I recently saw a story of a kid who was either a TE or WR that hardly played in HS due to the quality of the team, but got a D1 offer based on his 7v7 film.
I'm actually surprised that there as many kids still playing football as there is, particularly high school. If you want to play high school football there is zero reason to play pop warner football. Why risk a concussion at an early age, and I'd argue that club soccer is much better training for football than pop warner (at least for the skill players).
The exception is qb. It takes a long time to develop skills and the tactical awareness is as difficult and as fast as soccer. Most of the qbs at the top 20 SoCal schools have been playing a long time since they weee tykes, even if it’s just flag and by middle school most are looking at the top middle school programs which Iiuc are contact.
Think about the tens of thousands of basketball players that just weren’t tall enough
Very little passing in wee tyke Pop Warner and not much more after that age. Like you mention, most of the development occurs in middle school in flag or 7x7 passing leagues. The footwork and field vision learned by soccer players is a significant benefit for QB's. Maybe a steeper learning curve for soccer players turned QB, but not out of the question. A kid my son grew up playing soccer with, moved to football country in middle school and started playing non-contact football. He had Power 5 D1 offers by the time he was a sophomore. It's not as common for a soccer player to play QB as other FB skill positions, but it's not uncommon. Youth soccer is still better training for football than youth contact football. The toughest part for many soccer players is learning to tackle or be tackled. My son is still not very fond of either, but that's likely due to other factors.
Problem with soccer is it’s not a sport you can pivot to in the teen years. The more common pivot in this group is to football
The elite football players (d1 and above) are elite their whole life. They’re the hammer not the nail.
If you're having these kind of difficulties quit playing now. The coaches will only get worse. It's an annoying reality with soccer.
Many players that are very fast growing up do not develop dribbling or passing skills as much, since they rely on their speed. Speed solves many problems in soccer but by the time they become adults, lots of players are fast. This may not be your player, but it is true for many "fast" players. The other thing that happens is defenders get better at reading the fast player and let them know early in the game that there can be consequences.
It's with the same with the big leggers and shooting. Coaches teach them early on to shoot it over the keepers head. It doesn't work anymore by the time the keepers are U16 and can touch the cross bar. The ones that have been practicing precision shooting to the corners then have the advantage. And then people scratch their heads and wonder why the boys keep woofing it over the cross bar (it's because they've been taught to flex rather than point their foot and therefore do it every single time).
This is so spot on, and the experience of a lot of kids. Very similar story for my son, although he was only playing soccer by U13 (and totally out of the sport by U16). It became a job in many respects, MLS Next is a grind for both kids and parents. Like you said "it's the least fun". Our youth soccer system doesn't develop passion for the sport. There are more coaches that are passion robbing than passion creating. (Not totally blaming coaches, as I think the lack of passion is partially cultural).
Even English academies have "facilitator' players that they know will never make it.
Most college coaches are soccer passion killers.
I hear that particularly on the women's side. For men, they're either hardened by that time or have no passion left to lose.
We had mostly good experiences with girl's and boy's club coaches.I hear that particularly on the women's side. For men, they're either hardened by that time or have no passion left to lose.
I could be totally wrong about this, but I tend to hear more positive things about girl's club soccer coaches than I do boys.
My son has had 6 (it’s going to be 7) coaches since he started travel (more than 1/2 of them having to move due to factors beyond his control). Out of the 6 two of them were great (both focused on development and took knocks on the wins as a result), 2 had their merits and demerits, 2 were downright awful. For the money we pay that shouldn’t really be the case.
