including our own U.S. national teams, have used in the past. Miguel deLima, a long-time NSCAA member and our liaison to Brazil, and Jeff Tipping, our director of coaching education and development, visited the site in December as part of our due diligence on this project.
The Oscar Inn combines a resort facility with soccer development. Although there is no senior professional team there, Oscar does have his own highly developed youth club, which transfers players to professional clubs within and outside the country. The accommodations at the onsite hotel and food are first class, as are the soccer fields and classroom facilities.
Of course we do not go all the way to Brazil just for a top-tier physical facility and good meals. The most important part of this program is that it allows coaches to feel the spirit of the Brazilian soccer culture while observing the highly developed youth soccer developmental system. Somehow, we hope American coaches will begin to understand what “ginga” means and how the special nature of Brazilian soccer is developed. There obviously is a tremendous respect for technique, skill and the way the game is played – beyond even results, which also are important. It is a complex process, beginning with the street soccer culture and moving up through their highly organized and professional player development system as players grow older. The process begins the first time a young child kicks a ball. Teamwork is important, but no less important is the expression of individual creativity.
At Atletico, even the older pros spend a fair amount of time each week on technical practice. Clearly there is a passion for form over function that permeates Brazilian soccer. Many other nations profess to have skill and flair as a priority, but none have produced the amazing number of technically proficient and exciting attacking players. In the U.S. we perhaps have been overly influenced by English-speaking European soccer cultures, which clearly cannot claim the same balance of flair and results that we see in Brazil. It is this attitude that is the key to development of young players – to insist that players try things that may not be the most efficient in game situations in order to develop problem-solving technique.
There are other aspects of South American soccer that we might not want to study and emulate. Having recently returned from a two-week tournament in Buenos Aires with the U.S. Pan Am Maccabi team, I have a clear picture of the passion and emotion that often spills over into violence and unsporting behavior. By combining all the best aspects of our American game with the Brazilian creative genius, skill and technique, perhaps someday we will become a truly great soccer nation.
A week-long course in Brazil for 60 coaches is not going to singlehandedly change U.S. soccer, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. If you haven’t been to Brazil, I hope you will consider this opportunity and others that we will present in the future.
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