I would argue make mistakes in your pickup games with your friends and in practice, and make no mistakes in the club game. Risk taking is overrated when failed attempts have no consequences.
SoCal Schedule
- Thread starter sandiegofutbolguy
- Start date
The goal and the humiliation are a reasonable consequences. Soccer is so low scoring that it becomes a game of mistakes esp on a full field: if someone doesn’t make a mistake it should be a 0-0 game. If you don’t learn from it the academy (or team) will next season drop you. The parents coming for your head blaming you for a loss in a meaningless game (except possible promotion for their kid) is not a good consequence. The coach berating you for trying something is not a good consequences. The doc berating the coach for not winning the game and costing them promotion is not a good consequence. The only thing the latter teaches you is to play it safe and not take chances next time. Conversely making mistakes during practice or pickup when there aren’t some stakes on the line doesn’t develop anyone. The key isn’t no stakes: it’s proportional stakes to allow risk taking and learning without becoming risk adverse or reckless
Scrub It Kook
SILVER ELITE
Don't think we can assume players would even stick around for the relegation game. Even today, losing teams implode all the time. I think Pro/Rel would amplify this. Not to mention clubs cleaning house for teams with losing records.
Also, what is the incentive for the club to participate in a pro/rel system in a pay to play environment?
Exactly. Pro players stick around because they don’t have a choice. They are under contract, tied to the team.if they perform poorly in a rel situation someone else won’t trade for them. Youth players just move on. Clubs clear house. Unless you tie them both it doesn’t work.
You give too little credit to soccer parents. People don’t just hop to the best teams. If the coach is good and treats everyone fairly, players will stick around for the team to get better.
“Coach is good” is a fantasy that takes us back to p2p environment. My son had only 2 good coaches…left the first because the team always missed out on promotion by 1 so best teammates left until it was his turn…reality in pro rel is you advance only if you have a group of players playing under the level they should play at. He had 1 ok coach. Rest were all fers ranging from people who had no business being with children, daddy ballers or bad human beings in for themselves. “Coach is good” is elusive in p2p and if you get one there are factors that conspire to lose him behind your control
Also a huge chunk of “good” is winning. It’s what American parents care about. Not fairness. I’ve seen them argue players like alternate gks shouldn’t get playtime because it costs them games and that only starters should play because we need to win the tournament. If anything I give too much credit to soccer parents. Here’s a test: best player on a team…scores goals but surly attitude and doesn’t work hard in practice and argues with the coach…does he start let alone play.
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The Soccer Dr
BRONZE
This thread highlights the need for coaches to deliver value beyond winning. Every parent - including those who are coaches - want their child to grow up happy and fulfilled. The pathway is created by the character, values and life skills that start at home, are advanced at school, and developed in sport. Resilience, Grit, teamwork, good communication, all of them support success in school, at work, and in life. Yet soccer only talks of player pathways, won loss records, college scholarships, and then wonders why that's what parents focus on. The soccer field is a classroom where life skills are developed and when the lessons learned in the classroom are combined with the lessons learned on the field, you create a stronger platform for success in life. Want to engage parents in a different way, show them you get what they want, highlight it before, during and after every game, and engage THEM in the process. If you want to shift behavior offer a greater value. Sport is a SAFE place to fail, failure is an important part of growth, and promotion relegation does not encourage safe play, it rewards, good coaches, good players, and great teamwork - including the parents.
I like what you're saying unfortunately for players soccer is minefield of bad coaches, parents, other players, etc. If you get through it all being better or worse off as a person is debatable.
The ones I dont like are those that have been through it all and use their knowledge of how things will play out to exploit teams, clubs, parents, players, etc. Its like you know why soccer can be bad and you choose to go down that path anyway.
The Soccer Dr
BRONZE
In any community as big as the soccer community in Southern California - the largest and most successful market in the US - you are going to have the good, the bad, and the ugly. So while it is true there are some bad, even ugly coaches, the reality is the vast majority of them are good people, giving back, and doing their best. The best coaches want to differentiate themselves from the rest and the best way to do that is to create a different conversation with the parents. Of course you will teach soccer skills - when you send your child to school you expect them to learn to read and write - but by offering life skill development you define you and your team differently. Life skill development is not a "nice to have" at the youth level it should be the cornerstone of everything you do. If you want to build a good team with supportive parents, create a team culture/ethos based upon values and then own them every practice and game, and recognize those players that honor those values at all times. Control what you can control, and don't focus on what you can't change - the bad and the ugly.
Pro-rel is a better system if you want to develop players that can compete at the highest level. If MLS next were pro-rel, the free to play academy teams would actually play meaningful games against teams that earn their way up the ladder. There won’t be any cannon fodders.
Currently MLS next HD teams can’t win a tournament against ECNL teams. Mind you, ECNL teams are players in the same grade as you, these are kids who will compete with you for a college scholarship. We have a supposedly top league with teams that can’t compete with kids from the same grade as them and half of teams are cannon fodders. How is this good for development?
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
And there are ECNL teams that can't win against N1 teams. N1 teams that can't win against Flight 2 teams. And Flight 2 teams that can't win against Flight 4 teams. There is no league anywhere, where every member of the league will beat every member of the league below. It's not how sports teams are organized, anywhere. Certainly not in soccer. If you rank the leagues in order of competitiveness, a strong MLS HD team will beat a strong ECNL team which will beat a strong ECNL-RL team which will beat a strong N1 team. Comparing teams of different strength across league, and using that comparison to make judgments on the strength of the overall league, is a fundamental misunderstanding. The range from top team to bottom team in any league, is a much wider gap than between the average strength of that league and the one below.
I’m referring to all the big tournaments this summer. ECNL teams overall did much better than MLS next teams. More ECNL teams are in the semi than MLS next teams. Soccer rankings also reflect that now.
Secondly what you said about a team in lower league consistently beating a team in a higher league supports the need to have pro-rel…where teams can earn their way into better competition. Under pro-rel, the range from the top team to bottom team in a league WILL NOT be a wider gap than between the average strength of that league and the one below
The Soccer Dr
BRONZE
You have highlighted the reality of a "closed" model. Teams do not play across platforms which is ok, that is how the system is set up. But all the closed leagues claim to be the best, they all hold "National Championships" and they all claim to have the best "pathway". The reality is the closed system has advantages and is here to stay, but the only way you get true competition, or make a claim to being the best, is if you have open access or a system that brings teams from the closed leagues together with the teams in the team based open leagues. This idea is often rejected by many in the closed model for fear of being found out about team strength, coaching expertise, costs, travel demands, and the overall message that if you are "not here" you are going nowhere. Open access is essential even if the ecosystem demands both an open and closed model of play exist.
This misses the point of why cannon fodder exists. It exists so the academies can have teams to scrimmage against year round and for the bench to be able to get game experience. The fodder likes it because the mlsn events have the greatest college exposure so good for players and the p2p clubs get to sell the mls badge.
Cost is too high which is why it doesn’t happen. You don’t need it for recruitment. The mlsn tournaments already have highest draw. Closer loops tend toward the older: olders are already schedule stretched and are worried about taking an injury. Parents don’t want the already additional cost. Clubs done want to be found out or play their benchers and then get humiliated. There’s literally no reason for the interested parties to agree. Only way to change that is if it became a recruiting mechanism but surf is no longer even a top ten recruiting tournament on the boys side…it’s all about the mls next tournaments.
Good people can be corrupted by bad incentives which is coaches are promoted and paid bonuses on retention and win record. Here’s again the simple test: you have a surly lazy striker that is responsible for most of your goals, late to practice, has a super bad attitude. Does the coach play or even start him because he wins games?
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RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
No. Again, this is the complete misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the landscape. Pro/Rel does nothing at all to compress the varied capabilities of teams competing in a league. Moreover - there *already is* pro/rel in most of the landscape, it only stops at the very top. Like you - I think that on balance, adding pro/rel to MLSN/ECNL/GA would be a fairer and potentially more entertaining way for teams at the second level to gain access, and teams that couldn't cut it to be relegated. But it does very little in terms of preventing ineffective teams from being in any league - it just cycles out the most ineffective each season to obtain new ones.
The Soccer Dr
BRONZE
If teams in the same city - but in different leagues - played one another the costs come down. Teams claim to be the best but will not play teams in the same city or next door. If you want to sell yourself as the best but choose not to play very good teams in your neighborhood it seems like an empty claim. The current system drives up costs, travel, and time commitments and does nothing to validate the many claims of "being the best". No one wins when the game scores are lopsided or teams struggle to win a game. Games that finish within a goal or two offer the best competition and enjoyment. The system is "selling the win" and then teams and coaches get frustrated when parents expect the team to win. Families are asked to spend thousands of dollars, travel through S Cal and beyond when Southern California has all that it needs here. Southern California has a playing population bigger than most teams in the WC yet families are told they have to "travel' for good competition. Everything any coach would need is right here, but for reasons already discussed clubs will not embrace the obvious.
I don’t agree with this. There are enough talents in SoCal to have 10 teams that can compete with Strikers/LAFC/Galaxy. If you open it up the top league, talents will congregate and there won’t be canon fodders anymore.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Academically, I think you're right. If there was no way to judge how "good" the teams were across platform, it would be foolish to try. Each could (and does) claim to be "the best", and there's no way to discount their own generous interpretation.
But in the real world right now, one would have to cover their ears/eyes to pretend that there's no way to determine which league(s) are "best". From a recruiting standpoint, all one needs to do is look at where top colleges are recruiting from. From a financial standpoint, all one needs to do is look at where leagues are expanding/contracting. From a team performance standpoint, all one needs to do is look at SR or any other valid/objective rating system. Even though there is primarily a closed system, there is more than enough interplay to make the differences quite clear.
Pushing for "Open Access" is a perfectly noble goal, it's just never going to happen because it's in nobody's individual best interest for it to happen. What's more likely to happen is that things keep sliding in one direction, with single leagues increasing/maintaining dominance until a splinter league finally decides to challenge it.
The Soccer Dr
BRONZE
If the coach established the culture and ethos of the team up front, shares them with the families and then behaves based upon those values, few will complain. A player who is late, has a bad attitude, and doesn't follow the team ethos should not only not be on the field he/she should not be on the team. Parents who are engaged up front and throughout the process will be more supportive, watching a late, lazy, bad attitude player get playing time sends the wrong message.