Why are tournaments necessary? (Or why not just play friendlies)

Been thinking a bit about the upcoming summer season.
Why don’t we just play friendlies? Why pay the $1,000 to play teams you could easily reach out to and set something up?
Aside from the parental desire to try and win a trophy- there is a bigger reason.
It’s because most coaches don’t like other coaches. Or because most clubs have some sort of beef with other local clubs. Everyone has a story of getting hosed or a player poached by a neighboring club.
So the chance of a “friendly” game against a team in your own backyard is reduced by the a-hole factor of your coach or club.

A now friend of mine did something that I only talked about doing. They put together a top notch 2 day round robin tourney. It was great competition. They were able to hold this event for two years. However, with that took a great amount of assistance from all involved, many hours, and a lot patience. This was not an easy task. Despite this being more than just a "friendly" it is representative of why many may or may not choose a tourney.

timbuck said:

Been thinking a bit about the upcoming summer season.
Why don’t we just play friendlies? Why pay the $1,000 to play teams you could easily reach out to and set something up?
Aside from the parental desire to try and win a trophy- there is a bigger reason.
It’s because most coaches don’t like other coaches. Or because most clubs have some sort of beef with other local clubs. Everyone has a story of getting hosed or a player poached by a neighboring club.
So the chance of a “friendly” game against a team in your own backyard is reduced by the a-hole factor of your coach or club.

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Tournaments are necessary because "Clubs" and their teams grow when they win ... marketing. Just look at the website for Slammers. Winning plastic trophies that are made in China = growth and marketability. The more prestigious the tournament the better. The other reason tournaments are necessary is "Clubs" use those tournaments to raise funds and have reciprocal agreements with others clubs to support each others tournaments.

What about clubs just opening up a few goals and let the kids(open it up to any kid not just club members) play pick up at night?

I am so glad to see this post. SoCal is saturated with tournaments and most of them are a joke. They are getting expensive too. I don't see how these tournaments will survive in the coming years once more teams look to alternatives.

Traveling out of town once in a while and staying in a hotel is fun for the kids... life long memories.
Finding teams of the same (or better) level. Not always available locally for some teams.
Playing against new teams and players.
Feeling a heightened sense of pressure to win/more meaningful games.
Get seen by college coaches (for olders).

Note: That being said there are plenty of negative things about tournaments too. From a parents persepective doing too many of them really becomes an unwelcomed grind.

Did friendlies where one team doesn't show up or only 9 kids show up. Ref doesn't show up. Field is a disaster. Teams aren't even. Plus friendlies usually are last minute and getting everyone from your own team to show up can be its own drama.

So you spend $70 per kid for a 3-4 game tournament at Silver Lakes once a month? Our kids don't care about the medals or the trophies, but playing new teams with different skill sets is great experience and I know my kid enjoys hanging out with her teammates over the weekend.

blam said:

What about clubs just opening up a few goals and let the kids(open it up to any kid not just club members) play pick up at night?

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Because for the most part clubs don’t own the fields they rent them from the city. And in order to rent a field at night with lights it’s like $150 an hour.

I think some of your missed the point of my original post.
Tournaments are necessary because your coach is an a-hole and nobody will set up a game with him/her on purpose.
If it wasn’t for tournaments, teams with a-hole coaches would only be able to play during the league season.

timbuck said:

I think some of your missed the point of my original post.
Tournaments are necessary because your coach is an a-hole and nobody will set up a game with him/her on purpose.
If it wasn’t for tournaments, teams with a-hole coaches would only be able to play during the league season.

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Maybe that’s the case in your experience and not everyone else’s.

timbuck said:

Been thinking a bit about the upcoming summer season.
Why don’t we just play friendlies? Why pay the $1,000 to play teams you could easily reach out to and set something up?

Click to expand...

1. My kid would rather play a tournament with a chance to win a medal or trophy than play a friendly. If it is a friendly, he would rather just play Fortnite.
2. I managed teams for several years and it was always much easier to sign up for a tournament then to set up a friendly. Finding the teams was easy. Finding a field was damn near impossible.

There are good reasons to scrimmage, and good reasons to go to tournaments. Consider my G2008 team. It is a solid team usually ranked from the high 20s to the mid 30s for our Calsouth age group. There are 2 teams of comparable ability within, say, 25 miles of our location. So looking for quality scrimmages (unless you want to play the same group of teams over and over) is difficult. When we can find scrimmages outside of this group, we travel a little further. We save on tournament fees, of course, but we only get one game in. If we invite teams to play, it usually ends up costing about $75-$100 per game to rent fields and get a referee, plus we have to set up the fields, and if we have to line a field, well that takes a lot of time and costs more money.

On the other hand, we are playing in a tournament this weekend where, in our 6-team bracket, we are the lowest-ranked of the entire group. We will get three or four games in against exceptional teams who will expose our weaknesses and help us progress. All but one of these teams comes from an area of more than 100 miles away from us, so scrimmages would not be an option. The tournament fee was about $650, if I recall, and we have to travel. So it is expensive, but it is the kind of opportunity we could not get from scrimmages.

My kids have been on teams that where very selective about what tournaments to attend and they did a ton of scrimmages & friendlies. Takes a good manager & coach and some good connections to Fields but it is doable with the right combo.

Nowadays with the scrimmage boards on FB and other places should be even easier,. People will normally indicate if they have a field or need one.

There are futsal leagues or courts you can rent for various cities or companies that can supplement normal training.

Many citites rent out park space, some with or without soccer equipment, but you can just bring your own. Remember some of the days where there teams would rent a park space for like $30 a hour, bring the goals, have a game.

Yes you have to get creative and do a bunch of leg work, calls, follow up, etc but often the quality of the play overall can be just as good as many tournment pool play teams if you choose wisely.

If you don't have a respected coach or manager might not work for you but maybe time of a change or discusion with the doc if that's the case.

There is also other independent weekend type leagues teams can play in if you don't have field space or don't want to do all the work. These can be your Latin league, 7v7 indoor, winter futstal, spring 9v9, etc.

Tournment selection is also important, don't be a sheep and follow the herd Don't try to do too much and select tournments that are appropriate for your team's skill level and budget.

Friendlies are great if you have local teams at a similar level willing to play. Unfortunately some of those same-level local teams are worried about being exposed to your team for fear of their players jumping over to the other team the next year. And bringing in out-of-area teams (or going out-of-area) will result in parents complaining about driving distance for just one friendly.

I setup friendlies for six teams (~2 games each) this past weekend and it was a huge pain. Took months to secure fields, dozens of emails to coaches/managers, a lot of worrying whether teams would show up, scheduling refs, etc. Even though the end result was great (teams paid $60 per game versus $200+ for tournament) I probably won't organize something like that again. People like to complain about tournaments and how soccer is a big money grab...but they probably don't understand the realities of what it takes to put games together.

Anyone know how to write apps?
We need a "Tinder" for soccer.
Enter in your profile info - Availability for upcoming weeks; Club; Age Group; Flight; Can you get a field; Can you get a ref; How far are you willing to travel; how much are you willing to pay; do you want to play more than 1 game in a day.
And then let the team manager provide rating after the game: Was the competition as advertised? Was the sideline under control? Was the coach a psycho?
Swipe right to try and play this team. Swipe left if you don't want to play them.

Like many of the posters have said, there is good and bad to both scrimmages and tournaments.

For me, playing four games in two days (if you have solid teams and regularly make the final game in a tournament) is almost a joke but I get from a tournament perspective why it happens; I'm not going into that now.

Given the choice, it would be good to have two very competitive games in two days instead (via scrimmages) but we all know how much hassle it can be to setup scrimmages with fields, refs, costs (depending where you are based) and then confirming opponents of a similar standard (and having them show up without letting you down). Sometimes it feels like more hassle than it is worth and a tournament just seems easier.

If you have good local teams and can get fields easily, that's a big plus. We don't play against other local clubs in our area simply because some of the teams (not the clubs but the individual coaches/managers) use the games as marketing tools and we've had too many experiences of teams bringing in players just to win a scrimmage and use it as a marketing tool for parents (many of whom are unfortunately naive enough to be sold on the result of a scrimmage).

We either travel out of our area or invite teams from out of the area if we get home fields. We are on the Westside and we feel that our kids need to be exposed to other areas and teams who have different backgrounds and approaches to soccer. We take our teams to places they might not otherwise travel to and it has been uncomfortable at times for some of them; that's exactly why we do it. Now, most of our players and teams are used to playing in different areas in varying circumstances (maybe on crap fields, with one ref or sometimes no ref, against opponents who might be extremely aggressive and different to the kids they are surrounded by at school for example) and so it's not an issue for them anymore.

Tournaments have their benefits but being placed in 'competitive' brackets is always a tough ask. Winning games easily is pointless and I guess all coaches (unless they love winning 10-0) want closely fought, competitive games for their teams. Some tournaments are better than others in this regard and so it's a case of finding the ones that work for your team/level.

From a personal player standpoint I will say my son loves playing tournaments just about more than anything else soccer related. Showcases are ok where you just play the 3 games but much prefers ones with playoffs.

New tournaments, ones he hasn't played in, the out of the area ones he get's super motivated for. Wants to play the best teams possible, the highest ranked ones, the defending champs, etc. The tougher the pool bracket is or the more prestigious the tournament is the better for him.

Scrimmages and friendlies to him are like a box of chocolates, never know what you're going to get and just not that exciting. Likes to try new things, moves, or stuff in these kind of games but wants something to play for. Sort of the same in league sometimes unless there playing a rival or for some sort of place or to get into a playoff hes just not as pumped up as when he gets to play tournaments or post season event.

From a parent standpoint, the travel and amount of games is often too much for tournaments and I don't get to as many as I would like to due to business, multiple kids, family, and schedules.

I would like to see more "cut to the chase" type of tournaments for the highly ranked or previous winners. Not to boast or anything but don't recall any CA tournaments in the last few years where they didn't get out of pool play, having to wade through the pool play to get to the playoffs & better teams when they are not at the best due to too many games in too short of a time frame almost seems counterproductive to me. Instead of one highly ranked team per bracket put them all in the same one or have them play each other right off the bat not 3-5 games later when everybody is dragging and ragged. Flip the script or limit the number of games.

I have an idea. Someone help me figure out the logistics of this ---
Teams sign up for a "Summer Tournament Season"- There are 10 tournaments to choose from.(This ensures that the tournament cash cow still exists). Your team picks 5 of them. (3 that are very "local" - 2 that are at least 90 minutes away)
Self seed for the 1st tournament that you play. 2 Flights in each tournament. Maybe 3.
For the subsequent tournaments, you are flighted based on your most recent performance.
Labor Day weekend there is a "Tournament of Champions" for anyone that won at least 1 tournament during the summer.
All other teams are thrown into a "pool" and play 4 games.

or you can just play State Cup.

TangoCity said:

or you can just play State Cup.

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750-925 $$$$ for just 3 games for 50% of the teams doesn't seem like a good deal but the marketing and naming make it sound better.

Enjoyed the St/Nt tournments but not necessarily repeating them every year.
Nice to make a run 9 games (month long) all the way, + regionals but some players like mine wanted to play something different the following year(s), so many other Tournaments, leagues, comps, places to play and visit.