No High School Soccer in 2012?

Yeah, what are the chances that a US high school player could end up as one of the leading scorers in the Bundesliga?

Currently 100%, actually.

 

Let's see - on the one hand we have a former US high school player scoring 17 goals in the Premier League a couple years ago, another one currently leading the Bundesliga in scoring, another who led the Russian Premier League in scoring last year, another one who won the FA cup last year, another one currently starting in the Champions League group stage, another making Arsenal's first team roster at 16, other ones starting for Everton, Aston Villa, Stoke City, Hannover 96.... not to mention the three seasons of HS soccer played by the best American soccer player in history.

On the other hand, we have a guy bragging that dropping HS soccer helped prepare him for "the college game."

 

@Yonkou

You make good rebuttals, Mister.

Well either way, only thing that can validate any of these plans is time. Just have to wait 10-20 years or so.

That being said, about the street soccer. It's a good point. But I think ALL sports could stand to have a good infusion of kids just playing pickup games again. Not to sound curmondgeony (I'm 26 so I HOPE I don't) but with advent of vidya games and internetz, it seems like random outside free play has gone on the way side.

 

You really missed the point, didn't you?

You sound like a blind US player supporter - hanging onto outlying statistics in order to hope to prove a point.
Well, I'll put our record of putting players into the pros up against any high school in the country that year - two in mls, 3 in the old a-league, and two more abroad. But you'll probably go ahead and say that all 7 of them came to benefit most from our three previous years of playing HS soccer.

 

My boy was the star for his HS soccer team today getting couple of goals and assisting others while playing in front of tons of girls and coming home with a huge grin on his face - priceless! Meanwhile his ex-team mates who went to the DA are playing in front of their parents and couple of coaches, sweating it out hoping to get into a good D1 school. A lot of them will start to play D1, hate it, and quit after a year or two (as did so many of my older son's ex-team mates). 90% of those who quit HS soccer to play DA are brainwashed and will not have a better life. I tell you, these 90% would have been better off playing HS soccer, especially if they have a good HS coach and are able to play on a highly competitive travel team (of which there are still quite a lot left).

 

Your son must be great. Call the MLS clubs and Real Madrid. Two goals and assists in a high school game is big time. Tons of women also. Who is this great player?

 

Yama hama that's some bad math.

 

none of your business; and oh yeah, he ran circles around academy players during college ID camps. Keep on dreaming that DA is the best for every 'good' player!

 

None of these players you have in mind have gone from HS soccer straight to professional soccer. They have had soccer education from many other places and many years have gone by since their HS days. So how much do you think HS soccer should be credited for their success?

I would argue that these players would've been better and achieved more had they skipped HS soccer or if they were born and developed in Europe or South America.

 

For which plans we have to wait 10-20 years for validation?

Yes, street play has gone out the window. But is it because of the video games and internet or because parents are unnecessarily paranoid? Parents complain about the video games/internet yet they don't let kids play outside on their own, even in expensive neighborhoods. Could it be that video games and internet have grown to be popular precisely because street play has died?

I think all kids would benefit sociologically if street play came back. But that is a whole other discussion.

 

Correct.

 

No it is the complete truth. Obviously you can not handle the truth. The man was telling us on how high school soccer is comparable that to of USSF DA soccer and how his son is a superstar. If he is that good it will not be a problem with his son getting a full ride or a MLS contract.
So this father should be promoting his son, but he chose to keep his sons name private for some reason.
So look at your own writing and do not be so sensitive. It must of hit home somewhere.

 

1. No full rides in college soccer. I will challange anyone that says the school gave him 100 percent soccer college scholarship.
2. After speaking to over 20 coaches in the last year. Everyone of them said they understand the no High School rule but not one of them agreed with it. I was only speaking to D 1 schools but I am sure the DII and the DIII do not like it much better.
3. I hated watching High School Soccer and my son did not like it either. But kids need to play to get better and the guys on the endof the bench are not playing an growing no matter what they want to do latter in life

 

Outlying statistics?

If you think that skipping HS for club is better, presumably there should be a bunch of international level counter-examples to the former high school player examples I mentioned. Can you name them? Let's see the list of recent national team players who spent their high school years in the US but didn't play high school soccer.

My guess is that it'll be a fairly short list. And also, that most of the names on it will be players who skipped HS soccer for U17 NT residency and/or MLS , which is obviously VERY different from skipping HS soccer to focus on some club team.

 

It may not be a 100% full-ride soccer scholarship, but if it's a half-ride athletic scholarship, the school can just happen to "find" enough non-athletic aid money to fill the second half of the free ride, if he is a good enough player (sort of like how Division III schools manage to give partial "athletic scholarships" despite an official ban on athletic scholarship aid money at this level).

 

Yes I am fully aware. I want to see a player that go 100 percent paid from the soccer program. Not with a roster of 26 players . You also need the grades to help

 

Please, your making me cry.

 

Thanks for the clarification! Repped!

 

Your list would be totally irrelevant to the question of whether it's better to skip HS for club.

As you know, until the last couple of years, essentially every club didn't play during their respective high school seasons. So there was no question of skipping HS for club. They didn't overlap. You played HS during the HS season and club the rest of the time. Whether those players would have been better off under option A (playing club all year long) or under option B (taking the HS season off to play in HS) wasn't tested because virtually everyone followed option A.

Now that some players have begun to follow option B, we will have some relevant data in a few years that can be used to compare the options. But you can't draw any conclusions until then.

 

Exactly, the current and previous US MNT players had no choice but to play HS soccer - OR, play with adult teams while playing HS soccer. How do you think Dempsey learned to play soccer, with kids his own age?

My son was without a team for August and September, and when he was looking for a new team, there were several teams having open practices and some having scrimmages. Depending on the HS coach, some coaches warned their players "you better not do ANY soccer outside of HS or I will cut you from the team". But there were definitely HS-age club teams having weekly practices and scrimmages, with less than a full roster.

There will be more and more players who are skipping HS soccer, and then playing club soccer for 10 months. Club coaches will want the money, players will want the consistent high-level training. Current HS players are on the cusp of the change; leagues like the NPL are using birth years for their teams like the USSF academy does and the level of teams is as high as the average academy team or higher. It's going to hurt a team if they don't have a finalized roster in August and don't have practices until November.

My son would have liked to play HS soccer, but he was cut from varsity by "the coaching team" (varsity coach would not even take responsibility for cutting him, how honorable ). For his club team, he will be a 16 year old (1997) playing on a team of 18 year olds (1995s). They have November tournaments, so they will start practicing more frequently in October. That's basically one month off from organized soccer, and it's supplemented with pickup soccer and other training.

HS soccer would not have gotten him in front of any coaches at colleges he is targeting. That's the truth. If he was the ESPN HS Boys Soccer Player of the Year, or was All-State, maybe that would have helped. Other than that, HS soccer will not help a player to play in college, let alone play pro or semi-pro.

 

May not have been common, but it certainly wasn't impossible. After all, I was replying to a post from Wingtips1 in which he touted the benefits of his and his friends' decision to drop HS soccer - I doubt he's under 21 years old.

Here's an article I posted in the YNT forum, from 2008, which describes the majority of Sockers FC players quitting high school soccer to train with the DA team year round:

http://www.ussoccer.com/news/develo...-joining-u-s-soccers-development-academy.aspx

 

Note that I said "virtually everyone followed option A." There were rare exceptions, but they were so unusual that they don't provide enough to judge whether players would be better off skipping HS for club.