# Player Development Curriculums Need Digital Sieves *The implications of digital proliferation on player development.* > For the full version with images, embedded tweets, and visual breakdowns, [visit BallerzBantz](https://www.ballerzbantz.com/p/sieve). *Archive (Aug. 4th, 2023): The implications of digital proliferation on player development.* ## 1. Spark It's 2024, and the digital landscape is inextricably linked with our everyday lives. Players step away from the pitch only to immediately check their phones, eager to gauge the public's reaction to their performance. Some create anonymous accounts to shield themselves from criticism, while others have professional teams dedicated to managing their online presence in their best interest. Once, mistakes made during a game would only be scrutinised in a video analysis session; now, they're captured in short clips, distributed to millions, and obsessively scrutinised by a vast online audience. Players know what pundits say about them, and they follow influential voices and fan channels on social media. Those who try to ignore this online chatter have to *break a neck* to block it out. Should they succeed, their friends and family members almost certainly won't. As a result, game footage, coaching, and our carefully curated development curriculums, no longer stand unchallenged as the primary sources of (learning) stimulus for players. Online content spreads rapidly and forms a formidable digital archive — right or wrong, well-intentioned or not — that shapes the knowledge and engagement of today's and tomorrow's athletes. ## 2. The Burning Questions - What implications does this digital omnipresence have for our younger, impressionable athletes? - How can we adapt our player development strategies to both complement and mitigate the effects of this widespread digital influence? - Can we allocate space within our curriculums for players to process and interpret the vast amount of information they encounter online, and why is this consideration crucial? - What is a *sieve* in player development? ## 3. Our Archive The game is constantly changing. In the media today, coaches are framed as the *sole* drivers of a team's footballing philosophy. Consequently, public chatter has increasingly marginalised conversations around individual and group mechanics in favour of broader team-wide strategies. Public forums are saturated with discussions around team/collective (11v11) tactics, build-up and pressing shapes, and overarching philosophy. While these examinations are valuable, we find that they are too volatile to be worth an endured look. Buildup and pressing shapes change depending on the opponent and are volatile during games. But the fundamentals of individual and group tactics remain relatively consistent across all game-models: - The specific staggering of a press may differ between teams, but the pressing mechanics of individual players and groups to set traps remains consistent. - The specific shape of a build up may differ between teams, but the principles around receiving with an open stance, and exploiting the opponents weak/open side or momentum remain consistent. **Why is this probing necessary?** In our densely interconnected digital world, young players in formal or informal development curriculums consume a lot! Without the right framing or discernment, it easy for them to fall into self-sufficient loopholes of impractical analysis. *(Visit the full article for sections on the Sieve concept and proposed solutions.)* --- ## Related - [[Reverse Engineering]] - [[Crawling Plants]] - [[Archiving as Scouting Tool]]