I despise this... and how accurate it is.
Better team vs. more play time
- Thread starter NotFromCali
- Start date
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
I agree with most of this with exception of why it's hard to come back to a big club after leaving. It's not so much politics but more about how competitive and difficult it is to break into a big club's top team. I have seen players leave thinking that they can come back...but they haven't developed at a rate that surpasses other new players coming in. And if the player is not a complete stud then the club will wonder if they'll just jump ship again.
Moral of the story is that if you find a big club that does a decent job with development then stick it out and work your butt off rather than hopping around clubs trying to find the perfect scenario. I have seen parents literally club hop so much that they have closed all their doors and can no longer play in top league.
OP will be fine if he brings his kid back to the big club when the 2015s are going 9v9. If he misses that period of team building, it will be much more difficult to get on the top team. Coaches get pickier when the roster is close to full. They will leave the last 1 or 2 spots unfilled for the stud that may or may not show up.
Well... if your kid isn't at least "somewhat exceptional" they aren't going to play college anyway. My son left a big club (the old DA) to play flight 1 (before all the letter leagues) and had no trouble moving back to MLS Next when he was ready. Yes, it took a while for him to move ahead of some of the legacy players, but having to fight for your spot is good. Of the kids that stayed on his old DA team, very few are still playing high level soccer at all. In the end, it's more about talent and hard work than where you play. Or maybe I should say, the talent and hard work of the player are going to determine where they end up playing.
Spot on. The big clubs want you to believe that if you leave, you're screwing your future chances of playing for the club. That's part of their marketing scam. If you're "somewhat exceptional" you will be welcomed back with open arms (as long as you weren't a complete ass when you left). If your not, then your not college material.
IDK about LA but in San Diego I can't tell you how many DA/MLS Next kids switched between clubs back and forth during U12 to U17.
Desert Hound
DA
At the higher levels there isn't tryouts (ECNL)...after the 1st or 2nd entry yrs. You just call around and find a spot. My kid was on the biggest club top team. Didn't get a ton of time. Just called another ECNL and moved right over as a starter and never looked back. Clubs will always take good players... back, etc.
It is at the lower levels where there are tryouts and stress about a team.
It is at the lower levels where there are tryouts and stress about a team.
Sure if you are Messi moving here from Argentina. Most likely you will be marginally better in some areas and marginally worse in other areas compared to the player that’s already on the top team. After a few years of club soccer, you know all the top kids, there is no hidden talent waiting to be discovered in a geographic area. Who gets on the top team is usually who gets there first. But I suppose if you are willing to drive 1.5hr to practices, then you could be the new kid a coach hasn’t seen before. But then you are driving 1.5 hrs to practice 3 times a week.
If a big club is 5 min from the house and they are build a team for EA or ECNL, you get in on that team early.
I could not disagree more. People seem think that relative ability is fixed. Like Alex is better than Bob who's better than Charlie at U9, so as they age, they all improve the same and retain the same order at U17, but that's not been my experience at all. There's the puberty lottery: some kids will just get luckier than others. There's the fact that some kids just work harder, but also, the game at U9 is totally different than at U17 and different again in college (and again at the pro level). We've all see the kid who can dribble everyone and score 5 at U-little who never makes an impact at U-high-school because they can't see the field. Or the kid who had a banger shot and could score at will from distance against the tiny goalies who can't score now because they can't get their shot off in time. Or the opposite where you see kids who struggle at U-little who come on strong later. My son has a teammate who struggled for years because he was small and not fast enough to keep up with the big boys who may be one of the most talented kids in the age group now. Not to mention "horses for corses". Some kids do better in different coaching styles, play styles, ect.
I know coaches may rely on reputation when evaluating, but that's lazy. There _is_ hidden talent in LA where the system is such a mess that a lot of great players wallow at smaller clubs or sunday league and the better coaches are able to identify it when it shows up and develop it.
At the top level, everyone is good be that U9 or U17. Comparing top level to top level, the margin is small. All I am saying is for you to make the team that’s already established, your level needs to be higher than the starting players. It’s not easy to do and needs a bit of luck.
Wow that’s a lot of travel. Is EA travel as bad as ECNL?
Look at the specific club or team, not just the league.
Rebels and Surf are both ECNL Southwest. Surf travels all over, and Rebels did all their tournaments in socal.
If your kid is a superstar but money or time is an issue, I’d take a look at the smaller ECNL clubs near you.
There are also scholarships for insanely talented kids from lower income families.
My kid (in high school) has been playing UPSL with the adults. He (and I) are surprised how very different the game is. I had assumed it wouldn't be very different after the final big difference at the high school level which is the keepers grow into the larger adult goals and it's therefore it becomes almost impossible (well very hard) at the higher levels (and by this I mean flight 1s and letter leagues on the boys side where the competition forces the boy keepers to be competent if they want to keep their slots) to score except through creative play (cut backs, crosses/corners, breaking the defensive line) or penalties/perfectly placed DFKs. There are far fewer shots and defending the space and creative offense become much more important in the adult game. I was frankly surprised...I thought this would only happen on the pro, not the semi-pro level. At first I thought it might be a quirk (maybe its just the team) but I can see it across various teams I've watched. I can't really put my finger on why that it is but I'm circling around perhaps that much like the keepers grow into their goals and begin to become competent in their mid teens, the defenders might do the same in their late teens (a combination of frontal cortex development, body development, and skill progression) particularly if they've kept playing into adulthood.
The issue with ECNL on the boys side is there are far fewer teams than either MLS Next or EA. Therefore large swaths of areas are underserved. For example, while on the boys side the former Laufa and TFA service the downtown-downey-long beach triangle which has a large Latino community, ECNL has no such presence on either the boys or the girl side to serve that underserved community.
shirivelli
SILVER
This is 100% correct. If your kid is Messi, all these aforementioned discussions are not needed here. However, all most of the cases at the top level, every one of the players are talented with motivation and working hard, so every little things really make a big difference when the majority of the players are on the same level set.
This assumes the concept of an "established" team. On the boy's side, if it exists, its short term. At the U13 and above level there is typically a fair amount of turnover from year to year. There is always opportunities, its just the Club's don't want you to think there is. The Clubs prey on the "fear of missing out".
NotFromCali
BRONZE
Nah. Moved clubs left on good terms. Big club kinda a mess, won’t go through the details. That club won’t make or break my kids chances..
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
If your kid is averaging 3-4 goals per game you are on the wrong team and or flight.
Not when they're U10. That's incredibly common at the younger ages. Until you go to the big field and play 11 v 11, anything and everything is on the table. That's the great equalizer.
I didn't read thru all the pages but I'll throw in my .02
Worry less about playing up, what flight your kid plays in, and what jersey he/she is wearing. Find a club/coach that focuses on development
and puts winning second. And makes playing soccer FUN..especially at these earlier ages.
This year my youngest moved up to 11v11. Coach told us things would change and we'd be winning games and losing games as they learned to play on the big field. We finished 5th of 8 teams in F1. A few losses due to dumb mistakes but they're continuing to learn and develop. Coach isn't the big yelling and screaming type vs the previous club/coach we played for. (Who we heard eventually got fired for some BS he was pulling. No surprise.)
Good chemistry between the players and good parents also helps. We've been on teams with some parents that were so obnoxious I sometimes looked forward to getting knocked out early from a tournament because I couldn't stand listening to them.
As far as worrying about HS and college..you've got a few years before you need to start worrying about that. If your kid isn't having fun now
and not developing..he/she might not even be interested in playing HS.
DI DII DIII etc. People get too focused on that. One coach told us long ago..if you had to choose between a DI soccer program with minimal playing time with a DII-equivalent school that your kid will major in and spend their life/career doing vs a DII soccer program with a lot of playing and time and with a DI-equivalent major the answer is obvious. (Playing time is an added plus.) The long-term career should be the bigger picture.
Worry less about playing up, what flight your kid plays in, and what jersey he/she is wearing. Find a club/coach that focuses on development
and puts winning second. And makes playing soccer FUN..especially at these earlier ages.
This year my youngest moved up to 11v11. Coach told us things would change and we'd be winning games and losing games as they learned to play on the big field. We finished 5th of 8 teams in F1. A few losses due to dumb mistakes but they're continuing to learn and develop. Coach isn't the big yelling and screaming type vs the previous club/coach we played for. (Who we heard eventually got fired for some BS he was pulling. No surprise.)
Good chemistry between the players and good parents also helps. We've been on teams with some parents that were so obnoxious I sometimes looked forward to getting knocked out early from a tournament because I couldn't stand listening to them.
As far as worrying about HS and college..you've got a few years before you need to start worrying about that. If your kid isn't having fun now
and not developing..he/she might not even be interested in playing HS.
DI DII DIII etc. People get too focused on that. One coach told us long ago..if you had to choose between a DI soccer program with minimal playing time with a DII-equivalent school that your kid will major in and spend their life/career doing vs a DII soccer program with a lot of playing and time and with a DI-equivalent major the answer is obvious. (Playing time is an added plus.) The long-term career should be the bigger picture.
I did a study before the Girls Development (grooming) Academy came to us all 2017. ECNL had scores of 2-1, 1-0 and so on and it was very rare to see anyone with hat trick. Then the GDA started and all of sudden girls were scoring two hat tricks a game bro. Pad the stats (PTS) with goals and more goals so you can make the list and go to Big U. I watched it. The GDA was so watered down because all the parents that paid to play for their children's play time were guaranteed 25% starts. I saw scores of 14-0, 16-1, 10-0, 13-2, 9-0, 11-0 and even worse.
This is an interesting post because it got me to thinking about the arrogance of club soccer. Many of these coaches, when they're not nailing a player's divorced mom or selling merch out of the trunk, come off as pretty dismissive of parents. In some ways we do that to ourselves. To your point, you want a coach that develops. I think all of us would agree on that. Yet what do the parents, especially of younger teams, want all the time? Wins. Those are the parents that yell, call, email and otherwise make a good coach lose his or her mind. It's a bit of a self inflicted wound. Maybe some of these prima donnas aren't 100% to blame for their behavior. That shit gets old as a parent. Imagine a good coach dealing with it year after year.
I played the game from my youth, and coached (w)rec(k) level teams when they needed a coach, so in many ways parents were just glad they had someone that knew the game and showed up so the kid could play. I never coached a high level club team and deal with parents... with or without a large checkbook. You bring up a ton of valid points... like play for development, play in good chemistry environments if you can because toxic teams kill, ignore the Jones family and their hiring of special coaches, screaming at games, buying expensive cleats, college recruiting services, D1s, etc.
In the end, there has to be a passion for the game. Most of these kids become great because of passion, work ethic and good coaches. Not all the other bullshit.