Arrested Development: The Pressures Of Youth Football

There's something about getting old. Despite all the benefits of wisdom and experience, the world is a much brighter, simpler place in time gone by. Free from the shackles of fear, the young by their very nature are bold, brash and brave for they do not know what failure and dissapointment feel like. As the years pass by, our hopes and expectations are forever held tempered and tied down by mostly self imposed limitations. For a child, possibilities are endless. No boundaries can be placed on those who have no concept of them.

To say that Liverpool have been spoiled by the names that have graduated their academy would be an understatement.  The list contains two European Cup winning captains (Phil Thompson & Steven Gerrard) as well players like Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler.  There was a time when players would learn as much about their team-mates as themselves and clusters of players would break through into the first team, those days appeared to have gone with the class of 96.  That year saw Liverpool triumph over West Ham in the FA Youth Cup final, secured by a 2-1 victory at Anfield that saw the likes of Carragher and Owen on one side going up against Ferdinand and Lampard on the other (Gerrard would pick up a medal but not play in the final itself).  Generations like that don't come around very often.

Times change, the academy has been completely revamped and the shoots of recovery are starting to bloom a little.  Jay Spearing and Martin Kelly have more than a handful of first team experience now, with the latter having gained his first international cap in May.  With a bumper fixture list handed to Brendan Rodgers - a man with a cut his teeth in his coaching at the youth level - a handful of other players will be needed as the squad is stretched out not just for this coming season but for many to come.  Whether or not those from the academy right now make it into the first team or one or two that are bought in by Rodgers, the road ahead - for both Liverpool and the players - will be full of twists and turns.

The desire and willingness from fans to want youth team success and people breaking into the first team is a natural one.  As fans we can sometimes take a very parental role with regard to watching our football team and watching players grow up is a part of that.  Now more than ever it's become something of a necessity.  Every avenue must be persued in order to follow sucess and developing a good academy set up is a paramount to that.  At the back end of last season, Raheem Sterling was seen as someone who could ignite our league season on the basis that nothing else was working.  That the club had to turn to a seventeen year old - even one as exceptionally gifted as Sterling - does more than suggest how badly things were going.

Later tonight, the UEFA Under 19 Championship final will take place in Estonia between Spain and Greece.  It will be broadcast to a television audience consisting of those desperate to fill the void between friendlies and hardened footballing connoisseurs eager to see if this group of highly talented Spanish players can emulate their senior compatriots.  Liverpool's very own Suso will be hoping to play a vital role and further his claim to catching the eye of Brendan Rodgers before the season starts.  That a competition like this should be shown on television however just goes to show how far the game has gone.  The growth of exposure for these players has risen at an exponential rate over the last ten years. LFC TV and variants thereof mean that we can now watch - and also judge - players who are still at school.  Is that level of attention a good thing?

Trial by error, in terms of the development of a footballer, can be a very heartless process. That there is no other choice than to fail - for that is how we learn - is one thing, to do it in front of a worldwide audience borders on the macabre.  Fickle by nature, the game of football is such that players are only ever one bad performance away from being written off completely.  This adds a very steep learning curve to what is already one of the most competitive markets in the world.  With that kind of pressure at such an early age, it's a wonder any of them actually make it out to the other side.  Talent alone isn't enough to get you there.

Arsène Wenger has never won the league cup, not that you'd ever know it.  Though it has become a relatively relaxed policy over recent years, it had become an annual event that a newly polished batch of youngsters would destroy a perfectly capable lower league side.  Many a hyperbolic headline followed, forever proclaiming that the future belonged to Arsenal.  But it didn't happen like that because Wenger heavily gambled with their future, and lost.  The trend begins early into Wenger's reign but their defeats matter little as they are challenging on all fronts.  A semi final defeat at the hands of Middlesborough in 2004 represents something of a missed opportunity, given that Bolton were the other two semi finalists but that hardly made a dent in the confidence of a side that won the league without losing a game that year.  Two seasons later however and a horrible trend begins.

In the six seasons that followed their last trophy, Arsenal have managed to make two semi finals and appear in two finals - a fantastic record on paper(?).  Law of averages would suggest that they should have won at least on of those, not least the Final of 2011.  Wenger chose - rather boldly in some cases - not to play his first team where possible in any of those six seasons and allow those in the academy to showcase their football in a competitive atmosphere.  Commendable perhaps to an extent, but what they have ended up with as a result of all this however is a generation of players who freeze on the big occasion because they don't know how to win.  It would be callous to suggest that Wenger threw them to the wolves and though some of the players that failed to prove themselves and have moved on from the club the results have clearly left a mark within the psyche of those left.

Mentality plays a huge part in the game of football, far more than is ever given credit for.  The will to win is more than just an intangible cliche, it can be taught.  Players learn how to get over the line by doing just that.  It doesn't matter how, just so long as they get the job done so that in the future there is the knowledge there that they have the ability to suceed.  Had Wenger been a bit more liberal earlier on in his Arsenal career and gone with a blend of both youth and experience, there may be a few more in that dressing room now with the knowhow in the back of their mind, as well as medals around their neck.

It's very easy to look at youth development the wrong way and not even realize it.  Instead of thinking how these players can make Liverpool Football Club better we must first work out a way of making them more accomplished as footballers, which will in turn take care of the rest.  Fortunately for the club, we have someone in charge who not only knows all this very well but is well versed in helping young, gifted players make the step up to first team.  Lucas Leiva was written off at the age of 21 just because he wasn't Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso or Steven Gerrard.  It took Jamie Carragher until the age of twenty seven to become a defender of real quality, until then he was a bit part player whom we may have looked over in different circumstances.  The big worry is that in our haste to try and bring through a player of genuine class that we cast aside a few that could help the club move forward, if only incrementally.  Istanbul would never have happened were it not for an academy graduate; Neil Mellor.  Every little helps.