I bring my truth through experience as a parent, coach. Together, coach & parents can make youth soccer great again. It is from my lens as father, so take with a grain of salt and your favorite shot of tequila, on me. I knew a coach that had the A Team and B Team. He had a healthy way of coaching for the most part and his training was top notch. He basically had the same idea as you. If done right, with respect and transparency, then coach, parents and players on both A Team and B team can make it a win, win, win for all. It's like having the varsity coach who is also coaching JV or working together to give those on the JV a chance to win a spot over one of the lazy varsity players or underperforming players. It happens all the time and a good coach will know this to be true. Good old competition is the key for the future of sport, that's based on merit, hard work and ganas with results. It's the only way to coach. Mom and dad go sit in the stands and watch, cheer and ENCOURAGE your child to work hard and most importantly, have fun. On paper this is the best, moo. Let's be honest parents, kids slack off or some think mommy will just pay extra to make sure her play time is not taken away from not working hard. For me personally, it's A team or I find another A Team down the street to seek my revenge. No B Team for crush unless I'm on JV. I was never on JV. Freshman basketball and then the call up in 10th grade varsity. I saw firsthand I was not D1, D2 or D3 for that matter. I was NAIA because that was the truth. I love this stuff.
What makes the A team of clubs so much better?
- Thread starter Lou789
- Start date
TheMountie
BRONZE
My son made the A team, but his playing time was among the bottom three on the team in terms of minutes playing. We then moved him to the B team, where he had a lot more fun and played many more minutes, which also helped with his development. It’s tough sitting on the bench, and I understood that as a late birthday kid in a grade below his teammates, it would be hard for him to compete due to his smaller size and less physicality.
Syrix
BRONZE
I was going to add this on my last post, but it is my opinion and advice as a coach having worked on both top national teams and second teams that if your player is far better (like top 3 on second team) it's definitely to their advantage to move up or at least seek moving up. Or find a situation with a stronger second team. If you are outside the starting XI on a top team and playing minutes are slim, you have to weigh whether the benefits of the training environment on a top team are better than the training environment on a second team but where you get max playing time. That decision will be different in every situation. It's always the parent who played some football in college or elsewhere who's kid is a glorified second team talent demanding their kid play on a national team. The kids hate it, and rarely do they care to keep slogging through a national team training and travel schedule just to sit on the bench and watch.
Is there another A team in the area where he can show the other A team coach was wrong for not playing him or do you see him more as a B team player? My son was recruited by a top A team coach because of his speed and dominance in a co-ed league when he was 9. Coach invited him to A team practice, and I saw firsthand, as did my boy and coach that my son had no business playing on the A Team let alone the B team. Coach did offer a spot on the B Team, but my kid would have been last one to play. I saw it all, so I put him in AYSO again and he almost made some select team but missed the cut. Great kid, super-fast and actually turned out to be a very good football player and first team all-league as senior. He grew, lifted weights and was a beast as a slot receiver. Kids have more fun when they play and get minutes, not sit and watch and wonder when coach will call your number for a chance to shine on the pitch.
I know a player that was on the B team for a long time. Got pulled up to the A team because of an injury. Put in a ton of hours, private training, etc, and now plays for Ohio State. That's how you give them the middle finger.
I suspect this depends quite a bit on the specific club.
Generally, the higher tier leagues will have better fields, in my experience; I think this is primarily due to the higher end clubs there having better facilities. That implies that higher tier teams will also play on better fields (practice and games), which also tracks with my experience, but I think this is probably a secondary effect.
In my son's club, there was never explicit field preference for the higher level teams, for example, but in reality they tended to get the better fields. However, they also sometimes had to drive further for practice, so it may have been a coach/parents dynamic (ie: the more hardcore parents will happily drive further so that their kids can practice on better fields). It didn't feel like a strong correlation to me, but it did to some of the other B team parents (I suspect some selection bias).
The higher teams do get a little better treatment in general though, because they essentially enable access to more competitive events. That is, a club might get invited to a tournament because of the ratings of the stronger teams, whereas without those teams they would not be invited. Success also helps with recruiting, gives more selection of players, more money for the club, etc. At some level clubs (and leagues) are businesses, and the consequences of that reality influence how the clubs manage teams at some level.
TheMountie
BRONZE
The challenges we've been facing seem to follow a consistent pattern. We join an top team, the coach likes my kid, and he’s selected over others trying out. We’re thrilled, and initially, he plays a lot during scrimmages and the first few games. However, after a month or so, his minutes are reduced to the point where we end up finding a second team to make up for the lack of playing time. By the end of the season, we leave and start the whole process over again.
I’ll admit that the training at the top team has been very beneficial for his development, but at the end of the day, he just wants to play.
The main issue is that he’s good enough to be on a top team but not quite able to earn consistent playing time due to his size and being a late birth year. Essentially, most of the kids on the team are almost a full grade level ahead of him and 8-11 months older. When we drop down to an F2 team, it’s often too easy for him, though he really enjoys the praise from the coach, parents, and teammates. On top teams, he feels more like filler, just there to help train the starting XI.
TheMountie
BRONZE
Yes, but most of the other A teams are already rounded out with a full roster. Right now, my son hasn’t quite grown enough to compete with the mentality that coaches often value size over technical ability. He's a late birth year, and when he's played on higher-level teams, the kids were 8-11 months older than him and in a higher grade. Really looking forward to leagues that implement the grade year for 2026. That's why I’ve felt more comfortable letting him play full games with F2 or lower F1 teams, I know there’s still plenty of time for him to grow.
Messi>CR7
GOLD
No real difference for my boy's club in term of treament. Same field, same 3x training sessions per week starting from U11.
The tangible differences I can think of are:
1-More A team coaches (especially MLSN) have higher level of coaching license. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're better coaches or better for your son.
2-More yelling on the A team. A team coaches need to win. B and C team coaches need to fill a full roster.
3-Agreeing with what sigmabody stated above. If paying $1600 to play in top flight in the Surf Cup and $20/day for parking is your cup of tea, then you need to be on the A team.
4-Playing time is much more uneven on the A team. On our team the GK and the two strongest players play full time. That leaves 10 players fighting for 6 spots. It's not uncommon for a kid to play <1/3 of a game especially in tournaments.
5-If you're baller, anecdotally we have seen scholarships given out on the A team, but never on the B team (except GK).
The bad news is because of the academies mls next and the now expanded mls 2 are unlikely to go grade year. So this might benefit the girls where ecnl dominates but not the boys (at least in SoCal where mls dominates)
My son was in the same boat. More good news bad news. Size and age is pretty much everything in the earlier ages and for boys it last until about 16 when it finally levels out (give or take a year). The problem is by then your kid will probably be ground down with frustration if they want to play at the highest level and will have to nose to grindstone it to stay competitive. It’s why so many kids who aren’t close to the birth line or early bloomers drop out by high school: the effort to get there isn’t worth it to them and there’s not a whole lot they can do to rebalance things in the early years.
In my experience the b team tends to be more unstable. You have the better players looking to leave for better opportunities. You have the weaker players being blamed by coaches and parents for losses, under threat of cut or upgrade and usually upset by play time minutes (I’ll sit on the bench and pay $1000s for an mls next team but not for the b team). If the team is under a higher letter league team that integrates, playing time and success may be variable depending on who comes down any given Sunday. The better players on the b team may be locked and looked over for promotion not just because they have a stigma of being b teamers, but coaches want to prevent a stampede out and losing your best players will get you that stampede while bringing in new a team players laterally just grows the club.
MLSN teams have A, B, and C teams all under MLSN? I thought it was just one team per age group?
They have announced an mls 2 for which ea and ndl are supposed to get integrated with. On the east coast, mls next clubs formed ndl as their own league under their control to allow them to have more fluidity in moving people up and down and to give benchers future and reserve players a place to play. Otherwise no…clubs have only 1 mls next team.
Messi>CR7
GOLD
I meant an MLSN club has multiple teams. The A team (MLSN) coach usually has a higher level of license.
Mystery Train
GOLD
It depends on the club and coaches for sure. LA Premier (now LA Surf) was pretty terrible about this back in the day. B Teams always, ALWAYS got the shaft when it came to practice times, locations, field quality, etc. The DoC's will visit the A team practices and be on a first name basis with A team parents. B teams? Never. The other problem is that generally the club would stick the B team coaches with multiple teams and seemed to struggle to cover the B team coach when scheduling conflicts arose. The worst is if your particular B team coach also happens to coach an A team in another age group. Guess who he/she is going to prioritize when it comes to schedule conficts. So, yes, B teams, especially at big clubs, will sometimes get treated like second class citizens.
However, as many have already said here, the B team parents typically were so much better to be around, and when they got the right coach, actually much more stable than the A team over the course of multiple seasons. Everyone is always trying to get to the next rung on the ladder, so the "A" team kids who were very good were constantly shopping for another A team that was higher ranked or played in a better league, etc. Some of my favorite memories of being a soccer dad were with the B teams my kid played on. She also had a really great coach on one of those squads so she truly did improve. When she got to the "A" teams, it was always much more tense and uncomfortable and that's when we began to bounce from one club to another. And although she made it to a top 10 nationally ranked ECNL team before she graduated HS, she'd never have gotten that chance at her original club. The DoC at LA Premier told me when she was 11 that she was a B team player and that if they had her on the B team, that's where she would stay because they were only looking to recruit other A team players from other clubs because they were angling to become a DA club. While I can appreciate his transparency there, he and his coaches turned out to be lousy talent evaluators. The players he picked over her never amounted to anything beyond HS and my kid turned out to be a 4 year starter in college. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Barry Ritson. Oh whoops. I said the inside part out loud. My bad.
Truth is, B teams can be a fantastic experience if your kid's aspirations and abilities are appropriate for that level at the time. Just beware that most clubs will openly prioritize the A teams over yours when it comes to resources, coaches, attention, support, general interest, etc.
At our club, when there are - for whatever reason - limited number of available fields for that week, the A teams still train on whatever field is still available while B team trainings get cancelled..
And A team plays in better more prestigious tournaments.
And A team usually gets the "better" coaches although this is very subjective as you can imagine.
YMMV club to club and if all that's even worth it. I'd imagine if you can more or less be in the starting lineup on the A team more than 50% of the time, it's probably worth it...
NewUser27
SILVER
Lets reply to the original question.
If your kid is 10 yrs old the only thing you need to care about is playing time .....and having touches on the ball. I
A team no playing time----- b team all the playing time in the world ......Id go B team.
Here's a stat for you and its real.
by the time your kid is 17/18, more than half of the kids you've played with will have quit, disappeared or burned out cause of their parents, girlfriends (and coaches)
Be careful cause very very few players make it to a d1 college or second team or national team....VERY FEW...
All them parents , take notes and remember them in 6-7 years and you'll see they all fall off.
TheMountie
BRONZE
We’re thinking of putting him in MLS Next as a bio band player for next season, and I’ve already spoken to a few coaches about this. Alternatively, we might spend a season in F1 Socal while playing on a second team in the CSL until ECNL makes the grade-year changes for 2026.
He’s turning 13 in September, and his appetite has increased significantly over the last 6 months, so we’re hoping for a growth spurt this year. If that doesn’t happen, we’re perfectly fine playing down until he physically develops more. He’s still putting in work with a personal trainer, and some backyard training. He understands now that coaches tend to value taller, faster, and stronger players early on, so he’s fully aware that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Wise kid! Best wishes!