Why do we tolerate 3+ games in 2-3 days?

Our team has played 4 games this season and had 2 torn acl’s and a concussion. 02/03 age group.
 
Travel 7 hours each way, pay two nights hotel, play 2 games, do the same the following weekend to get 4 games in. Pay to play at its finest. So glad everyone has the time and money. 1/2 the kids on my daughters team couldn't afford this, and there are 1000's of other teams in the same boat.

This is why we have leagues and can play locally so we can get in 1-2 games per weekend for 12-14 games total. But there are 100's of cities where this isn't even possible in the US, so they travel to a tourney so they can play. A 3 game tourney or showcase with a Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Sunday day time game would be a nice compromise to get 3 games in vs quality competition. 4-5 is excessive.
 
socalkdg said:
Travel 7 hours each way, pay two nights hotel, play 2 games, do the same the following weekend to get 4 games in. Pay to play at its finest. So glad everyone has the time and money. 1/2 the kids on my daughters team couldn't afford this, and there are 1000's of other teams in the same boat.

This is why we have leagues and can play locally so we can get in 1-2 games per weekend for 12-14 games total. But there are 100's of cities where this isn't even possible in the US, so they travel to a tourney so they can play. A 3 game tourney or showcase with a Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Sunday day time game would be a nice compromise to get 3 games in vs quality competition. 4-5 is excessive.
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Agree that league schedule is the best with weekly games etc. But tournaments are also here to stay because clubs want the additional revenue. For the older kids, I just don't think parents and players care as much about trophies and medals. I bet 80% of families would be fine paying the same fee for 2 or 3 showcase type games without a "champion" crowned. Sounds like you would be too. The 20% crazies with the biggest mouths shouldn't hold the keys to our kids' health.
 
CheatingMkay said:
Like it or not, parents, players, and coaches would all prefer to compete for a trophy, and college coaches want to see players competing for something and not just playing in a showcase where no one really cares whether they win or not.
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All due respect, I just don't believe this is true for 80% of players and families 14yrs and up. Sounds like most on this thread agree. I guarantee college coaches want to see if kids play just as hard when a trophy is not on the line.
 
Remember daughter playing in 2019 Legends cup were they had 2 games on Saturday followed by 3 games on Sunday, as they made the finals. This was the first tournament playing 11v11 and they played 35 minute halves. I don’t think I have ever seen kids that tired in my life.
 
oh canada said:
Agree that league schedule is the best with weekly games etc. But tournaments are also here to stay because clubs want the additional revenue. For the older kids, I just don't think parents and players care as much about trophies and medals. I bet 80% of families would be fine paying the same fee for 2 or 3 showcase type games without a "champion" crowned. Sounds like you would be too. The 20% crazies with the biggest mouths shouldn't hold the keys to our kids' health.
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I definitely don't care about the trophies or 5 dollar medals at this point and neither does my kid. I'm hoping her team now (u15) will mostly play only showcase style events. Luckily her coach is not a big fan of tournaments either.
 
oh canada said:
But that's my point...charge the same tournament fee so the $Revs remain the same and reduce the number of games. Sounds like most here would be ok with that.
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You, and your position, confuses me. I have have had kids involved in competitive soccer for about 15 years and have been on this board as long as I can remember and I just don't remember anybody, ever, saying that we should pay more and get less. It must be nice to be you but where I am from, most people struggle, or stretch to pay their fees now. Is that the new slogan going on now days.... Charge me more! Give me less! No thanks. Besides, and try not to take this the wrong way but a big part of what is wrong with club soccer is parents like you. You don't have the courage to make your own decisions so you try to recruit a mob to do it for you. If you don't want your child playing 5 games in a weekend, then don't let her play 5 games in a weekend. Aren't you the one in charge of that? Do your team a favor and tell the coach you don't want your kid playing that many minutes and it will allow another player on your team to get some minutes in. Isn't that a win win? You win and the teammates win. That's leadership. Coming on this board whining about it is not leadership.
 
SoccerFan4Life said:
My son was on a great team but he was a bench player. He would get less than 30 minutes and starters would play almost the entire game regardless of the games during the weekend. We often played 4 games in 2 days and these starters were exhausted. We had a roster of 16 but 9 of them would play 70% of the minutes.
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Yup that's what happens, coaches say they will rest the starters more but then the games are in the balance and they don't. Try 95%-90% of the minutes over 6 games in 3 days like Cerritos memorial. My Player couldn't even walk right for many days after, 2 weeks to recover. Start with 18 by the time 3 game rolls around down to 16 with injuries. Our team won it but made the decision not to do that again.

Anyway being careful what you sign up for is about the only solution I know of, asking the coach to limit minutes for your player doesn't seem to work and no way am I getting involved in micromanagement once a tournament starts. My Player will die out there before asking out so coach/player have to figure it out.
 
El Clasico said:
You, and your position, confuses me. I have have had kids involved in competitive soccer for about 15 years and have been on this board as long as I can remember and I just don't remember anybody, ever, saying that we should pay more and get less. It must be nice to be you but where I am from, most people struggle, or stretch to pay their fees now. Is that the new slogan going on now days.... Charge me more! Give me less! No thanks. Besides, and try not to take this the wrong way but a big part of what is wrong with club soccer is parents like you. You don't have the courage to make your own decisions so you try to recruit a mob to do it for you. If you don't want your child playing 5 games in a weekend, then don't let her play 5 games in a weekend. Aren't you the one in charge of that? Do your team a favor and tell the coach you don't want your kid playing that many minutes and it will allow another player on your team to get some minutes in. Isn't that a win win? You win and the teammates win. That's leadership. Coming on this board whining about it is not leadership.
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Not sure where to start...ok, noted, you are part of the 20% who want your kids to play 5 games in 2-3 days. Unlike you, I don't presume to know anything about you or your kids, but I can tell you those of us who have seen their kids play more than 2 games in a weekend on a 11v11 field see a decrease in play quality and an increase in injuries.

Clearly you look at your child's longterm soccer development and health as a financial transaction. More games = better value. That is exactly the type of thought that Tournament operators currently appeal to. It is flawed. I encourage you to google the "law of diminishing returns". More is not always better. Will you eat a dozen donuts if put in front of you? Or stop after 2 or 3 knowing that more might cause issues later in the day? 5 games in a weekend = eating 2 dozen donuts.

Last, questioning the status quo in a reasoned manner and seeking others' thoughts on this board is discussion, debate and should be encouraged by all. I realize it is fashionable right now as part of the cancel culture to shut down such attempts, label them as "whining", and make other personal attacks. If that's part of your "leadership" training, I'm glad I learned differently.
 
You may need to work on your reading comprehension, or because english is not my first language, it may be my fault but I never stated my position on the issue. In fact, I didn't state, or mean to imply anyone's position on those tournaments. What I take exception to is your argument that 80% of parents would rather pay the same for less. I don't agree and I think you just made that number up so you could start your own thread. The other comment I made was that you can choose for yourself if you don't want your daughter to play that many minutes and in fact, it would benefit your kid's teammates if you lived out your convictions. In other words, grow some balls and make your one decisions. Again, if another player gets minutes that they would not otherwise gotten because you had the guts to stand by your beliefs then everybody wins. You feel better about yourself, your kid is healthier and you just helped out your fellow man by getting them some playing minutes. Isn't that a win, win, win? Only problem is if you only complain about it here and don't go out and do it, nobody wins anything.
 
Perhaps we as parents need to be more insistent about clubs being willing to play the good teams close to us.

I can totally understand why the business guy at club A might want to make life rough for the business guy at club B.

However, as a parent, I don’t care. If club B is ten miles away and has a similar team, then we should be playing against them. Don’t ask me to drive past a great opponent so I can get to the airport.

It gets even worse when you explain that, because tournaments are expensive, we’re going to schedule too many games and my kid is going to risk injury.
 
There are many reasons why tournaments are popular and will probably not go away. First, they make clubs/organizations money. That's why Surf Cup was not canceled. They wanted to make money no matter how long the tournament was delayed and having to move it out of state. Next is that parents love to post pictures of their kids with the trophy and medal and brag how their kid is on a winning team. It doesn't matter if little Mia or young Ronaldo only played 5 minutes total in the six games it took to win the tournament. They got the medal and that all that matters to the parents. The reason that I think is sometimes over looked is the coaches ego. In some coaches mind advancing far and winning these tournaments is a reflection on them. Not how many kids they send to the next level to play. That's not tangible to them. They need to have that trophy to say how successful a coach they are. That's why they will burn out their starters in five games over three days. Hell, some coaches do that in showcases when there is no trophy on the line. They need to get that W on gotsoccer to show how good they are. Winning is equal to development in their eyes. That's why the best advice I have seen on this forum is find the right coach not the coach who wins the most tournaments.
 
youthsportsugghhh said:
I wouldn't say that about the tournaments (although I would say some parents definitely enjoyed themselves on tournament weekends) -- I know my kids loved going to 4 tournaments a year at the younger ages and spending time with teammates in hotels (Vegas, SD, Reno, Sac or Manteca). 20 minute halves and 4-5 games in 3 days usually (Friday night to Sunday) and we never came across issues in body breakdown. The DA way of doing things definitely was difficult for the participants (Players and coaches) in the aspect of Financing and Academics, but the 3 games in 4 days was probably best on the bodies. 3 games in 3 days also seems doable from a health perspective as long as the teams do proper nutrition and stretching before and after the games.
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As said before, it only becomes an issue once teen years hit. I think we all loved those early years traveling to events where our kids played 3,4,5 games trying to get that trophy, but once the teens hit, it's just not advisable because of how many injuries occur, as well as quality of play once you get to game 3. I'm fine with the showcase format. I think it's the only format that semi-works for teens+.
 
VegasParent said:
There are many reasons why tournaments are popular and will probably not go away. First, they make clubs/organizations money. That's why Surf Cup was not canceled. They wanted to make money no matter how long the tournament was delayed and having to move it out of state. Next is that parents love to post pictures of their kids with the trophy and medal and brag how their kid is on a winning team. It doesn't matter if little Mia or young Ronaldo only played 5 minutes total in the six games it took to win the tournament. They got the medal and that all that matters to the parents. The reason that I think is sometimes over looked is the coaches ego. In some coaches mind advancing far and winning these tournaments is a reflection on them. Not how many kids they send to the next level to play. That's not tangible to them. They need to have that trophy to say how successful a coach they are. That's why they will burn out their starters in five games over three days. Hell, some coaches do that in showcases when there is no trophy on the line. They need to get that W on gotsoccer to show how good they are. Winning is equal to development in their eyes. That's why the best advice I have seen on this forum is find the right coach not the coach who wins the most tournaments.
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Very well put, but.....
A team who wins trophies and tournaments is most cases did it because they have a good coach.
 
watfly said:
I wish that was always true, but oftentimes the coach is a good recruiter, or a beneficiary of the recruiting power of a particular club name.
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I agree with this. The best coaches are not necessarily at ECNL/GA/MLS clubs but good players will usually migrate to these teams because they feel they need the platform to get to the next level. When my kid left an ECNL club to go to a non-letter club at the time (became DA, now GA) because I liked the coach, we were told to stay because of ECNL not because the coaching was better.
 
Eagle33 said:
Very well put, but.....
A team who wins trophies and tournaments is most cases did it because they have a good coach.
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Absolutely agree that a winning coach is probably good at some combination of recruiting, conditioning, and skills development.

But there is no reason to believe that a winning coach is necessarily good at injury prevention or character development.
 
VegasParent said:
There are many reasons why tournaments are popular and will probably not go away. First, they make clubs/organizations money. That's why Surf Cup was not canceled. They wanted to make money no matter how long the tournament was delayed and having to move it out of state. Next is that parents love to post pictures of their kids with the trophy and medal and brag how their kid is on a winning team. It doesn't matter if little Mia or young Ronaldo only played 5 minutes total in the six games it took to win the tournament. They got the medal and that all that matters to the parents. The reason that I think is sometimes over looked is the coaches ego. In some coaches mind advancing far and winning these tournaments is a reflection on them. Not how many kids they send to the next level to play. That's not tangible to them. They need to have that trophy to say how successful a coach they are. That's why they will burn out their starters in five games over three days. Hell, some coaches do that in showcases when there is no trophy on the line. They need to get that W on gotsoccer to show how good they are. Winning is equal to development in their eyes. That's why the best advice I have seen on this forum is find the right coach not the coach who wins the most tournaments.
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A couple of things to add.

1. Clubs want to win tournaments. They post it on their social media and like to project the winning/successful club persona to recruit more players.
2. Coaches like to win tournaments because it goes on their "resume". Its "empirical" evidence of their skill set when they look for another job. Its alongside the # of players who went to college, or made the NT etc. Its no different than a sales person saying I made $xM revenue or a CFO who saved $xM in costs etc. Its esp. important to the younger coaches who don't have the "players developed" stats yet, as a way to get the next gig.
 
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