"In England you teach your kids how to win. In Portugal and Spain, they teach their kids how to play" - Jose Mourinho

I recently suggested to the programming committee of SYSI that we needed to add players or reduce space for our U12 and U14 players in order to improve technical development. Amongst other things, I received an explanation that smaller fields actually "led to kick and chase soccer."

In England, the FA has been working hard to find a way to improve the technical ability amongst its youngsters, and have come out with what Sir Trevor Brooking has termed a "radical overhaul", which included smaller pitches and the 9v9 game which I recommended to SYSI. Below is a report from the Club website about England's attempts to make the game more enjoyable for kids. Can we learn from them, or do we know it all??

League Table Don't Even Feature In Top Ten Reasons That Kids Play

The England FA is hoping to start a new era in its coaching development programme, which will be based at their new St George's Park training HQ in Burton.

As well as establishing a coaches' academy network and licensing scheme, there will be significant changes to the way youth football is played, with reductions in the size of pitch, goal and teams to encourage better technical development and more ball-contact time.

The age at which youngsters are allowed to play competitive league football will be raised by three years, from Under-9 to Under-12, a proposal that the FA fears will meet resistance from many parents and coaches.

"We have not won anything for 44 years and I am not saying these changes will make us world champions overnight," said Brooking.

"But we must improve the way we develop our young players and the way they are coached from the age of five to 16 and beyond.

"We need to develop more and better English players and hopefully they will eventually break into the first teams of our elite clubs and into the international team."

England have enjoyed some success in Uefa's age-group tournaments, winning the Under-17 title last year and finishing runners-up in the Under-19 and Under-21 tournaments in 2009 but Brooking said emulating world and European champions Spain was also key.

"They [Spain] won the Under-19s in 2006 and 2007, went on to win the European Championship and then the World Cup. We're not that far behind them technically and we know what we're aiming for."

The FA's 25-point plan is intended to work in conjunction with the Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan, a radical overhaul of elite youth development that is expected to be voted through in the summer in time for next season.

The plan will see an Under-21 development league replacing reserve team football, a freeing up of the movement of young players and the setting up of an independent standards authority which will monitor and rank the academies of clubs across the country.

"There is now more co-operation between the two organisations over youth development than at any time I've known," said Brooking.

An increase in small-sided football

The FA's new youth football structure will see an increased use of small-sided games for all age groups up to under 12s. This will allow children to progress gradually through age-appropriate formats, rather than jumping straight from mini-soccer to the 'adult' 11-a-side game before they even finish primary school.

The entry point for under 7s and under 8s will be the 5v5 game. Under 9s and under 10s will then step up to 7v7, followed by a new 9v9 level for under 11s and under 12s. Each step will feature appropriate pitch and goal sizes allowing kids to develop with the game, before they take the final step up to 11-a-side at under 13s level.

Playing smaller-sided games has been proved to give children an increased number of touches of the ball, while providing more goals and scoring attempts, more one-v-one encounters and more chance to attempt dribbling skills. It is this increased contact time with the ball that the FA believe will help children enjoy the game more while providing them with better preparation for the 11-a-side a game.

The FA's Director of Football Development Sir Trevor Brooking has been a long-time advocate of such a change.

"Any skill I might have had as a player was almost there when I was 11 and I don't see that in sufficient 11 year olds these days," he said in June 2008. "If your technical skills aren't there when you start playing 11v11, you're never going to cope with the game."

League Tables

Research that the FA carried out with 42 groups of kids found consistently that winning league tables and trophies did not even register as a reason for kids wanting to play the game.

Conversely, they found that increased pressure from parents and coaches wanting their team to finish higher up the table put kids off playing and often led to kids dropping out of the game.

Once again, this comes back to structuring the game around the needs of the child rather than the adult. "We need a child-centred focus," said Levett. "Not adult-driven around league tables and trophies. That's the difference." "We want kids to play the game so we have to make it as attractive as possible and if parent and coach pressure is one thing that's forcing kids out of the game then we need to change that."

This might set alarm bells ringing for parents and coaches who want to see childrens' teams playing in a league structure. In fact a recent Club Website survey found that 63% of our members worried that removing league tables for under 11s risked making them less competitive.

"Kids want to win whatever they play. But their emphasis isn't on winning so for us the emphasis shouldn't be on winning. It should be about enjoyment, fun, learning the game, falling in love with it and getting better at it."

As for league tables helping the development of young children, Levett refers to the model employed by Premier League and Football League clubs. "In the professional game there are no leagues at all for under 16s. If it was good for development they'd put it in," he says.

"I've tried to balance the research where I can, but I can't find any research that says drilling children into competitive leagues is good for development. All I can find is research that says it increases pressure which increases dropout."