Suckers

Lots of good points being made here. On the point of youngsters.... Is there anyway to get teams to not to go to State Cup if they are U12? I think many of us agree that the best U9 team doesn't matter. If many of the "top teams" start passing on state cup, sadly, I think you would see the next tier teams step in and get excited about winning it.

I read an article a while ago about the Ajax academy (found it! https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html) and how they develop their talent. A great read and highlights some of the differences between our systems.

In regards to getting kids into clubs earlier, this is happening in just about every sport. 20-30 years ago a kids athletic career really started in HS, now just about every sport requires 3 years of club experience if they want a hope to make the freshman HS team. This is everything from running to wrestling. You can see the same thing happening in academics but I'll digress.
 
Josep said:
A dad approached me at back to school night recently. He asked me to join Indian Guides. I was already against that but entertained him to be polite. Then he told me the price tag; $2000.

I’m happy my money is spent on a soccer field. I get to work on my tan, I get to watch my kid laugh. I get to watch my kid be athletic.
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Can they still call it "Indian Guides"?
 
focomoso said:
Can someone fill me in on the track suit thing? It seems like a running joke here, but I don't get it. (What are coaches suppose to wear if not track suits? Not every coach can look like this: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...JkDUnVr19K3O8FY1wRFO3YDeeVx8BeRA84XBsVOUaCb1Q)
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Gareth Southgate has style. It’s a negative descriptive generalization that came about from the many foreign/European coaches. In particular coaches from the UK. Their typical style of dress is of course the track suit. You could say it’s like all gangsters (ie Paulie Walnuts) look like this...
1058388-paulie_walnuts.jpg
 
Not that I enjoy the 4-8k I spend a year on a sport that cost nothing to play.....I personally just like soccer. So Im fine with it

My Kids play for the team they wanted to play with
My Kids play for the coaches they wanted (me too) .
Competition on our level is amazing, not too many weak teams and a few rivalries we have are just plain out fun for both parties, parent and kids are very nice!

In the end , my kids are having fun, we are too far in to go backwards, so its just time to be smart with how we spend and get a few more years out of this. Yes the travel is the expensive part but I can always ship out my kid with someone but we chose to make it a family affair....

I gotta go now cause the truck got muddy this morning and I have to clean my Legends Sticker off before coach see's its dirty.........
 
socalkdg said:
Love this idea. I coached two teams for my daughter, was very new to soccer and never played. Took all the classes, learned to referee, and also had my daughter playing Club(as a keeper but she still wanted to play the field at this time) and had a chance to watch club practices. Daughter would lead practice, help with all the drills, teach footwork, help the keepers while I'd stay out of the way (just kidding but having someone on a team that can demonstrate a coaches intent is huge). 4 of the girls I coached are now in club and every kid learned some and had a fun.

AYSO 37 in Corona had players from the UK teach on Friday's and I'd always push the kids to attend, even showing up and scheduling a practice with them.
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You do realize that those UK players get paid, I have worked with those guys for years. Majority of all the regions do the Friday night clinics with UK folks because they have a contract with them.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Deadpoolscores! said:
You do realize that those UK players get paid, I have worked with those guys for years. Majority of all the regions do the Friday night clinics with UK folks because they have a contract with them.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
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They do the AYSO camps too. UK International does a training camp for the coaches prior to sending them over. The training they get is roughly on par with the D license training our coaches get. Like D level coaches, the quality varies with their prior training and individual personality. Most are high level rec players, development school players, or washed out academy players that weren't able to make a go of it in the leagues. Most don't have prior coaching experience and are just looking for a time in the US (we get calls periodically about hosting). The program is pretty much pre-set for them, so it's hard for any one of them to make a mess of it (they tend to be enthusiastic and to the extent there are problems in the training, it's largely a problem of the program....which in turn is largely a problem of soccer in the UK). The camps I think are pretty good for the little ones (better frankly than some of the club camps we went to in the early days), but my son's first year in club was his last year in a UK International camp....it just wasn't enough of a challenge for him and even though he was only a GK primarily (and a mediocre club field player) he wound up smoking most of the core and all star players.

I'm sure the money has something to do with it (AYSO has been very aggressive recently about cross partnering with equipment suppliers, movie studios, and marketing firms too). But it's a reasonable answer to the AYSO rec program's coaching skill gap at the lower/younger levels (having coaches who have never played, considering the UK International coaches have played). It's a bandaid to a problem that will eventually cure itself as parents who played have kids.

The big challenge for AYSO going forward has been that it loses not only the best players as they age up and out but also the most involved and knowledgeable families as volunteers. The Extras and United programs are a way to keep that talent for longer, but whether it's successful will depend on a lot of the choices they make in the next 2-3 years.
 
Grace T. said:
The program is pretty much pre-set for them, so it's hard for any one of them to make a mess of it (they tend to be enthusiastic and to the extent there are problems in the training, it's largely a problem of the program....which in turn is largely a problem of soccer in the UK).
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And what problem is it they have? The England teams in the last year won the U19 European Championships, U17 World Cup, U19 World Cup and reached the World Cup semis.......and we wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us....
 
futboldad1 said:
And what problem is it they have? The England teams in the last year won the U19 European Championships, U17 World Cup, U19 World Cup and reached the World Cup semis.......and we wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us....
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Well, no nation has the perfect soccer program....the game is always developing. Just got through Arena's butt-covering book. It's clear one of the reasons he wasn't able to turn it around is because he is approaching the game like it was in the early 2000s in his heyday. Soccer is always evolving. Tiki-taka and everyone jumped on the Spanish bandwagon, the German high press countered and everyone sung Germany's praises, the French negative game and everyone wants to be like France.

The English papers are constantly bemoaning the problems with English soccer. While they are doing a lot of things right, their long ball game was easily defeated in the World Cup by teams playing negatively and they got lucky in the brackets and in their goalkeeper. At the early/lower levels, their kickball is bad as our own (my son has a little friend whose also a keeper/youtuber....our AYSO games are more possession oriented....you could argue that we shouldn't be worrying about possession and the long ball game should rule). They have a problem in talent selection...their academies track early and are limited, and so you have a bunch of players that are used and losed after having fallen off the academic track (or forced to come to America to get back on that track by playing college here). They have a professional development problem, like our MLS or Mexico, where foreigners are being developed at the highest levels instead of homegrown talent. And they have the same gap problem that we do (also highlighted in Arena's book, though sadly he refused to take on the NCAA directly)...they can develop up to age 18/19 but they are struggling with developing their first teams.

If you want to argue England is doing better than we are, well that's just self-evident. But to say that they are problem free ignores the very issues their press, fans, and people in authority have been discussing.
 
Grace T. said:
Well, no nation has the perfect soccer program....the game is always developing. Just got through Arena's butt-covering book. It's clear one of the reasons he wasn't able to turn it around is because he is approaching the game like it was in the early 2000s in his heyday. Soccer is always evolving. Tiki-taka and everyone jumped on the Spanish bandwagon, the German high press countered and everyone sung Germany's praises, the French negative game and everyone wants to be like France.

The English papers are constantly bemoaning the problems with English soccer. While they are doing a lot of things right, their long ball game was easily defeated in the World Cup by teams playing negatively and they got lucky in the brackets and in their goalkeeper. At the early/lower levels, their kickball is bad as our own (my son has a little friend whose also a keeper/youtuber....our AYSO games are more possession oriented....you could argue that we shouldn't be worrying about possession and the long ball game should rule). They have a problem in talent selection...their academies track early and are limited, and so you have a bunch of players that are used and losed after having fallen off the academic track (or forced to come to America to get back on that track by playing college here). They have a professional development problem, like our MLS or Mexico, where foreigners are being developed at the highest levels instead of homegrown talent. And they have the same gap problem that we do (also highlighted in Arena's book, though sadly he refused to take on the NCAA directly)...they can develop up to age 18/19 but they are struggling with developing their first teams.

If you want to argue England is doing better than we are, well that's just self-evident. But to say that they are problem free ignores the very issues their press, fans, and people in authority have been discussing.
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Of course their media bemoans things; The expectations there are exponentially higher than here and their soccer press is not in the pocket of SUM. I also wouldn't describe their style at the WC as long ball, they repeatedly played out from the back until they went into panic mode vs Croatia in the second half. The press and expectations in Europe are so different. I speak Dutch and you should read what they say over there, plus similar in countries like German, Spain and Argentina where there are myriad issues not least the high average age compared to the French and English NTs. Too many foreign players in the EPL a detriment to the ENT? Sure, but they're doing better than you understand.

I never argued they were problem free in England... it is you who are making blanket statements that their issues = our issues. To compare their development pathway with MLS is ludicrous.
 
futboldad1 said:
Of course their media bemoans things; The expectations there are exponentially higher than here and their soccer press is not in the pocket of SUM. I also wouldn't describe their style at the WC as long ball, they repeatedly played out from the back until they went into panic mode vs Croatia in the second half. The press and expectations in Europe are so different. I speak Dutch and you should read what they say over there, plus similar in countries like German, Spain and Argentina where there are myriad issues not least the high average age compared to the French and English NTs. Too many foreign players in the EPL a detriment to the ENT? Sure, but they're doing better than you understand.

I never argued they were problem free in England... it is you who are making blanket statements that their issues = our issues. To compare their development pathway with MLS is ludicrous.
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It's hard not to take "And what problem is it they have?" as anything other than an assertion they don't have problems but o.k.^\_o_O_/^....I'll take you at your word.

As to the MLS, the main point of comparison there (and similar to the Liga MX before national caps were strengthened) is that they have an issue where foreigners are being developed in the EPL at the expense of the national players, which you seem to concur in from your comment. But I agree their over 19 development problem is different than ours (ours is fundamentally an issue of college being too attractive, college training too poor, and MLS salaries too low)....the only thing in common there is we both have an over 19 development problem (though for different reasons).
 
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