Bayern Munich Soccer Club of Kansas City

Successful player development begins with proper player evaluation. KC Bayern Munich Soccer Club promotes the best mix of players on any given team to enable development of all the players on the team. It does no good to have incredibly strong players matched with very weak players as the strong players quickly begin to avoid passing the ball to a weak player who will lose it fairly quickly. This event fails on two counts. First, the psychological aspects of both players are negative. Neither player will grow in that situation. The situation unfolds where the stronger player tries to do it all while the weaker player feels hopeless and migrates towards quitting. Therefore, KC Bayern Munich’s focus is on building teams with similar skills so that they may continue to improve individually and as a team. Because of KC Bayern’s focus, the evaluation process not only occurs during tryouts, but also throughout the year, so players are aware of the progress they are making as athletes and human beings.

KC Bayern Munich uses a five component model to evaluate players. Players are evaluated on each of these components in tryouts and during the season as well. Players and parents are periodically invited to review the coach’s assessment of the player’s progress during the season.

KC Bayern Munich considers the psychological aspects of the player the single most important element in the evaluation process. Years of experience have taught us that no matter how talented the player is in terms of skills and tactics, the player can actually sabotage themselves in terms of their development and poison a their team in terms of team performance. Therefore, a player’s attitude and motivation are continually assessed during tryouts and throughout the year. The evaluator is monitoring the player’s attitude towards coaches, parents, teammates, volunteers, referees, and their opponents. In addition, the player is monitored for their motivation prior to, during and after practice and games, performing homework assignments, team meetings, and their encouragement of their teammates during practice and games. Because KC Bayern places so much emphasis on this component, a slightly less skilled player with a great attitude and motivation will be selected over a skilled player who plays with a selfish poisonous attitude.

Each KC Bayern Munich coach maintains attendance sheets for games and practices. Players who have missed practices and games during the previous season will be marked down accordingly. Players have an opportunity to be excused from practice because of injury, or family emergency. Players who do not contact the coach prior to the missed event will be marked absent for that date.

During tryouts, attendance is important unless arrangements have been made with the evaluator in advance.

Each player will be assessed for their soccer skills in three ways. First, is a demonstration of existing skills, second is the ability to learn new skills, and third, is the ability to combine skills. The U8 age group would have possesses few of these skills so much of the emphasis shifts towards listening, learning, and applying new skills. On the other hand, the U18 age group would be expected to demonstrate a variety of existing skills, rapid learning of new skills, and a somewhat sophisticated utilization of combined skills. At each age group level, the expectations for skills would increase slightly. Examples of skills examined in a variety of settings:

• Movement and turning with/without the ball
• Faking and feinting
• Single touch, double touch, stop/go/reverse
• Dribbling; open field, beating a defender
• Maintaining possession
• Passing and receiving
• Defending
• Shooting the ball
• Heading the ball
• Small sided games and techniques

Many of these skills are cross examined in a variety of settings to assess how the player will react.

Each player will be assessed for their understanding of what is occurring on the field and what the player should do to next to provide value to the team. Many of these decisions must occur in a matter of seconds or the opportunity is missed. Players are placed in a variety of situations to determine how they will react. This assessment includes receiving the ball, ball placement, dribbling, passing, pressuring, positioning, offering trail and pushing through, defending, acting, communicating, and utilization of teammates. Once again, each age group is expected to progress in their ability to execute the tactics mentioned. These elements are typically reviewed in a variety of small sided and large sided games to provide for the best learning experience and the best assessment environment for the players and the evaluators.

Any one player may excel at any one or all of these assessment components. However, it is the coach’s evaluation of the individual player’s combination of these components that determines whether or not the player will be an asset to themselves, the team, the club, and ultimately the community at large. A U8 player may arrive with the best attitude, be extremely motivated, and possess no soccer skills. At this age, a KC Bayern coach may be overjoyed at such a gift. The U8 player’s enthusiasm will provide the seed for learning the soccer skills. However, a U16 player who demonstrates the same attributes may not be viewed as an asset to a U16 team of players who possess the motivation and the skills. The coach would be doing a disservice to the player and the team as the team will tend to limit interaction with the player since by this age, the name of the game is to play increasingly competitive environment. KC Bayern coaches utilize an evaluation form with clear assessment criteria to perform a fair comparative analysis against peer player candidates.

While the KC Bayern Munich Evaluation Process is utilized extensively during Tryouts, the Evaluation Process is also utilized routinely during Player Development. For more information on Player Development, select Coaches under About Bayern Munich, then select Player Development.