Wednesday, February 3, 2016

What Maine Can Learn from Iceland, Part One



(Update: This post was initially written in February 2016, twenty months before Iceland qualified for its first World Cup--and the U.S. failed to qualify for a World Cup for the first time since 1986.)

The U.S. Men's National Team narrowly defeated Iceland in an international friendly Sunday afternoon. And though many of us in Maine are happy with the result, we Mainers actually have more to learn from our Nordic visitors than we do from our own national team.

That's because learning from Iceland's steady rise on the international soccer scene might have more to teach us as a small, cold, geographically-isolated soccer state than any steady diet of the U.S. national program could.

Soccernomics

Iceland's population (332,000) is one-quarter the size as Maine's population (1.3M), and Iceland's economy ($14.4B) is one-third the size of Maine's economy ($54.4B). Population and wealth, according to soccer journalist Simon Kuper and soccer economist Stefan Szymanski in their book Soccereconomics, are supposed to be two leading indicators for success on the soccer field.

Yet Iceland's men's national soccer team just qualified for the 2016 Euro championship, and many of its players are playing in the best leagues in the world. Maine, on the other hand, has struggled to field teams to compete at a regional level within the U.S., and our most illustrious homegrown player was a role player (and folk legend) in MLS.

Which leads to the question: How is it that a country with a population only slightly larger than that of Cumberland County (pop. 288,00) can be that much more productive a soccer community than Maine has been?

There appear to be at least three reasons:

1. Coach education

Regardless of which analysis you read charting Iceland's steady climb as a soccer country, the most relevant indicator for its success is the country's deep reservoir of highly-trained coaches.

According to a recent article on the Iceland phenomenon, there are at least 639 coaches in Iceland who've earned a UEFA B license, the third-highest level of certification in that confederation. And according to a 2013 article on this topic, another 165 Icelandic coaches had earned a UEFA A license, the second-highest level of certification.

To put those numbers in some context, Soccer Maine's Director of Coaching Todd Sniper estimates there are currently ten USSF A coaches in Maine, four B-licensed coaches in the state, and ten coaches with a C license. There are, in other words, about 25 coaches in Maine who've earned the three highest levels of coaching certification offered by the USSF--compared to the roughly 800 Iceland coaches who've earned similar levels of certification. (And that number of highly-certified Icelanders doesn't even include the number of coaches in Iceland who've earned the UEFA's highest level of certification, the UEFA Pro License.)

Now, certified coaches don't necessarily equate competent coaches--or vice-versa. But there's no doubt Maine could benefit from more highly-credentialed coaches working with our developing players.

2. Year-round facilities

Along with Maine's relatively small population and modest wealth, our cold and snowy climate is also frequently cited as a deterrent to statewide success on the soccer field.

As might be expected of a country named Iceland, that country's climate is chillier and snowier than Maine's climate. The average high temperature in Iceland is below 50° F eight months of the year, while never getting higher than 56° F during any given month. Maine's climate is more soccer-friendly with a monthly average high lower than 50° F over five months, and we enjoy relatively balmy high averages May-September. Likewise, Iceland's 117 days of snow cover is about 1.5 months longer than Maine's annual average of seventy days of snow cover each year.

So how does Iceland develop more quality soccer players than Maine? Investments in indoor and all-weather facilities, of course.

As of December 2014, Iceland had seven full-sized indoor turf facilities devoted to soccer, and another four half-sized indoor facilities. This accounts for one indoor soccer facility for every 30,000 Icelanders. By comparison, Maine's Cumberland County has a couple facilities that could be described as full-sized (the Gorham Sports Center and the Portland Sports Complex) and another facility that could be described as half-sized (207Sports). These three indoor facilities give us a rate of an one indoor facility for every 96,000 Cumberland County residents. (Of course, there are other facilities around the state--including the recently-built The Pitch in Warren, Maine--but our players' and coaches' access to year-round facilities lags behind the access afforded to Icelandic players and coaches.)

Another big difference in the two regions' access to year-round soccer facilities is the ample investment Iceland has poured into constructing artificial fields for 5 v. 5 games outside most elementary schools in the country. Mainers' access to all-weather fields for informal, low-cost playing opportunities is relatively non-existent. To wit, if you want to play soccer in Maine in January, it will cost you either $350/hour at your local indoor facility or $30 at your local school's gym. These 5 v. 5 fields that can be accessed for free during recess shouldn't be overlooked.

Even though Maine has quite a bit of ground to make up when it comes to most all-weather infrastructure, one area our state compares well to Iceland is the number of full-sized artificial turf fields in our state. Thanks to the investments made by Maine's high schools and colleges over the last decade, the number of turf fields in Maine either rivals or surpasses the 22 outdoor turf fields Iceland has built up.

3. Experience

As mentioned above, authors Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski identified a region's population and wealth as two influential indicators for that region's success on the soccer field. A third factor, a region's soccer history, is another indicator for that region's success. And of the the three key differences between Icelandic and Maine soccer, our state's soccer-playing experience is by definition the most time-consuming to bridge.

The Urvalsdeild, or the Icelandic top division of soccer, dates back to 1912. And of the current 12 clubs currently competing in the Urvalsdeild, eight of those clubs joined the competition by 1975. In contrast, Maine's soccer scene only started gaining traction by the 1970s, with the growing popularity of high school and collegiate soccer. And on the club side, the Maine soccer scene is even younger--both in terms of our clubs' histories and in terms of our clubs' target population. Decades of progress can't be made up in a matter of years, but there are steps Maine's soccer community can take at least help our soccer culture mature.

Conclusion

Which leads to the conclusion of this post. This admittedly is one of those annoying posts that identifies numerous shortcomings, without also identifying numerous solutions. But more work and more collaboration could possibly provide those solutions.

In the meantime, a quick note on ambition: Even if Maine were able to drastically increase the square footage of all-weather playing surfaces and greatly boost the number of highly-certified coaches, we still shouldn't expect to compete at the same level as an Iceland. That Nordic country is cited as an exceptional model because, well, it's exceptional.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do more to be the best soccer state we can be at the club, scholastic, and collegiate levels. And until these areas--and other factors--are addressed, our state will not even reach that modest goal.

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