Ask any BMW or Mercedes or Lexus owner who has the best car. You will get different subjective answers. All bragging theirs is the best, all convinced their money is worth spend. You’d just need to convince yourself and that’s not hard to do.
Socal named as Operator for National 1 League
- Thread starter shankbone
- Start date
A fair question. A combination of factors, 1) his buddies play at that club, 2) it is by far the most convenient major club in terms of logistics (which is aided by #1 due to carpooling), and 3) we were strung along by prior a coach who indicated he was on a path to move up--but then the coach and club parted ways.
To be clear, I am not looking to argue that my kid should be playing at a higher level. Rather, I'm looking to get him the resources to address his current shortcomings (his game is far from balanced, but he leans hard on a certain set of skills that are quite effective at his current level--but likely won't be sufficient at the next level). One of the previous posters hit the nail on the head: he is NOT going to miss his friend's birthday party to practice, and the natural gifts that he relied on to let him coast to his current level are not as unique as they once were.
East County Soccer Dad
SILVER ELITE
Does he play an especially valuable position that is hard to come by; strong CB or keeper?
Is his position blocked at the current club?
Have you asked teammates who they train with?
If your kid is the captain and getting full playtime and the top player at his current level, he COULD be playing a higher level already as a bench player (and the problem is then getting him off the bench, part of which is a training issue, and part of it is just playing with higher level kids). Sounds like the club doesn’t want to move him up because it will hurt the current team (lose best player) for not much gain for higher team (lose a slot that could be sold to someone else for not much gain to the higher team). But the catch 22 is he won’t develop unless he not only gets more training but plays with better players. At least you are realistic where your kid stands. 9/10 the problem is the parents aren’t. Unless you go full immersive though trainings take time (meanwhile other players continue to advance as well) and it’s not something fixable over months.
Scrub It Kook
SILVER ELITE
I think you may have your answer. One of the hardest decisions for me as a sports parent was letting my kid deal with the outcomes (many times consequences) of their choices. It's also quite rewarding for them when they elect to put in extra and it pays off. Ultimately, that understanding will do them well through life after sports.
100% Unfortunately high school sports (at least in SoCal) have become such a pressure cooker one cannot reasonably expect to make Varsity without having dedicated many years to the sport playing traveling club--and even then one has to have started early enough to have made the "A team", whatever that means in a given sport. In soccer at my kid's school, that's spelled M-L-S-N or E-C-N-L.