Mate, price has nothing to do with this nor what i spent. You assume a lot of things in your statements and fail to provide anything of substance other than condescending responses. You consistently seem to take the side of SoCal Soccer League when almost everyone else notices and acknowledges the issues. There own about us page is contradictory to what they provide. I am sorry that you are happy with mediocrity and you feel like false marketing and business practices are ok especially when they tend to lean towards the exploitation of minors.
7 vs 7 questions for SoCal League
- Thread starter Rhyser
- Start date
You nailed it. He's complaining though that the hot dog cart has a sign on it that says "now selling the world's best hotdog" and is shocked shocked that is not true.
No malice or negativity came accross in your posts. I actually played in Spain as well, just spent more time in the UK with school. I was actually born in India and chose to move to the UK for school and sport and then moved to the US for under grad and grad with a brief stint in Dubai. Lived in plenty of places in the US with OC-CA being the longest. I went to Millfield in England. Very familiar with the the recruitment/admissions process as i have worked with plenty of US college bound kids as a counsellor in the past.Haha. Totally nailed that: England. I'm still batting 1000%. Spain over here which is why I'm rolling my eyes (as most of the Continentals tend to do), but all in good fun. No malice intended, though a large part of the problems with US soccer stem from the wave of B level English soccer rejects that came over to the US in the 1990s and established the system. Thy country men are partially to blame for the mess over here (don't get me started on Mexico). So were you an English public school? As you are aware university admissions there are determined by exam performance, with respect to certain subjects. Here there is athletic recruitment which is a separate entry way into college, hence why the appeal of competitive sports to some families.
The "bought and sold" is a political statement about the effects of what the academies in Europe do. See below. I agree there's something limiting about short messages that doesn't cover all the nuance. I have been accused in the past of writing tomes over here, but this is why sometimes tomes are necessary. It's also not true that anyone can just play. My son is pen pals with a goalkeeper his age in the UK that had a youtube channel, HenrySavesAll. The channel details how the kid struggled to get an academy trial, ultimately got one, but did not get a place at his local academy and ultimately switched his focus to academics and decided to just play the English equivalent of rec as a field player. The difference between that and the US is that there is a D team for every player and there isn't some overall authority to handle sorting as there is in the US and UK....the leagues (MLS Next and somewhat ECNL excepted) are just ad hoc setups where the customers are the clubs and are just venues for the kids to play.
‘Football’s biggest issue’: the struggle facing boys rejected by academies
Thousands of players wash through the system every year, leaving behind shattered dreams of a professional career. Are clubs doing enough to look after them?www.theguardian.com
This is an American cultural thing called "puffery". It's why you have so many shack's selling what they claim to be the world's most famous or best burger. The score diminuation thing as stated before is a deliberate decision of US soccer at this age to minimize the American obsession with winning and the distorting effect it has on development.
The safeguards you ask for aren't possible. There were problems even with the old pro/rel system by Coast which ultimately led to it becoming the mess that it is. The only way those safeguards would be possible is if you had 1 authority in the US that controlled the placement of players in appropriate levels and controlled the various clubs (kind of like a giant AYSO United). That's simply not the political reality in the US. There is such a system, but it is limited to academy play, which again doesn't start until around age 11. You seem to be mourning the fact that unlike the rest of the world, the US does not have a true academy system.
If that's the experience you are looking for your kid, I'd echo the suggestions of those here on the boards. Club sports at this age is a waste of time. Get him with a trainer, play futsal, and have the ball at their feet non stop until the year before academy selections. otherwise, since you have residence anyway, if football really is going to be such a central part of your kids future, time to look at moving back to England. Your kid won't get what they need here, which is why so many American footballers are going over there to train (particularly those with dual nationality that can do it as a younger).
I have actually read the article you shared before along with numerous others that are more current with the struggles players face with rejection and dismissal by academies. Those are more mental health issues that plague a lot of individuals/players and a completely separate issue that academies / schools / etc are learning to identify and address all over the world.
If i came across as mourning the lack of a true academy system then i misrepresented myself and the nuances of messaging caught me out. I am just attempting to understand why we as a collective allow SoCal Soccer League to get away with false practices / advertising and why it is the we use the idea that "this is how it is" to dictate the failure to hold the organization to some form of a standard to at least practice what the claim to provide. I get everyones argument about the hotdog stand claiming to be the worlds best - that is purely subjective based on ones taste buds, palette, culinary experiences etc where as whether the league is providing Competitive Youth Soccer isnt. The simple definition of competition is "the act or process of trying to get or win something" - there is NO winning anything in SoCal Soccer League.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
In this reality, the one we all live in, price has everything to do with what can be provided - unless the service provider has chosen it as a hobby and is doing it in their own free time.
I'm not on the side of this league or any other, and for what it's worth - there are any number of hate screeds online about the particular management of SoCal Soccer League. But that's not the issue. You are misreading everyone's responses. Everyone notices and acknowledges the multiple issues with youth soccer in the US - your assignment of blame and resolution of those issues to a league - run by 1 or 2 people on a tiny budget - misunderstands the entire structure of the system in the US, and where change needs to come from if there is to be such change.
Shocking! Next you'll tell me that you can't actually "have it your way" at Burger King.
And I'm the one making condescending assumptions? You are as self-aware as you are perceptive.
p.s. I hate to see what will happen when his kid gives him a "world's best dad" cup.
I was going to say you had to have gone to Millfield!!!! It had to be. Wow I'm good. As you know, the Millfield experience is not very representative of what goes on in England since England has very few independent schools geared to both sports and academics (Is Millfield even still in the top 10 academically anymore???). Professional footballers are not going to Eaton anymore. The closest thing to Millfield in the US is IMG in Florida. You experience even in England may be a bit myopic because of Millfield.
Where in Spain? My mom's side of the family is Basque and my kid got to spend a summer there when I did a work stint. So if you are an Indian national you don't have residence status in the UK? Because if you do and have your heart set on your kid being a professional footballer, that's really what you have to do: it's a no brainer. Unusual as well as India isn't exactly a powerhouse of soccer and most parents in the US tend to emphasize academics (which given the academic pace of honors in the US is simply impossible to do both once the kids get older).
As for competition it's not just SoCal League. At that age, the US has made a deliberate decision to deemphasize competition for the reasons previously stated because of crazy/impatient soccer parents. It changes as the kids get older and get sorted into appropriate levels and things like statecup, NPLS and letter leagues begin to open up. You may disagree with it, but for the sake of developing the USMNT players the decision has been made it doesn't matter at the age group, but except at the very highest level of the older age groups, the sorting is always imperfect.
@RandomSoccerFan i'll concede that we got off on the wrong foot based on how I read some of your earlier responses and my follow ups were not any better. I ended up doing exactly what i claimed you were doing. My apologies for that.
Looking at it with a clean slate, instead of looking at my points as laying blame on SoCal Soccer League is it possible to look at them as areas of improvement and change for the future? If we dont point these out and continue to accept things the way they are why would any change them? Lastly, while i completely acknowledge your point on the entire structure in the US with relation to youth soccer, why cant that change start in SoCal Soccer League to set an example?
For Example (and not saying this is the right solution either) SoCal Soccer League:
- 1 team per club per age group and flight
- team can only play up a year starting their 2nd year in the league and with leagues approval based on certain criteria like continuing roster, PPG, minimum number of games played and no other team from that club in the higher age/flight grouping.
- the 1st year the team must have atleast the minimum number of players to be placed in the given age bracket. they can use club pass players to fill in slots from lower age groups if needed.
- referees are evaluated by coaches / managers at the end of each game and consistent poor rating disqualify them from being assigned to future games with out further training.
- referees need to meet a minimum health and fitness level
These are just some thoughts.
You have a Chesterton's fence problem here. It's not like you are some new genius that sees things for the first time. All of these have been suggested and rejected for various reasons (hence the fence):
- 1 team per club per age group and flight
>>>the problem with this is that not all clubs are created equal. The mega clubs have more weight and are able to pull in more kids. It also makes it harder to do 7v7 because the demand would just wildly exceed the supply and you have problems then when you get to 11 v 11 that teams need to be combined. This is generally the rule, BTW, in letter league (with certain exceptions such as LA Surf having 2 teams in EA or some double ECNL on the girls side). You also have the problem, however, that clubs would just go and found nearby "affiliates" even more than they are doing so now. There's also very little rationale to limit the clubs to 1 team at the flight 3 level. Without some central authority to regulate the pyramid and disperse players evenly, you'd have some players locked out of teams and unable to play (as for example now exists on the girls side at the ECNL level in the Downey-Long Beach-Downtown triangle).
- team can only play up a year starting their 2nd year in the league and with leagues approval based on certain criteria like continuing roster, PPG, minimum number of games played and no other team from that club in the higher age/flight grouping.
>>>your rule is self defeating since you already limited clubs to 1 per flight. That also means that teams like yours could tear up the U8 without competition which is exactly what you were complaining about. This is the opposite of what is the solution for your team which is play up.
- the 1st year the team must have atleast the minimum number of players to be placed in the given age bracket. they can use club pass players to fill in slots from lower age groups if needed.
>>>This makes no sense. If the 1st year, how an they get slots from a lower age group?
- referees are evaluated by coaches / managers at the end of each game and consistent poor rating disqualify them from being assigned to future games with out further training.
>>>The issue here is there is a referee shortage. The best referees are doing the letter league olders games. The youngers get stuck with the newbies and youth referees. Some lower flight teams are having to cancel games because the refs don't even show up. You want to fix that, pay them more, substantially more. It's a market....if you make it worth their while they'll be motivated to do the ridiculous training over other things to make money. But that means some players without means will get further locked out by the high fees. You can have your soccer competitive, developmental or accessible (pick 2).
- referees need to meet a minimum health and fitness level
>>>Ditto. See above.
i might get sued by my son in the future if i cant live up to it! yes i get sarcasm and humor
We played the spanish academy teams in multiple tournaments both in spain and other countries. Most were hosted in Madrid though.
You correct on the Millfield experience and the potential myopia related to it. however, i had plenty of family that was born and raised in and around London that didnt go to an "English Public School" - private school here in the US. Given that there are different levels of graduation in Europe 5th form and 6th form (11th and 12th grade being college essentially) and after 12th is university (im paraphrasing), Millfield as a whole still ranks in the top 10 but they have expanded a lot in to theatre, music and other programs. The rankings are subjective but for the most part given that it represents students from 80ish countries it still fares as a top 10 location in the US. IMG isnt the only place in the US there are several that cater to a similar experience to an Eaton, Harrow, Millfield etc - Phillips Exeter being another one. However i dont know if these actually address the issues of active league competition.
I dont have my heart set on either of my kids being professional athletes, just making sure whatever path they chose i do whatever i can to make sure they have the best opportunity and teach them through practice that if you notice something wrong, try and understand the issue and speak up.
i am realizing this over arching theme and i dont necessarily disagree with all of it but i do have issues with how it is implemented/marketed/packaged/sold to parents and children. I do see benefit (and i could be wrong) with trying to push for changes so that reality is closer to the hype/marketing
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Do you know that feeling when you're just about to submit this long and detailed response, and right before you do there is another post entered that says the exact same thing, but probably more articulately than yours?
So - I'll "like" Grace's post instead. It's what mine would have been word-for-word if I fed my draft into chatgpt and said "write it better".
Phillips Exeter is primarily academic track focused, like Harvard Westlake here in Socal, though they also have a sports program. They are primarily geared to getting kids into a top 20 school. IMG is primarily athletic track focused....in the US the top 20 athletic colleges and top 20 academic colleges are very different....the difference between Harvard (where a Phillips Exeter kid might go) and Bama (where an IMG kid might go).i might get sued by my son in the future if i cant live up to it! yes i get sarcasm and humor
We played the spanish academy teams in multiple tournaments both in spain and other countries. Most were hosted in Madrid though.
You correct on the Millfield experience and the potential myopia related to it. however, i had plenty of family that was born and raised in and around London that didnt go to an "English Public School" - private school here in the US. Given that there are different levels of graduation in Europe 5th form and 6th form (11th and 12th grade being college essentially) and after 12th is university (im paraphrasing), Millfield as a whole still ranks in the top 10 but they have expanded a lot in to theatre, music and other programs. The rankings are subjective but for the most part given that it represents students from 80ish countries it still fares as a top 10 location in the US. IMG isnt the only place in the US there are several that cater to a similar experience to an Eaton, Harrow, Millfield etc - Phillips Exeter being another one. However i dont know if these actually address the issues of active league competition.
I dont have my heart set on either of my kids being professional athletes, just making sure whatever path they chose i do whatever i can to make sure they have the best opportunity and teach them through practice that if you notice something wrong, try and understand the issue and speak up.
i am realizing this over arching theme and i dont necessarily disagree with all of it but i do have issues with how it is implemented/marketed/packaged/sold to parents and children. I do see benefit (and i could be wrong) with trying to push for changes so that reality is closer to the hype/marketing
As to the hype of marketing, you no doubt would be incensed with the use by all the clubs of "Elite" and "Academy" when they are anything but. Again, American puffery.
You have a Chesterton's fence problem here. It's not like you are some new genius that sees things for the first time. All of these have been suggested and rejected for various reasons (hence the fence):
- 1 team per club per age group and flight
>>>the problem with this is that not all clubs are created equal. The mega clubs have more weight and are able to pull in more kids. It also makes it harder to do 7v7 because the demand would just wildly exceed the supply and you have problems then when you get to 11 v 11 that teams need to be combined. This is generally the rule, BTW, in letter league (with certain exceptions such as LA Surf having 2 teams in EA or some double ECNL on the girls side). You also have the problem, however, that clubs would just go and found nearby "affiliates" even more than they are doing so now. There's also very little rationale to limit the clubs to 1 team at the flight 3 level. Without some central authority to regulate the pyramid and disperse players evenly, you'd have some players locked out of teams and unable to play (as for example now exists on the girls side at the ECNL level in the Downey-Long Beach-Downtown triangle).
--> 1 team in competitive brackets/flights. If flight 1 and 2 are deemed competitive and flight 3 and below is deemed as rec then thats that so flight 3 and below can have multiples. The demand for parents wanting to sign their kids up would not be applicable as the clubs would put their best teams together in the competitive bracket and the weaker players in rec or other variations.
- team can only play up a year starting their 2nd year in the league and with leagues approval based on certain criteria like continuing roster, PPG, minimum number of games played and no other team from that club in the higher age/flight grouping.
>>>your rule is self defeating since you already limited clubs to 1 per flight. That also means that teams like yours could tear up the U8 without competition which is exactly what you were complaining about. This is the opposite of what is the solution for your team which is play up.
--> not all teams start at age 5. This was meant for clubs that start a u9/u10 or even u12 team with a new coach for example.
- the 1st year the team must have atleast the minimum number of players to be placed in the given age bracket. they can use club pass players to fill in slots from lower age groups if needed. if they cant build a full team move those players in to other existing teams to prevent filling spots with players that should not be playing competitive.
>>>This makes no sense. If the 1st year, how an they get slots from a lower age group?
--> see above
- referees are evaluated by coaches / managers at the end of each game and consistent poor rating disqualify them from being assigned to future games with out further training.
>>>The issue here is there is a referee shortage. The best referees are doing the letter league olders games. The youngers get stuck with the newbies and youth referees. Some lower flight teams are having to cancel games because the refs don't even show up. You want to fix that, pay them more, substantially more. It's a market....if you make it worth their while they'll be motivated to do the ridiculous training over other things to make money. But that means some players without means will get further locked out by the high fees. You can have your soccer competitive, developmental or accessible (pick 2).
--> in over 20 games this season we have not had a referee that i would classify as young/newbie. Most of them are geriatrics with mobility and vision issues and some with hearing loss. If there were younger referees that were refereeing the games i could understand the time and space we give them to grow and get better. the issues is we have constantly been assigned ones who can barely move. i actually have a video somewhere of a referee who took a full minute to walk from the sideline to center field and had a hearing problem on top of that and could not hear any of the coaches yelling for substitutions. The referees make $60+ per hours in SoCal. There are plenty more that would show up if the League cancelled the ability for these geriatrics to show up. And we dont need to make Competitive Youth Soccer accessible, that is where rec, rec+, pre-club etc comes in to play.
- referees need to meet a minimum health and fitness level
>>>Ditto. See above.
--> See above
- 1 team per club per age group and flight
>>>the problem with this is that not all clubs are created equal. The mega clubs have more weight and are able to pull in more kids. It also makes it harder to do 7v7 because the demand would just wildly exceed the supply and you have problems then when you get to 11 v 11 that teams need to be combined. This is generally the rule, BTW, in letter league (with certain exceptions such as LA Surf having 2 teams in EA or some double ECNL on the girls side). You also have the problem, however, that clubs would just go and found nearby "affiliates" even more than they are doing so now. There's also very little rationale to limit the clubs to 1 team at the flight 3 level. Without some central authority to regulate the pyramid and disperse players evenly, you'd have some players locked out of teams and unable to play (as for example now exists on the girls side at the ECNL level in the Downey-Long Beach-Downtown triangle).
--> 1 team in competitive brackets/flights. If flight 1 and 2 are deemed competitive and flight 3 and below is deemed as rec then thats that so flight 3 and below can have multiples. The demand for parents wanting to sign their kids up would not be applicable as the clubs would put their best teams together in the competitive bracket and the weaker players in rec or other variations.
- team can only play up a year starting their 2nd year in the league and with leagues approval based on certain criteria like continuing roster, PPG, minimum number of games played and no other team from that club in the higher age/flight grouping.
>>>your rule is self defeating since you already limited clubs to 1 per flight. That also means that teams like yours could tear up the U8 without competition which is exactly what you were complaining about. This is the opposite of what is the solution for your team which is play up.
--> not all teams start at age 5. This was meant for clubs that start a u9/u10 or even u12 team with a new coach for example.
- the 1st year the team must have atleast the minimum number of players to be placed in the given age bracket. they can use club pass players to fill in slots from lower age groups if needed. if they cant build a full team move those players in to other existing teams to prevent filling spots with players that should not be playing competitive.
>>>This makes no sense. If the 1st year, how an they get slots from a lower age group?
--> see above
- referees are evaluated by coaches / managers at the end of each game and consistent poor rating disqualify them from being assigned to future games with out further training.
>>>The issue here is there is a referee shortage. The best referees are doing the letter league olders games. The youngers get stuck with the newbies and youth referees. Some lower flight teams are having to cancel games because the refs don't even show up. You want to fix that, pay them more, substantially more. It's a market....if you make it worth their while they'll be motivated to do the ridiculous training over other things to make money. But that means some players without means will get further locked out by the high fees. You can have your soccer competitive, developmental or accessible (pick 2).
--> in over 20 games this season we have not had a referee that i would classify as young/newbie. Most of them are geriatrics with mobility and vision issues and some with hearing loss. If there were younger referees that were refereeing the games i could understand the time and space we give them to grow and get better. the issues is we have constantly been assigned ones who can barely move. i actually have a video somewhere of a referee who took a full minute to walk from the sideline to center field and had a hearing problem on top of that and could not hear any of the coaches yelling for substitutions. The referees make $60+ per hours in SoCal. There are plenty more that would show up if the League cancelled the ability for these geriatrics to show up. And we dont need to make Competitive Youth Soccer accessible, that is where rec, rec+, pre-club etc comes in to play.
- referees need to meet a minimum health and fitness level
>>>Ditto. See above.
--> See above
I get the American Puffery argument 100% but that doesnt make it right. It is also one thing for a b2c to have that nomenclature vs a b2b to use that as their mission statement as a collective of the b2c initiatives.
Fully accept your Phillips Exeter / IMG points however you still have your Stanfords and Ivy's with top10 athletic program. My point with both those, and again i dont have any insight in to this is, do the local/regional leagues provide the exposure and competition the kids need to grow?
a. It is rec. Rec +. You seem to be having a problem grasping your head around it. It's the difference between Premium Economy and Economy but you seem to have your eyes focused on it being First Class. The dispersal also doesn't make sense which is where coast ran into its problem. If you have 4 flights, most kids would be "average" which would mean the bulk of kids are in flight 2 or 3...it's a bell curve dispersal which is why Coast ran into its problems. Some clubs like Striker also have enough pull that they'll be able to wreck their competition anyways, which is a problem right now in EA/EA2/E64. Strikers could field 2 MLS Next Teams while Murietta has problems fielding just 1.
b. you still have the issue then of new teams wrecking the lower level competition. This happened on my son's first team, AYSO United, which was blowing out its Coast competition sometimes by 10 points or more.
c. See above. You'd need to have a system where the league sorts players into clubs at appropriate levels, sort of like the Spanish rec system.
d&e. Again because your team is a youngers team playing what essentially is rec+, you get the worst of the worst referees. The reason you get the old timers is because they can't even keep up with the teenage girls let alone the teenage boys and the periods are shorter. Your alternative is go with no referee at all, because there aren't experienced good referees that are dying to take a U7 game. You seem to not understand that in the pecking order of who gets the best referees, you are near the absolute bottom of the barrel. An experienced fit ref is more likely to take an adult Sunday league game than yours. Referee shortage. Want better you have to pay them substantially substantially more, so much more that they are grateful for a U7 game since the MLS Next games are the equivalent of Harvard to referees.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
@Rhyser. Buddy. It's OK to wish the refs were better. But you're continuing to ignore actual realities that people are trying to explain to you - in detail. US Soccer didn't have enough qualified refs before COVID. After things started up again, the numbers of available refs are roughly half of what they were prior. It's a real problem. My kid refs when he has time, and gets frantic group emails pretty much every day saying "HELP! There are still 60 games this weekend without enough refs! Please sign up!". It's a real problem, and anyone who sees the numbers and understands how dire it is would be thanking the refs - any refs - for showing up so a game can be held. Many leagues have lowered the required amount of refs from 3 to 2 or even just 1 per game, as otherwise games would have to be cancelled. At the U8 levels and below - it's always going to be the lowest priority. If you want change? Get your ref license and help out. A parent on our team just did that this fall, and has already had to stand in as an AR when the refs were shorthanded.
Laying out higher requirements and tests is a fine suggestion - it just will result in less refs available. If the intent is to increase the number and quality of refs, the pay needs to be significantly higher, and there need to be more timely and effective consequences for butthead parents antagonizing the refs at a kid's soccer game. Something like half of teen refs that get certified stop after 2 years at this point, and it's not because we are paying them too much or making the experience too hospitable.
Laying out higher requirements and tests is a fine suggestion - it just will result in less refs available. If the intent is to increase the number and quality of refs, the pay needs to be significantly higher, and there need to be more timely and effective consequences for butthead parents antagonizing the refs at a kid's soccer game. Something like half of teen refs that get certified stop after 2 years at this point, and it's not because we are paying them too much or making the experience too hospitable.
This is a fallacy again. Competition does not = growth at the younger ages and is in fact deterimental to it. Because you are a newb, you seem to be confused as to what you actually want out of all this. Want your kid to be pro? You are probably wasting your time and should look at going back to England and getting a real soccer education (which a lot of American parents would kill for). Want your kid to develop? Chilax...if it were more competitive the coaches would short change your kid by trying to win and play boot ball. That's already a problem as it is so you don't really want more of it. Want your kid to play soccer in college? Too early to worry about that....just have them love practice....be patient and time will come...acknowledge this for what it is that it's rec + and if you want more later there are the academies at age 11. Want to win trophies? Go to AYSO Extras or All Stars....they are all about the trophies.
Here's a small critique and I don't mean it maliciously at all. One of the reasons why club soccer is so all over the place is exactly people like you: you don't know what you exactly want so because it's a market it's forced to adapt to everything you want out of it and therefore gets you nothing reallly great.
I’d guess that the price point is actually the root of the problem though, even if the price doesn’t bother you. The clubs and leagues are selling a product that’s supposed to be better than the local park program or AYSO Core or even the larger clubs own rec programs. In reality, 99% of the time it’s not at U10 and below, maybe even U12 and below if you throw in the all-star or extra teams. Most people here seem to really hate the more grassroots leagues even at the younger ages, which I don’t understand. Half the year with evenly distributed players and hyper local, where more of the best players also get to be leaders, half the year in more competitive leagues/tournaments with the better coaches.
The clubs/leagues wont give up that extra revenue, or the chance to hook the parents when the kids are the youngest so they can squeeze out an extra paid season or two (and private sessions) before the parents finally realize that their kid just isn’t into it or good enough.
The unit (kid/parent) economics dictate the way it works, not the quality of the product. Just like the hot dog stand.
a. It is rec. Rec +. You seem to be having a problem grasping your head around it. It's the difference between Premium Economy and Economy but you seem to have your eyes focused on it being First Class. The dispersal also doesn't make sense which is where coast ran into its problem. If you have 4 flights, most kids would be "average" which would mean the bulk of kids are in flight 2 or 3...it's a bell curve dispersal which is why Coast ran into its problems. Some clubs like Striker also have enough pull that they'll be able to wreck their competition anyways, which is a problem right now in EA/EA2/E64. Strikers could field 2 MLS Next Teams while Murietta has problems fielding just 1.
--> If it is rec / rec+ then call it as such. That is not what SoCal Soccer calls it. That is also what i suggesting is provide the competitive flight, even if it is only flight 1 and then promote the others flights accordingly.
b. you still have the issue then of new teams wrecking the lower level competition. This happened on my son's first team, AYSO United, which was blowing out its Coast competition sometimes by 10 points or more.
--> my suggestions as i stated arent gospel or the perfect answer but merely suggestions to plug the issue of not having a competitive league structure for 7vs7 and equally stop SoCal Soccer League from false promoting.
c. See above. You'd need to have a system where the league sorts players into clubs at appropriate levels, sort of like the Spanish rec system.
d&e. Again because your team is a youngers team playing what essentially is rec+, you get the worst of the worst referees. The reason you get the old timers is because they can't even keep up with the teenage girls let alone the teenage boys and the periods are shorter. Your alternative is go with no referee at all, because there aren't experienced good referees that are dying to take a U7 game. You seem to not understand that in the pecking order of who gets the best referees, you are near the absolute bottom of the barrel. An experienced fit ref is more likely to take an adult Sunday league game than yours. Referee shortage. Want better you have to pay them substantially substantially more, so much more that they are grateful for a U7 game since the MLS Next games are the equivalent of Harvard to referees.
--> The reason we get the old timers is because the league doesnt have minimum standards and they allow these geriatrics to ref games. If stopping them from coming increases the price to get different ref out there then so be it but there needs to be some protection for the kids. Most of these old refs like said cant keep up at all and dont see most of the fouls, which at this age can be unintentional too, but if they dont see the fouls or stop play as needed it only creates more problems. Then you have the partially deaf ones that dont hear some of the coaches yelling obscenities at their own players and egging them on to commit bad tackles and plays. We cant keep making excuses as to why it is the way it is when we see the problem and allow it to keep happening.
--> If it is rec / rec+ then call it as such. That is not what SoCal Soccer calls it. That is also what i suggesting is provide the competitive flight, even if it is only flight 1 and then promote the others flights accordingly.
b. you still have the issue then of new teams wrecking the lower level competition. This happened on my son's first team, AYSO United, which was blowing out its Coast competition sometimes by 10 points or more.
--> my suggestions as i stated arent gospel or the perfect answer but merely suggestions to plug the issue of not having a competitive league structure for 7vs7 and equally stop SoCal Soccer League from false promoting.
c. See above. You'd need to have a system where the league sorts players into clubs at appropriate levels, sort of like the Spanish rec system.
d&e. Again because your team is a youngers team playing what essentially is rec+, you get the worst of the worst referees. The reason you get the old timers is because they can't even keep up with the teenage girls let alone the teenage boys and the periods are shorter. Your alternative is go with no referee at all, because there aren't experienced good referees that are dying to take a U7 game. You seem to not understand that in the pecking order of who gets the best referees, you are near the absolute bottom of the barrel. An experienced fit ref is more likely to take an adult Sunday league game than yours. Referee shortage. Want better you have to pay them substantially substantially more, so much more that they are grateful for a U7 game since the MLS Next games are the equivalent of Harvard to referees.
--> The reason we get the old timers is because the league doesnt have minimum standards and they allow these geriatrics to ref games. If stopping them from coming increases the price to get different ref out there then so be it but there needs to be some protection for the kids. Most of these old refs like said cant keep up at all and dont see most of the fouls, which at this age can be unintentional too, but if they dont see the fouls or stop play as needed it only creates more problems. Then you have the partially deaf ones that dont hear some of the coaches yelling obscenities at their own players and egging them on to commit bad tackles and plays. We cant keep making excuses as to why it is the way it is when we see the problem and allow it to keep happening.
I did not say or at least mean competition = growth. I do however stand by that competition is small requirement for holistic growth. I can tell what i want from this. It is actually quite simple. The League to actually provide what it states it is going to provide. Not from a subjective standpoint using the food analogies but from a contractual standpoint.
You are correct that club soccer is all over the place but that has nothing to do with the organization that is supposed to be coordinating a league. Strikers / Slammers /Whamers /Surf what the clubds decide to do and how they chose to run their program is on them and then on the parent to decide which one of those programs fits their childs needs. The part that i feel should not be up for debate is the League not meeting minimum standards, especially those that they themselves outline but do not enforce for themselves let alone the member organizations in the 7v7 setup.
If you TRIPLED the pay of referees you MIGHT get enough of what you consider "high-quality" refs to come out for all the games. The cost of youth soccer would skyrocket. If you then require physical/stamina tests (you'll have to pay someone to administer that process) or even a health assessment (what would it cost to do 1000+ health assessments?) the costs would increase so much that participation numbers would plummet. $66 to solo a 7v7 game and get yelled at by a bunch of totally clueless people. It's even less if you are with a crew of 2 or 3 refs. We should be singing their praises on repeat every game for coming out for that abuse for such a paltry sum!
Could not agree more however if the referees are not reporting the issues and for the most part let the parents and coaches slide how is this ever oging to be corrected? I hope that if my kids continues to play as he get older we do see the improvement every one here mentions. That still shouldnt stop us from creating these standards to better safeguard the youngest brackets that appear to be shafted right now. And if that means reducing the number of games called "competitive" and making them recreational then so be it. To birds one stone.
a. Happens when they are older and start doing letter league. Your complaint is just "do it now!"
b. Again puffery. You may as well be yelling at all the Americans for indulging in their language choices
c. Your complaint then amounts to "charge more" so we can pay for the refs. BTW, my son is doing his service hours for school as an AYSO youth ref, unpaid. The level of stuff he had to do even as a youth ref was ridiculous including concussion/cpr training, live training, very long online training. If you are an adult you have to do background checks and live scans, all of it unpaid. If he didn't need it for his service hours, he would have bailed after the first hour of doing the training. I stopped reffing when COVID happened: too much on my plate, the pay wasn't really an incentive, all the new requirements were too daunting, not worth it for the abuse.