In the end it has to be about player development.

You’ve read that enough from me here at TopDrawerSoccer.com, but it still appears to be the minority viewpoint in club soccer circles today due to the majority position within areas of club that business or recreational emphases are what matter.

So we’re glad to learn about coaches like Kim Byrnes, director of the Arizona Sting FC in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe.

Byrnes, who grew up in Wisconsin and formerly coached at Fordham, has been in Arizona for 13 years, coaching at club giants Sereno for a number of years before a shorter stint at the now-defunct Arizona Football Club.

Byrnes describes situations where she enjoyed the surroundings at each club initially, but felt like her vision and philosophy fell out of synch with those who ran the respective clubs, particularly as relates to the priority of player development.

“I came to the conclusion that if I wanted things to be done that way, I had to not have someone overseeing things who felt differently,” Byrnes said. “There were parents who believed in what I was trying to do and they helped me get set up. A lot of them came with me from there.”

The club began last year with 5 girls teams. Resources and fields are not necessarily abundant, but the oldest age group team (U17) has already placed most of the squad at college programs and the younger age group teams are well on the way. There are no boys teams yet but the interest is there and this should happen in the future.

The conventional wisdom is that you can’t build a successful club without winning a lot of trophies. Kim’s disappointment at a recent PK loss in the Arizona State Cup finals demonstrates that she wants to win too, just not at the expense of players learning how to play. So how do you sell the sometimes one-track minds of youth soccer parentdom on such a project?

“The first part is to educate parents,” Byrnes explained. “They only way they have to quantify if things are going well, are wins and losses. So I try to educate not just the parents whose kids play for me, but also potential parents. I try to show them what to look for in a game, to explain what to watch for in a game. I encourage them to go to practice and listen to what is being taught.

“It’s hard to reach out to other people on what to do since they don’t play for me. It’s a tough sell,” she continued. “People know my reputation on how I do things. I don’t let parents tell me what to do. Parents may say this is not the right thing since they are paying my salary, but to me it’s like choosing this grocery store or that one. If you don’t like one you can change stores, and that is fine with me. Some people don’t like that.”

But with Byrnes and Arizona Sting, it’s more than just a clear line of authority in the soccer program.

“What I try to show is what I’m going to do for your child,” she said. “I try to put it on paper to back it up.”

Along with the college delivery at the end of it all, Byrnes is very committed to fundamental technique and tactics.

“I look at Tim Tebow and how he’s at this high level but when it comes time for the next step everyone says he doesn’t know how to throw a ball properly,” she said. “I hear that and want to know how can he be there with that problem. Well the answer is that people who have coached him basically thought ‘Why teach him anything if we are winning games?’ I see this in soccer all the time, I used to love watching our women’s (national) team play, but I can’t stand it anymore. They are far too robotic in how they do things. Across the country we are teaching kids to win games and bypassing things like how to read the game and how to make decisions. I wish more coaches would be more diligent on developing players instead of just winning.

“Good technique is good technique. There is no secret formula,” she continued. “Even 10s and 11s, have to make decsions based on things, not just willy-nilly. What I do is ask questions, like ‘Why did you decide to do that?’ If they say ‘I don’t know’ we know that your body doesn’t jerk around for no reason. Your brain had to tell you something. They need to understand that. You will see a lot of failure to do it that way (instead of just kicking it long downfield every time), but you are not going to learn if you don’t fail. I’ll have questions about everything. ‘Why did you dribble over there? Why did you use that foot?’ It’s just so important to teach these players to make good decisions. That’s my thing.”

For now it’s just Byrnes and her assistant coach Daniel Peck, but with a commitment to excellence and staying true to principle, one can’t help but root for the folks at Arizona Sting to succeed.