Shaping futures

“Everything our seniors do is drip-fed through all of our age groups. We have the same style of play. We have the same position profiles.

“Our junior principles are versions of senior team ones, so it allows us to prepare a player for those opportunities to be a senior player, and, in turn, we can benchmark and compare the player.”

Drip-feeding ethos and style of play through the age groups is something Kevins also witnessed at Seattle Reign. While there, head coach Laura Harvey tasked her with setting up the academy.

“We wanted players to feel connected to the first team,” she said. “So I spent a lot of time with Laura, knew her principles of play, her style of play, what she wanted to do. It was about taking the bitesized pieces of it, and how that would apply to a youth team, all the way down to the new under 10s.

“For example, Laura plays with a 4-3-3. That’s great for the U19s because they’re 11v11, but what does that look like at 9v9? Well, we think it’s fundamentally important that they learn to build out as two centre backs or a back four, so we would teach those fundamentals.

“We would always try and strip it right back to its youngest element and apply it to that age group.

“For example, what’s the profile of a Seattle Reign player? The wide player was Megan Rapinoe. She’s a 1v1 artist, so we made sure at our very youngest age groups there was an emphasis on wide players being encouraged to take on players in 1v1 situations.

“Then they start to join the dots and there’s a learning line that is created between their age group and the pro team. They’re still a million miles away from that level, but there’s still a process they can go through.”

Now, in her position with the USWNT, Kevins spends a lot of time liaising with those in roles like the one she used to occupy at Seattle Reign.

“I always say that I borrow the players,” she said. “That’s the role of an international coach and I totally understand my place in the landscape.

“What a player does in her home environment is everything. It’s always collaborative. It’s about going into those conversations asking them to tell me about the player.

 

"I always say that I borrow the players. That’s the role of an international coach..."

 

“How she is in her everyday environment. How does she train? What are her behaviours like? What are her habits like? Has she already started to adopt some professional behaviours, attitudes or mentalities towards the game?

“In turn, what are the key things that you’re working on with her? How can we support that? How can we align with that?

“You may play a different formation [to her club team], you may even play a different style of play, but there’s still going to be some fundamentals about finding space, receiving skills and their ability to understand how to manage the game.”

Videos are a key part of the collaborative relationship between player and coach. Players are given access to a platform which allows them to tag moments in games to make small playlists. These playlists must contain what Kevins calls ‘super strengths’.

“We spend so much time talking about areas to work on - weaknesses and areas of development,” she explains.

“Ultimately, the separator for young players making it to the highest level is one or two things that separate them from everybody else.

 

“Whether that’s their 1v1 skills, finishing around the box, defending 1v1, whatever it may be, they have a super strength, and it’s about reminding them of that. I think females can be pretty hard on themselves post game, but video doesn’t lie.”

The videos compiled by the players are then compared with those pulled together by the coaches so they can work together on a development plan.

That’s when the college coach comes in. The development plan and video clips are shared with them, and discussions take place around how players can also be supported in their club environments. 

“We jump on a call and we ask, out of these elements, which ones do you think you could be in a position to support during different times of the year?

“It’s about working with the college. We need that buy in, because ultimately for tournaments we’re taking the player out of their institution for three or four weeks. 

“We want colleges to be able to trust that we’re working on things that are also going to be helpful for them as well.”

Country and college are key parts of what she calls the holistic picture of a player’s development. Other parts can be the individual trainer a player might work with, parents, and any other outside influences that can have an influence on the player.

And the most important person who can contribute to a player’s success? The player herself.

“Ultimately it’s up to the player to decide to stay longer at training, or to get to training earlier,” Kevins said.

“Even when I’ve had very young teams at a club, I would always ask: are they in love with the game? Do they watch the game? Are they obsessed with the game? 

“Because then what they’re actually doing is picking up tactical cues along the way, where they’re mimicking and watching senior players pick up positions. They don’t even realise they’re doing it. But we can already start to layer those pieces in.”

The true difference between the modern player, and those Tracey coached when starting out two decades ago, is they know what they can aim for. 

“This group I’ve had at US Soccer for the last few years is the first I genuinely felt grew up knowing there was a women’s league they could go to play in.

“Now, an eight-year-old girl can watch games on TV and say, ‘I want to do that as a full-time job when I’m older’. That’s massive.”

It’s our duty then, as coaches, to make sure we put all the pieces in place to allow players to make that dream a reality, and equip them for what the game looks like, both now and in the future.

After all, as Tracey says, that dial is just going to keep turning.

 

Tracey on concacaf glory and the upcoming U20s World Cup

“Seven wins, 49 goals scored, zero against - the players made it look easy [at the Concacaf Women’s U20 Championship].

“But it was an incredibly hard, gruelling tournament. You’re on the road for 27 days. For them, it was the longest time they’d been away. 

“During that time, with young players, there’s different emotions: ‘I’m playing’, ‘I’m not playing’, ‘I’m starting’, ‘I’m not finishing the game’, ‘I’m scoring’, ‘I’m not scoring’, ‘I’m missing passes’, ‘I’m completing my passes’. There’s this little mini rollercoaster that each of them are on.

“The players were magnificent, and had to deal with adversity. We lost a couple of key players to injury. Each player understood their role, played their role and really represented the US. We want to be relentless in what we do. That’s the hallmark of our women’s team. 

“Now, for the U20s World Cup [in August]. We’ve set ourselves up for some really high-level games [as tune-ups]. There are some big plans. The USSF has been hugely supportive in making sure we’re able to test this group.

“It’s a lot of planning, but it’s a lot of excitement as well.”