Time for a soccer down here one v one and for this when we go to the Children's Health Care of Atlanta training Ground to catch up with the Director of Methodology for Atlanta United, the first chance we've had to catch up with doctor Javier Pettis. Javier, thanks for dropping by for a one v one.
Thanks for having me John, It's a pleasure to be with you today.
When you were given the idea of hey, come here to Atlanta United and become this newly created title of Director of Methodology, what was your initial reaction to coming down here to create something from scratch.
Well, the first reaction was very, very much an excitement because I've been for fifteen sixteen years now in this country and obviously Alanta is, in my opinion, the biggest club in the country, and I think always I strive for these kind of challenges and opportunities.
In the past.
You can look with the clubs I work with, the organizations, they have been worldly in organizations in soccer, and Atlanta qualifies for that. So the excitement was massive, and for me it's a big challenge because he's a lot of work to do and expectations are high at this club, at this level.
You started in late April, and my first question to that is, you hit the ground running probably at a good eighty miles an hour, maybe one hundred miles an hour. Have you had the chance to catch your breath or has it been constant work, implementation, adjustment, implementation work. Has there been a pause or have you just been flying ever since you hit the ground.
That's a great question, because you know, when I landed here, I had a lot of challenges. I had some time that I really appreciate they gave me to evaluate the club and particularly the academy and the second team. But I think it was a lot of demand and a
lot of things to do and accomplished. And that's what is the experience for, right Instead of jumping on all of them at the same time, I was doing one thing at the time, and that's being very helpful, particularly at the beginning, to find kind of like a roadmap.
So with this roadmap, you came in with an idea and it was a curriculum that was put together with your time at US Soccer. And it is not something I would imagine that took you a day and a half or something that you wrote after lunch because if you look at this curriculum and you go to the end, you sit there and go, this is one hundred and twenty three pages of massive detail, from the general concept to the specific idea, to position to position to position
and this curriculum. How long did it take you to come up from Oh, I have an idea, let me put it on paper to the one hundred and twenty three page US Soccer coaching curriculum that exists.
Yeah.
Well, that curriculum was published I believe in twenty eleven, so that's a long time ago. And in order to get that curriculum completed, it was based on my experience as a coach previously in Real Madrid working with the Spanish Federation when I worked there implementing the coaching courses
for professional coaches. That's something that it was adapted for the US market, and back in the day, I had the opportunity to have a meeting with Dan Flint, who was the CEO of US Soccer, and he wanted to bring that to the whole country, and that's when I worked with US Soccer for around two years as a consultant to develop that curriculum, and then US Soccer hired me full time as well, and we had the opportunity to implement that curriculum for all the youth national teams.
So it's a living document. It's not something that.
Was now transferred from US Soccer to Atlanta United. Because the demands of the game changed during the years. We have now a new curriculum here as well. I don't know if it's one hundred and twenty three pages, but it's a around that number of pages. But it's certainly different than the curriculum that I created for US Soccer.
One because in the.
Meantime I had a lot of experience with the US national.
Team with.
Two other clubs in MLS apart from Atlanta. This is my third club in MLS, and as well because of the different roles that I had been head coaching in the MLAs assistant coach and so on. So this new curriculum that we are now implementing here in Atlanta United is slightly different, but it's very exciting as well because I think has all the ingredients that they are necessary to produce first class players and developed the best academy in the country.
I thought it was really interesting that you used the word living that it's a living document, and by my interpretation of that, it would be something like where you take a legal pad or something like that, and a legal pad in and of the pieces of paper it bends. It's flexible, and you can work with that particular group of pages and have it as a document that can change,
It can mold, it can blend. When it comes to the current Atlanta United version of it compared to your first version, how many different how many different incantations of it did you go from, say the US Soccer version. How different is that living document now than that first one you piece together?
Yeah, that's a great question.
You mentioned about that document that is one hundred and twenty three pages, But there were other four documents that they were same length to implement that document that they were.
Never published because.
That was part of a process and then things were twikeed or changed. But one thing I realized it had to be one more practical, that's very theoretical document. Now, I think, like every coach, I'm more pragmatic and I think I can support more on that on that side to the coaches to be a little bit more pragmatic. So the new curriculum has more exercises that can give ideas to coaches. Has influences from the different clubs and
trends that I work with. For instance, there are trends there from gald Madrid methodology, but also from the city group because I work for y c C and other top clubs in world soccer, you know, so I think is important that there is an influence from the main trends in soccer. And two, it can be adaptable to the level of the players and the market that we are working with, in this case the MLS market.
When it comes to the implementation of it, and this is you're eventually going to touch each and every academy age group. But you wanted to choose a particular age group to start the use seventeens. If I'm not mistaken to start the process. Why that particular age group before you had the chance to have the Atlanta United too during an international break takeer pick at it. Why you seventeen? Why them first?
Well, it was almost like hitting an emergency button, right and because we felt that that group wasn't having the performance that we were expecting. I wanted to have a better understanding what was the challenges that this team was facing.
You know, I think.
Once you start working is a little bit different because you want to focus on a long term program, particularly for the academy, and that's what we are doing right now. We are making sure that the base, the foundation, particularly for the you thirteens and your fourteens, is very strong.
We focus on three things.
We focus on the play profiles, the type of players that we want to select for the club, and we see the potential to develop that type of player. We know that Atlanta market is very athletic and as a plus for us, we want to make sure that we have these kind of players and we develop them in house. The second thing is the resources and and the coaching selections. So we need to make sure that the coaches that we have at the academy.
They are highly qualified.
And for instance, when I came, that was one of the parts of the the evaluation right when I did the audit of the of the academy is that we have one coach per team, and right now we have two coaches and a fitness coach for training sessions.
So not only the amount of resources, but as well the quality of the resources.
We have a couple of coaches that they were integrated into the into the academy. One came from Germany, another one came within market in the US. But I feel like we are a couple of steps ahead with these two coaches, that they have been integrated in the in the academy. And the third thing it would be the curriculum has to be a curriculum, that it has to be modern, focus on different areas that requires the modern game.
For instance, back in the day, you remember when I published that US Socre curriculum, Spain was at the top of the crest with that very catchy possession style of game. But we know that these days that possession type of style of game doesn't take you to long. So what are the main principles that we are focusing So we we.
Want to play fast and forward first and foremost, we.
Want to be able to be compact when we defend number three. We want to play with intensity and for that we need to take the game into the into the attacking half. You know, I don't want to be sue technical or trusted specific because probably does not we appealing to your audience, but just to get them as well excited about what are the key elements of the development in the academy.
We can go as deep as you want. It is not a concern on my part at all. You can hit me with anything, because you know, if I've got a question, I'm going to raise my hand and go, okay, I need to break that down for me. So don't worry about that at all.
Look, and I think you made a great point, because I want to make things as simple as possible for the coaches to the point that they can sit down and when I explain things, they.
Can say, well, I could come up with that idea.
That means that that idea is simple enough for them to understand and a secut on the field.
When it comes to evaluation of what you have tried to implement so far, I know that you like to do it in blocks. Basically, you want to look at it after thirty you want to look at it after sixty days, you want to look at it after ninety days. How has the progression gone with implementation of what you are looking at what you anticipated land United to be from the academy on up to the first team. How is it going. How is the pacing in your mind so far?
It's very interesting.
That's a that's a great question because you come with a preconception and idea that you think you can run, and sometimes that's being a learning experience as well. For me here in Atlanta, instead of running, sometimes you just have to walk and go with the pace that is. It's a lot of people, this is a big organization, and not everybody can go at the same pace. And if we need to take more time, we will take
more time. And that's probably what is my adaptation. That has been probably my main focus, right because I thought at the beginning that we would come we this is what we do. But the experience was that we needed more time. And probably when we started Precision in the academy, it was a good learning process for the coaches, but as well I acknowledged that it was a lot to take.
And now I'm giving a little bit more space so they have the time that they need to be part as well of the process, because in the end, this is not about me. It's about how we can do this together, you know. And once we are in the face now that they are experimenting and they are implementing their own ideas into the concept, and.
It's taking a little bit longer, and I'm okay with that.
One be one here with director of methodology, howe your pet is for landing I did here on the SDH network.
How difficult is it to be patient? Though, because I know that you look at the first team and there's always the anticipation that they should be compar eating for stars and trophies and crests, and there's a level of patients combined with immediate return these days where folks are sitting there and it's like it has to be an instant gratification at least from the outside of an organization. It's like, we want results now, results now, results now,
we want trophies, wins, et cetera. How difficult is it to be patient knowing that the outside world is looking for something that's an entirely different pace to what you want to do.
Yeah, that's a that's a great comment. I think patience doesn't mean that you don't have results, right, because sometimes he is you can hide behind that excuse we need time, We need time, and sometimes you need time to build results. But he shouldn't be an excuse. And I think the answer is accountability. So in this case, we are all accountable, but we give freedom and with the freedom, conscious stability
and with the responsiblity comes accountability. So if we give more responsibility to coaches, we look at the results and depending on these results, then we need probably to make a further evaluation and implement more Either results are going fine or okay, like the expectations that we have at the beginning, then we can follow the natural course. But I think the answer is their accountability. If we get
the results, it would be more freedom. If we don't get the results, we will need to be a little bit more specific.
You mentioned the talent base here in the Southeastern United States that Atlanta, United has access to visually, video, what have you. And I know that there's the idea of an analytics based to evaluate system to bring in players and talent and such. What I wanted to ask about wasn't intangible and it's not something that can be attached to an analytical equation or mathematics when it comes to bringing in a young player. How do you measure and
how is it measured? How do you measure heart as a part of the equation and want to as we say in the South, the want to gene how does that apply to what you're looking for in an athlete that you think will benefit at Land United on the field as a they grow older and then be hopefully as a part of that first team. How do you measure heart and off the field stuff.
Yeah, that's a very very good question, and that's the million There are questions, you know, when you look across the board different clubs in the world.
If someone has.
The magic recipe to produce players, all players would come from Barcelona or Real Madrid or Manchester United, right, But we know that players come all over the place from different parts and even small clubs, so that formula.
Doesn't really exist.
Now.
What you can do is look have an eye for talent.
And when we look at the talent here particularly, we know that the market where we are in we have very strong athletes.
So that's our bed, that's our approach. So can we.
Convince those players, or more than the players, those parents that at age nine to twelve instead going playing basketball or football or other sports that they are they have more influence in this country, can we convince them to play soccer?
You know?
And I think we are We're in a good spot right now. I think we have a good examples here within the academy or those players that they are athletes that maybe they don't come from a history of a family that they are very familiar with soccer, but.
They have the passion for sports, you know.
And now it's becoming a nice blend this season to see some of these younger athletes that they are very, very exciting from the physical point of view, and now can we work with them on a daily basis.
So one of the.
Things that we implemented in the academy this year is having training on a daily basis, giving one day off a week, but minimizing them or restricting the time, having train sessions more intense, so give them more exposure to the training and to the game on a daily basis. And I and we can see right now, how is that pain of particularly when we go and we compete against other academies.
What do you see as your biggest challenge once the first team season is completed whenever that is, and getting ready for the calendar year of twenty twenty five and what you want to accomplish in the second calendar year of your methodology.
Yeah, I think the most important part is to get ready the second team. I think our second team has been a little bit of pending signature.
You know that we need.
Pending work that we need to excel and at least this next year, we need to get the right pieces in order to.
Have the performance that we one for that team without redisrupting too much. The academy. We all know that we use that team to.
Is kind of like a breage. The gap between the first team and the academy and some of the first team players they have the ability to complete their necessary play minutes with that team, and at the same time, some of the academy players they have the opportunity to compete a higher level, closer to a professional game.
But we find a challenging in terms of creating a competitive roster.
That's the first thing, and second to don't disrupt so much the under a team team and the under academy. You know. So I think that's the main focus in the next in the next few months.
And we are looking forward to seeing how everything continues to grow and evolve. Jav here, thank you for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule, because I know it. Sometimes trying to catch up with you is like trying to grab a comment by the tail or, trying to
catch water in a rainstorm through your open hand. I can't thank you enough for taking the time here to hang out with us and explain what's going on here in the early stages with you as a director of Methodology for Atlanta I thanks for dropping by here the SDH Network. You know we're going to be knocking on your door a lot, but once again, thanks for dropping by.
No, thank you, it's my pleasure on I really appreciate the interest in the club and the work that we do at Alanta United.
Thank you.