A player can always improve his fitness by working out hard. He can comprehend certain tactics by studying the game. But how far he goes will be determined mainly by how well he has mastered ball skills. Those are acquired by playing, day after day, year after year.

When U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati announced the hiring of Claudio Reyna as Youth Technical Director, they spoke much of learning about player development from foreign clubs. That's the least crucial element of Reyna's quest to improve the youth soccer environment in the USA.

I first heard the term "Joystick Coaching" a few years back. What a wonderfully descriptive term. As with video games, joystick coaches want to dictate and control the movement of all players on the field. Hence the term "joystick."

Are our kids playing enough pick up ball? There have been countless articles written about this. While we all agree that this is not happening enough, many of us just sit back and hope it starts to happen somehow on its own.