“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

An article worth reading by Mark O’Sullivan at footblogball:

When we test a players skill level under conditions that do not reflect the performance environment, the player will alter his behaviour and base his response on the test environment.

There are many counter-productive ideologies in youth sport. Just like our education system where we confuse intelligence with academic ability we confuse performance with talent. We also confuse technique with game intelligence.

Thanks once again to John Kessell for the link.