Tuesday 5 July 2016 09:44, UK
Belgium’s golden generation might have been identified early but they weren’t all teenage superstars. In fact, Kevin De Bruyne and Thibaut Courtois were seen as late developers.
Adam Bate spoke to Belgium’s former Under-15, Under-16 and Under-17 coach Eric Abrams to discuss the dangers of judging talent too early – and the lessons English clubs can learn…
It was a sunny day in Southampton last August and to many there would have seemed nothing out of the ordinary as teams of youngsters chased a ball around the club's Staplewood training ground. But this was a bio-banding tournament between Saints, Stoke, Norwich and Reading - the first of its kind in English football.
The four English teams were experimenting by grouping players not by age but by their biological maturity. That might seem straightforward and logical but it's a surprisingly overlooked issue given the stakes. Evidence suggests those who do not physically develop as quickly as their peers are less likely to get their chance - regardless of their technical ability.
Speaking to former England Under-16 coach Kenny Swain, he suggests that even within the Football Association the issue of physical development remains at the forefront. Marcus Rashford's sudden progress highlights the point. "There were always question marks at the FA at the size of him," Swain, now a club support manager for academies in the Premier League, tells Sky Sports. "Why are we wasting time on him?"
Rashford has answered that question emphatically but stories of resistance are an indication of the problems that youngsters face if their bodies do not develop at the speed anticipated. October-born Rashford is among the lucky ones. As many as 45 per cent of top clubs' academies are stocked with players born between September and November.
The system is weighted in favour of the eldest in a year group - those able to dominate their peers. But other countries have long sought to solve this problem and the example of Belgium is particularly instructive given their record of early talent identification. The likes of Eden Hazard, Toby Alderweireld and Romelu Lukaku were all involved at Under-15 level.
Eric Abrams was the coach of that team and worked with young players in his role with the Belgian FA for more than a decade. But for Abrams it's the subsequent progress of those who weren't ready to feature for their country at that age that really highlights the success of the programme he helped to implement.
"Everybody knows this is an important age for player development physically," Abrams tells Sky Sports. "So in Belgium we had our Under-15 team and our Under-15 late developers team because we knew that some of these late developers were very talented but they weren't ready to compete physically. They stayed within the scope of the talent pool.
"For me, we have three fantastic examples in Belgium to show that late developers are very important to look after - Thibaut Courtois of Chelsea, Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City and Dries Mertens of Napoli. We knew they were talented ones but they needed some time. These examples show the value in looking after these players."
By the age of 19, Courtois and De Bruyne were senior internationals but in their early teens they were not standout performers. "When Courtois and De Bruyne were 14," says Abrams, "if you came to the training session I guarantee that you would say, 'Okay, the guy has something but for me he's not outstanding'. But this was because physically they were not developed.
"We had some of our clubs who had sent some of these late developers away from their academies. But because they were picked up by the national team and our schools programme, the next year they were asking for them to come back because they saw the quality of these players."
With the support of that schools programme - one that saw FA coaches give individual training sessions to these players four mornings every week - the so-called late developers were able to continue their improvement. In fact, their physical disadvantages even came to work in their favour once the body began to catch up with the mind.
Courtois and De Bruyne always made good decisions. Physically, they couldn't compete but their decision-making was excellent and you could see that.
"It's a totally different game when you are watching these players," says Abrams. "They cannot play long ball because they don't have the force. The game they play, I compared it at the time to Barcelona's football because they play short passes, with good control and excellent decision-making - that's one of the things you have to have as a late developer.
"Courtois and De Bruyne always made good decisions. Physically, they couldn't compete but their decision-making was excellent and you could see that. We rated that competency very high." That sounds obvious but, alarmingly, tales of players being adjudged too small still emerge. Clubs continue to overlook the impact such players could have in the future.
"One of the challenges is to convince coaches to look at players differently before judging them," says Abrams. "Results are so important even in youth teams that coaches look to the performances of today from players who maybe aren't technically the best ones. Instead they should be looking to the performances in three, four or five years and the potential."
For Belgium, it was necessity that proved the mother of invention. The talent pool in the country was simply not big enough to allow players as gifted as De Bruyne to fall by the wayside. Instead, they were forced to find the best way in which to coax that talent from them. It's a lesson for some of the more successful countries in Europe, not just England.
"To be honest, I had several discussions when I was working in Belgium as an Under-15 coach and we went abroad to play the likes of Spain, Germany and France," adds Abrams. "I spoke to the technical directors and coaches of those countries and they openly said, 'That's very nice, but we don't have to do it because we have five players for every position'.
"In Belgium, we couldn't afford to say that. We couldn't afford to waste one good player because our pool was so limited. That took us to the logical conclusion that we couldn't only look to physical players. We had to look to the late developers and give them good opportunities."
Now English clubs are realising this, too. "I remember when we organised these sessions in Brussels for the late developers, there were always one or two scouts from Manchester City because they loved to see these players," says Abrams, now working as the technical director of Football Federation Australia.
"They now have bio-banding tournaments for late developers, so English clubs are aware they are losing a lot of players. When you look only at those who've had their growth spurts, you miss out on a lot of talent." Games such as those at Southampton could help make that a thing of the past. And England's answer to Kevin De Bruyne might not be far away.
