SCDSL adding Discovery Division

JJP said:
Let me give you a real world example. My son’s 03 academy team had the best technical coach in the club, except for the director. His team was filled with a bunch of highly athletic, flashy skilled, technically deficient in passing/receiving, stupid, selfish players. This coach did an incredible job fixing a lot of the stupid and the passing/receiving skills. He couldn’t fix the selfish and there was a certain level of residual stupid.
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part of what i was getting at. some kids can be athletic but cant fix stupid and selfish. there are also kids who are athletic but gas out in 30 mins. a kid might not be able to jump out the gym but can run like horse all day. listened to a discussion about "mexican style" soccer online yesterday and discussion goes a similar route. often its a matter of what the coach values and what they need for the style they play. things like fixing passing/receiving should be something any competent coach should be able to fix - we do agree not all coaches are competent.

I completely disagree with your democratic approach. There are a limited number of top coaches, there are limited number of top teams, there are limited number of spots on top teams. Elite coaches and players should be together. Elite coaches can’t turn average into great. Mixing donkey and superstars leads to a losing team.
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in the end picking teams and placing the kids isnt democratic - it shouldnt be. im not saying mix flight1 kids and train them with bronze level teams. im just not of the opinion that you cant find great/good coaches outside of DA/ECNL/Premier or this new circuit or find kids that can make their way up a properly structured dev system. These circuits arent the end-all in soccer or development. Many times its politics and about writing the check. So yes, youll get the kids who shouldnt be playing at the correct level. Ive never said promote kids to levels they shouldnt be in. Im saying we need to look at the system as a whole from bottom up. Too much emphasis on top down. Cant improve talent pull with this approach.

Truth is many of the academies and teams in these systems want it closed off as much as possible in order for their flaws or lack of quality isnt seen. For instance, my friend put his flight1 team in one of the big tournaments - requested to be placed in division with academy teams. They ended up putting the team down at flight2 ( didnt concede a goal and scored 20+ goals, didnt help anyone improve). Instead the host club stuck pre-academy teams in and even their own flight1. They all got hammered. Same team wiped the floor with "pre-academy" teams who practiced 4x a week to beat them and ended up getting killed. Same team who had been playing flight2 as two separate teams this time last year. To me its about progression, and true development. Hard to balance wins/losses vs development. Some coaches good at winning but doesnt mean kids are progressing in development. Best example of who balances this idea is Hugo Perez. I think he is an "elite" coach but his teams would get spanked and he wouldnt give a crap. Was about getting kids to where they need to go and he tried to get US Soccer to understand it but they didnt share his philosophy. Can talk to ODP coaches who have kids on their teams, leave for DA teams and come back to ODP - coaches who also coach kids at all levels of play. We can find examples to show our points but all the systems have flaws. What we suggested makes more sense, but the sensible people dont make decisions in the US Soccer landscape.
 
boomer said:
That's not what he said. Correct me if I'm wrong here NTS, but believe you are saying that hyper athletes are not the answer to US Soccer's problems and lack of competitiveness on the international stage.

A certain level in the key athletic qualities (size, speed, agility, strength, stamina, etc...) are necessary to be an elite pro/int'l level soccer player, but the sport is more art than science. So much of the game is about the 6-inches between the ears. I do think you need to be "athletic enough" to execute and I believe every position requires a different baseline of each of those attributes. What would be considered "enough" is the real debate here. I know I don't have the answer.
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yep another person who likes just putting words in people's mouths. Id take a kid with 120mins of stamina and works hard vs the lazy kid with great speed, can jump through a roof but gases by halftime. One of my friends kid can run all game, can kick like a donkey but runs around with no purpose. So the kid doesnt play at flight1 - have to keep him at flight 2 until he can learn how be more thoughtful. again, depends on what coaches want for positions. my kid would LOVE to play attacking CM or wing but doesnt because he doesnt have speed - he plays as a pivot because he has good technical skill and can get things moving forward. im not unrealistic, but we need to more inclusive (with merit) vs being more separated.
 
JJP said:
You need a certain very high base level of athleticism to be a legitimate academy player. If you take a bunch of OK athletes and train them up you will end up with a below average flight 1 team. Not That Serious approach seems to be cast a wide net and train all the kids, and the wider net will catch more elite kids. The problem with that approach is that there are limited numbers of quality coaches, and frankly it’s a waste of the best coaches time to train kids with low ceilings.

IMO the level of coaching has to, on avg., get a lot better before you can take “cast the wide net” approach. There are so many crap coaches out there, the few good coaches have to be assigned to the best players.
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You're the kind of "soccer guy" who would've passed on a young Sergio Busquets or Andrea Pirlo. Elite Athleticism is an asset not a pre-requisite, provided they are not completely non-athletic. Like the upper echelons of US Soccer, you just don't get it.
 
futboldad1 said:
You're the kind of "soccer guy" who would've passed on a young Sergio Busquets or Andrea Pirlo. Elite Athleticism is an asset not a pre-requisite, provided they are not completely non-athletic. Like the upper echelons of US Soccer, you just don't get it.
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lol, forgot about pirlo. messi's height would have limited his opps here in the us as well - especially with his medical condition

we all have different opinion and what we value. at lower age levels having the fastest biggest guy work, but hasnt translated at highest levels. US Soccer is still trying to push Zardes as a success story.
 
Not_that_Serious said:
lol, forgot about pirlo. messi's height would have limited his opps here in the us as well - especially with his medical condition

we all have different opinion and what we value. at lower age levels having the fastest biggest guy work, but hasnt translated at highest levels. US Soccer is still trying to push Zardes as a success story.
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Exactly. Jonathan Gonzalez can't get a sniff, but the US staff brought in a guy who while at the January camp was traded to Columbus for a 28 year old with minimal caps with his national team PLUS $400,000 in allocation $$$. Oh, and a $100k bonus payout if Kamara scores 12 or more goals this season. Shows you how much Galaxy valued Zardes at that point.

This is a prime example of what's wrong with US Soccer right now...picking a player purely based on athleticism and experience. Zardes anywhere a national team camp based on his form over the past 3 seasons is an absolute joke.
 
boomer said:
Exactly. Jonathan Gonzalez can't get a sniff, but the US staff brought in a guy who while at the January camp was traded to Columbus for a 28 year old with minimal caps with his national team PLUS $400,000 in allocation $$$. Oh, and a $100k bonus payout if Kamara scores 12 or more goals this season. Shows you how much Galaxy valued Zardes at that point.

This is a prime example of what's wrong with US Soccer right now...picking a player purely based on athleticism and experience. Zardes anywhere a national team camp based on his form over the past 3 seasons is an absolute joke.
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Take a look at Open Cup and teams Eric Wynalda enters. Literally finds kids off the streets and able to hang with pro teams - even beating them. He even stated hed take the player with heart with less then killer measurables over most of the phenom kids who never has to fight for their spots. Not a secret how many of the Latin Clubs are killing many of our good clubs in state. Different mentality - not like these kids are playimg with so called "elite" players. These coaches getting more out of players with less resources.
 
futboldad1 said:
You're the kind of "soccer guy" who would've passed on a young Sergio Busquets or Andrea Pirlo. Elite Athleticism is an asset not a pre-requisite, provided they are not completely non-athletic. Like the upper echelons of US Soccer, you just don't get it.
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Blah blah, Pirlo Riquelme, Xavi, Iniesta . . . Blah blah.

Those legit good slow players are so rare. You can coach up thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of those slow players to find one Pirlo.

And what you’re ignoring is that teams had to surround Pirlo and Riquelme with speedy midfielders to win and feed them the ball. Xavi had, at various points in his career, Messi, Ronaldhino, Henri, Eto’o and other greats to draw pressure from the midfield and create pockets of space for him to operate.

The point is that even the greatest slow players required specialized roster construction and to be surrounded by top notch talent to take full advantage of their talent.

I would also point out that Pep Guardiola, who was responsible for promoting Xavi and Iniesta to Barca’s top team, didn’t buy any Xavi or Iniesta type players for Man City. Instead he spent lots of money on fast speedy fullbacks.
 
As someone relatively new to club soccer in SoCal and at the younger levels, its madness to hear about all these leagues and different structures. Considering that contact time with a coach is usually about 75% at training sessions and 25% at matches (probably only 10% competitive), why does all this matter so much? Can't you just find a good coach and sign for that coach, no matter what division/flight they are in? I understand the need to have all the top level kids playing each other at 11v11, but from everyone's responses, sounds like it won't happen anyway. Just have one division 1, two division 2s (north/south), four division 3s and work it down from there.

No wonder talent is diluted and wasted, I'm sure there are hundreds of kids who are in the wrong levels, purely because other parents get confused about all these structures and put their kids in the wrong environment (either too high up and fail/quit, or too low down and don't improve as its too easy).
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
As someone relatively new to club soccer in SoCal and at the younger levels, its madness to hear about all these leagues and different structures. Considering that contact time with a coach is usually about 75% at training sessions and 25% at matches (probably only 10% competitive), why does all this matter so much? Can't you just find a good coach and sign for that coach, no matter what division/flight they are in? I understand the need to have all the top level kids playing each other at 11v11, but from everyone's responses, sounds like it won't happen anyway. Just have one division 1, two division 2s (north/south), four division 3s and work it down from there.

No wonder talent is diluted and wasted, I'm sure there are hundreds of kids who are in the wrong levels, purely because other parents get confused about all these structures and put their kids in the wrong environment (either too high up and fail/quit, or too low down and don't improve as its too easy).
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Good post. It's very real issue that many parents think "yay we won xyz" but have no clue that they played Flight 3. For those that know it's fine, but I've met many parents who think their kids are junior messi's as they are, and have been, misinformed as to their teams actual level. Some clubs literally make a living off this.
 
futboldad1 said:
Good post. It's very real issue that many parents think "yay we won xyz" but have no clue that they played Flight 3. For those that know it's fine, but I've met many parents who think their kids are junior messi's as they are, and have been, misinformed as to their teams actual level. Some clubs literally make a living off this.
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Yes I noticed this at State cup last weekend. In the knockout stages, the scenes on the sidelines were crazy! I wonder if everyone knew that it was the Mayors division and that there were over 100 teams competing in the Governers/Presidents levels above us?
 
Don't get hung up on this. The vast majority of kids play soccer to have fun and have no future playing for schools beyond HS. A handful of kids have the talent to move up to the elite levels of youth soccer, which opens doors for college scholarships. If that is your kid, then you simply want them to play on the best team they can because college coaches only really scout the elite teams at showcases and certain tournaments. The leagues are all jockeying to provide a solution to the problem of talent dilution by giving high-level teams what they want, which is opportunities to play teams that are as good or better than them. So you, as a parent, should do exactly what you wrote, find a good coach and see how the kid develops. If the kid can move to the elite ranks (great), if not, don't sweat it and have fun.
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
Yes I noticed this at State cup last weekend. In the knockout stages, the scenes on the sidelines were crazy! I wonder if everyone knew that it was the Mayors division and that there were over 100 teams competing in the Governers/Presidents levels above us?
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Winning a game at the Mayor's division means just as much to those young boys and girls as it does for those competing in Governors, Presidents and National Cup. The only people that really care about what level it was are the A-Hole adults. So cheer, congratulate your kid for making it however far they did and go celebrate.
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
Yes I noticed this at State cup last weekend. In the knockout stages, the scenes on the sidelines were crazy! I wonder if everyone knew that it was the Mayors division and that there were over 100 teams competing in the Governers/Presidents levels above us?
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Maybe to us adults- mayors, governors or presidents means something. But to that 9 or 10 year old kid, it means nothing. Winning means they get to play another weekend of a game that (hopefully) they love playing. With teammates they (hopefully) enjoy playing with. Once state cup is over (at any level) most teams fall apart.

I saw this quote the other day-
“Kids compete. Parents compare.”

Put your kid at the right level that keeps them playing for as long as possible. If they are a flight 3 player, don’t try to move them to a higher flight if they aren’t ready. They’ll be miserable riding the bench or blowing it on the field week after week.
 
Don't get me wrong, we love to celebrate our kids achievements. I just worry for those parents who go mental on the sideline, over pressure their 8 year old kid and believe their kid is the next Messi, when there are 100 teams they haven't even played! Haha.

It looks like all but one kid are returning next year, so that's a good sign. We played Bronze and came second, so I think the coach is putting us in Silver next year. Looks like there were only a dozen or so silver teams last year (which was the top division) so it looks like a good challenge for my son. Hopefully nobody takes it too seriously though, the kids aren't even double-digits yet!
 
Just waiting for them to drop the SD and just be CSL again. Lol... in other words they are Sayinb CSL is the way to go
 
So in summary...
- scdsl is creating a response to CRL
- it's all about the money
- maybe some other teams outside scdsl join but very doubtful
- everyone's mad that we don't have an all inclusive league


However, isn't national cup an all inclusive tournament? My point is that the best teams in SoCal will play against each other so we do have an all inclusive tournament.

Academy teams is a whole different level, not necessarily better teams but the purpose is different.
 
SoccerFan4Life said:
So in summary...
- scdsl is creating a response to CRL
- it's all about the money
- maybe some other teams outside scdsl join but very doubtful
- everyone's mad that we don't have an all inclusive league


However, isn't national cup an all inclusive tournament? My point is that the best teams in SoCal will play against each other so we do have an all inclusive tournament.

Academy teams is a whole different level, not necessarily better teams but the purpose is different.
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Worry about your player and the coach and team. If your player is improving and happy and the team is doing well what difference does it make what league they play in. If you have the need to see what team is better in each age group look at the results of CRL and National cup. Also if you have the need brag about what league is better look at the same results.

CRL and National league are both inclusive tournaments.Both lead to far west regionals.

Play those tournament above ,National League and top level tournament are all inclusive. I feel playing these tournament are more important that fall leagues with the current state
 
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