7 vs 7 questions for SoCal League

[Carlsbad7]

I do think if a kid is going to play flight 3 club in the younger ages, then save the money and time commitment and just have the kid play another year or rec and if he or she wants to improve, take the money and time saved and do futsal or find a good small group training, etc.

100% agree with this statement. Playing "competitive" soccer on the 3rd or 4th team doesn't make much sense. What you're paying for in these types of teams is a dedicated coach (not a parent coach) quality is hit or miss, better fields (usually) than rec, and parents that are more into tournaments.

Futsal, Arena, Mexican Leagues will provide much more touches on the ball in a shorter amount of time than traditional field soccer. The more your kid touches the ball the more they can practice dribbling, passing, shooting, etc. Also, for girls especially at younger ages its fairly common to train with boys in Futsal. This makes a HUGE difference in how girls play on the field they get more aggressive + make faster decisions.

 

[Carlsbad7]

I wonder what would happen if a club only did futsal until 9v9. Then at 9v9 switched over to only playing field.

You'd have a bunch of super skilled players that likely weren't aggressive on the larger field. What this would mean is that all coaches would need to teach is aggressiveness, larger field tactics, and shooting. The coaches would never have to teach individual skills because that's all Futsal is.

 

[chipmonk]

Disagree strongly here. My kid played 3 seasons when he was a younger in Coast bronze. The AYSO all star and regular teams that transitioned almost always struggled even in the third/fourth division (AYSO United Teams were different....they could aggregate the top talent across the region). Even after he left, I heard a funny story from the same league of an AYSO State winning All Star team that transitioned to club as 09s that weren't allowed by coast straight into silver so they played in 08s bronze with a handful of 08 kids because they were absolutely sure they were going to pound the competition. They wound up losing their games by almost 10 points all the time and the coaches widely acknowledged to their families they had made a mistake.

Your anecdote about your kids rec team playing in a club league is matched by plenty of other club teams playing in the lower flights. And your other point is about a team making a bad choice and playing up an age group (possibly around the same age as kids in the older age group and hitting their growth spurts?) but was possibly a middle of the pack team in the proper age group? CSL IIRC CSL only has 2-3 levels at 7x7 and 9x9.

There’s also the South LA AYSO girls team that switched over and did really well. The anecdotes go both ways.

Again, we’re talking about 7v7 and the first year of 9x9 where it’s just as likely for a club team to provide a crappy experience as a rec league as the OP was describing. Let your kid be the best on a team for 3 months, then join an all star steam for 3 months. At that age, get them watching YouTube videos of soccer trainings and tricks instead of those fricking toy unboxings so they want to go outside and juggle instead of going to target and buying crappy toys.

His experience, BTW, with Latino league has been the exact opposite....those kids love to play and are doing it just for love of the game.

There you go, sounds like you found the good rec league in your area. This is how it should be for most kids. Just play a lot with a bunch of it being loosely structured. Most clubs at the younger ages aren’t enabling that.

 

[crush]

100% agree with this statement. Playing "competitive" soccer on the 3rd or 4th team doesn't make much sense. What you're paying for in these types of teams is a dedicated coach (not a parent coach) quality is hit or miss, better fields (usually) than rec, and parents that are more into tournaments.

Futsal, Arena, Mexican Leagues will provide much more touches on the ball in a shorter amount of time than traditional field soccer. The more your kid touches the ball the more they can practice dribbling, passing, shooting, etc. Also, for girls especially at younger ages its fairly common to train with boys in Futsal. This makes a HUGE difference in how girls play on the field they get more aggressive + make faster decisions.

My son played Rec for a few years and had a blast. He was scouted at a early age around when he was 7. AYSO Select wanted him but he didn't want them. He liked his rec team. His U10 team lost to the Smashing Pumpkins in the playoffs and my kid let a ball go through his leg playing GK in Golden Time with the Golden Goal rule in OT and that's when I saw him crushed with embarrassment, shame, guilt, let his team down and he ran off to the parking lot. It was brutal and I felt his pain. I tried to teach him to be a good sport and shake the hands and say goodbye to his pals but he would not. He blamed himself for the loss and took it way too hard. He was recruited later that year at big local club when he was 9 because he was fast, and I mean super-fast. Enough speed to catch an eye of a Doc at U9 in the local Temecula area. He said he saw potential (speed really) in my boy and with enough practice, he could develop my son. We went to a "tryout" and my kid was not going to make the team. Coach saw it as well because there is much more to soccer then speed. He offered my son a B team spot for $1500 and a chance to play against the A team during scrimmages and get destroyed. My son was a no way dad and he stayed Rec. The point I'm making is too many kids and their parents think their kid is Elite or they get sold a B Team with a chance to be developed into a Mia Hamm Elite type of player. My son overcame his failures in sport and played soccer in High School and Football. He really didn't give a shit about making a mistake anymore and that's what life is about. You don't lose, you learn.

 

[Grace T.]

Your anecdote about your kids rec team playing in a club league is matched by plenty of other club teams playing in the lower flights. And your other point is about a team making a bad choice and playing up an age group (possibly around the same age as kids in the older age group and hitting their growth spurts?) but was possibly a middle of the pack team in the proper age group? CSL IIRC CSL only has 2-3 levels at 7x7 and 9x9.

There’s also the South LA AYSO girls team that switched over and did really well. The anecdotes go both ways.

Again, we’re talking about 7v7 and the first year of 9x9 where it’s just as likely for a club team to provide a crappy experience as a rec league as the OP was describing. Let your kid be the best on a team for 3 months, then join an all star steam for 3 months. At that age, get them watching YouTube videos of soccer trainings and tricks instead of those fricking toy unboxings so they want to go outside and juggle instead of going to target and buying crappy toys.



There you go, sounds like you found the good rec league in your area. This is how it should be for most kids. Just play a lot with a bunch of it being loosely structured. Most clubs at the younger ages aren’t enabling that.

The problem with replicating with Latino league is the same reason he bought out of AYSO. AYSO markets itself as inclusive. That's why before they had Extras/VIP/United, AYSO had everyone play together from the future pro to the handicapped kid. But the problem is the future pro doesn't develop if they can't get the ball to him/her, and the handicapped kid just feels bad because even at younger ages they know he'll lose it and won't give him the ball. Latino league by contrast usually has a wider age range but it tiered. And by the time you hit the older ages, the kids on the higher tier are the ones that love it, or are club players playing for extra touches on the ball. The Latino leaguers also do tournaments, including out of state and internally, again all for love of the game. You can't compare that to an AYSO youngers team where some kid may care more about science but his parents are making him go, or a kid that rather be playing baseball but he is still in the sports sampling phase Europe fixes this problem by tiering rec. We (generally) don't have that option here, which is why club developed the way it did. It's essentially tiered rec in the early years, except for the very highest of levels.

The other difference is you get to try out for club and see what the coaches are like. It's not perfect, especially for first time parents, but it assures at least the coach knows the basics. You don't necessarily get that in AYSO core. Yes, you can lobby for a coach (we did that his last AYSO year) but it's entirely random and some teams are formed without even having a coach in place. I've told the story before how my kid's first coach put them all in football three point stances on the kickoff and had them rush the goal (hey it worked, but they learned nada). My father (a former low level pro player) even got dragged into assistant coaching (I think it was his 2nd AYSO year)....he felt really overwhelmed as an AYSO coach that didn't know what he was doing by way of teaching, even though he had played the game himself.

Finally, there's a reason why latino league exists as a rec option. Most of the parents there who have at least some knowledge of the game wouldn't put their kids into AYSO even if it were an option.