“Mais je n’oublie pas mes années passées là-bas, et je remercie le Stade Rennais de m’avoir permis de progresser, au sein de l’un des meilleurs centres de formation de France (le meilleur en 2007-08, selon la FFF, NDLR), qui arrive à sortir beaucoup de jeunes professionnels. C’est vraiment un bon club, qui possède de bons éducateurs, et qui figure parmi les meilleurs de Ligue 1.”

And your point about PSG is exactly what I’ve said : it takes more than financial power (because PSG has more than Auxerre for example) and scouting to have a good academy.
It has to get good teaching.

For instance, Diaby was a member of PSG’s youth teams.
Yet has he developped into a PSG player? No. Because he chose the quality of Auxerre’s teaching.

After all, take a player like Abou Diaby. He grew up in the Paris area, and from there was taken into the INF. When he’s coming to the end of the INF training, he’s 15, he’s one of the best players his age in France… So when Creteil turn up alongside Auxerre, PSG and Marseille, they don’t even get a sideways glance. Afterwards, Auxerre have a good record of trusting young players, and they have good trainers, so the conditions are better than at Paris, Lyon or Marseille, and a lot better than Creteil (where he would probably become their most important player by the time he can grow a proper beard).

It’s kind of a false argument. If your argument was even half-right, then PSG should set up a youth structure of high quality (too bad if it costs an arm and a leg), and with over a sixth of the French population within a few hours, they would be winning leagues like there’s no tomorrow… Just imagine if every player from the Paris area still played for Paris : Anelka, Henry, Saha, Briand, Ben Arfa, Makelele, Dacourt, Diaby, Gallas, Evra, Piquionne, Boumsong, Diarra (Alou and Lassanna), Gouffran, Bellion, Cheyrou (both), Wiltord, Rothen, Vieira, Yohann Pele… There are probably a lot more, too.

Would you say Créteil has a better academy than Auxerre?
Because they have one of the most impressive youth talent crop of the world at their disposal, and yet Auxerre builds more pro players.
See, not all has to do with the prime element.

It’s like the discussion about the “innée” and “acquis”.
You can put two twins in two different families, they might have the same genetics, the same talents, but one will realize it better in Family A with better teachers than in Family B with average teachers.

Here’s just a few of the players who went through the INF, joined good academies, but ultimately didn’t fulfil their talent : Lionel Mathis (joined Auxerre, never grew beyond just being a good D2 player), Reynald Lemaitre (joined Caen, just an average D1 player), Jacques Faty (joined Rennes, spent five good seasons and played 150 games, before joining Marseille and becoming instantly useless)… And this is only those that the INF talk about, since they recognise that of the 22 students that they have in each year, only 6 or 7 sign pro contracts.

Perhaps the difference between Frederic Nee and the other guy was very plainly how hard he worked… If the other guy had lots of talent but didn’t work hard in training, he would have flopped at Caen (and better academies than Ales probably didn’t offer him a place exactly for that reason), whilst someone less talented but who works hard can succede far better (hence Caen taking on Frederic Nee and Ji-Sung Park becoming a professional footballer).

But I’ve seen oh so many talented players join average academies and fail there.
OTOH, younger, I’ve played with Frederic Née, who was clearly not the most talented player out of my promotion. Yet he went on to have a very good career and a NT selection.
Caen’s academy IMO, had a lot to do with that. If he had joined Alès, like a guy from our promotion that was much more talented, there’s a good chance he would have never reached more than CFA.

You can be very skillful and not be able to become a professional if your resistance is crap. So if manchester take a young talent when he is 9, they can make sure he reaches a high level of VO2max by giving him specific training. In modern football, it is crucial.
In fact, asians have a better VO2max compared to other races.

Check what’s VO2max here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVO2Max

Shazback & Evilo: I always love your exchanges!

Take Thierry Henry. At age 13 he’s accepted at Clairefontaine. How did they know he was any good? Because he’d been playing in DH Fed-14 with Les Ulis when he was 12… He already had the most basic arsenal a footballer needs : ball control, passing, ball protection, shooting… Sure, he was only as good as a 13 year-old could be, but that meant that the training he received aged 9, 10, 11 and 12, however insignificant when compared to the countless hours he will do in but one year when he’s 18, were still very important.

I prefer the case of Makelele, who was signed from non-league Savigny-le-Temple straight to D1 side Brest when he was 17, less than one years later moved to Nantes (as a side-effect of Brest being administratively relegated to D3-Ouest), where he made his first D1 start barely 8 months later… From non-league to D1 in 20 months. Three years later, he’s won the French league and is called up by the French NT.

Academies do provide better chances for players to blossom (better facilities, more professional take on training, greater emulation between trainees), but I don’t think academies are more important than the players themselves. You can go back and look at the list of players I posted above. Some might change depending on your viewpoint, but I listed all their clubs prior to their first pro game (unless they joined said club and played as a pro within a year).

Vieira came through lower division teams (Trappes, Drouais, Tours), and after joining Cannes took only two months to get a start. Pires came through a team that was going from D2 to DH in consecutive years (Stade Reims), and took less than six months to become a regular starter for Metz. Deschamps joined Nantes from non-league Aviron Bayonnais, and within 20 months had his first D1 start, not even being 17. Zidane is similar, joining Cannes from non-league Septime-les-Vallons and getting his start within 18 months, also before he turned 17. Leboeuf started with D1 side Toulon aged 16, but was released to join D3 Heyeres when he was 18, only returning to D1 three years later (to be relegated)… And they all went on to win the most coveted trophy in football. I give credit to their talent more than to the academies that they played in for a few months before being asked to play as full professionals.

Yes playing for a great academy at age 13 is important, but when you say a guy played in Club X at age 9, it serves no purpose.

Fabregas was in part developped by Arsenal yes.

Most people are of the mild belief that players learn continuously from age 10-11 to age 23-25.

I don’t know about your local sporting association’s academies, but in France, academies don’t start at 16.

Clairefontaine, for instance, is exclusively for students aged 13-15… And by that time they’ve already recognised the best talents in the Ile-De-France (and often beyond) region. In similar fashion, Rennes, Barcelona, and every single academy known to the footballing world as being worthwile of being mentioned in a discussion relevant to youth training have teams for U-11s, U-13s, etc. all the way to U-21s, and associated training structures… After all, how would Barcelona have known Messi was worth the energy by time 13 (and River Plate when he was 11) if he would only start learning the “finer points” of football three years later (by appearing in the Champions League, no doubt).

It might be a question of willing suspension of disbelief on my hand, but if Man U (amongst others) is ready to accept a 9 year-old from Australia in their youth teams, it is probably because (1) they have a setup for 9 or 10 year-olds, (2) they believe that training him from age 9 will be useful, and (3) by age 9 he is already more advanced than his peers.

P.S. I was just reviewing this before posting and I thought of the football club I played for at age 11 and 12, and how excited we were when the INF detection came to Antony to check up on us. And how none of us (even though we were doing quite well in our league) were retained for the next round of trials.