Soccer vs. other team sports

Discussion in 'Youth & HS Soccer' started by sam_gordon, Oct 4, 2018.

  1. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It's not a logical step. But, it is a step. US pro rosters are over 50% foreign too. It's not logical to go from 18 years old to pro when half the rosters are 50% foreign. NCAA soccer rosters are estimated 13.2% international -- men's soccer.

    What college soccer does is give nearly 40,000 players the chance to keep playing. If pro works out, great. If it doesn't, at least an education is potentially gained (at maybe a discounted rate). Without college soccer, we'd have 40,000 less soccer players playing as high of a level as they possibly could in the country.

    If only there was a structure change, there would be more logical steps to take. But, until that happens, there's little opportunity for truly chasing a pro soccer career.
     
  2. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Yes, but not of high quality; not compared to the rest of the world…
    Also yes, but it’s not a “problem” per say, it’s simply a reality…

    This is such a bullshit argument…The increase in foreign players in a domestic league doesn’t automatically correlated to a lack or usability to develop domestic talent…as earlier pointed out as well, German’s top league is 50% international players, YET nobody thinks Germany doesn’t know a thing or two about developing soccer talent….some might even suggest that all those foreign players help make their domestic players even better…in all three cases, NBA, MLB and the Bundesliga are not relent on foreign talent to a achieve a high level of play; a high level of play already exists; these foreign players simply bolster or reinforce an already high standard…

    I am I really supposed to respond seriously to your implication that I though the USSF banned high school soccer for everyone?
    Yes, it would be funny…
     
  3. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    I'd say "could", not "should".

    I didn't say they couldn't. Of course there are going to be exceptions. You're also assuming your 28 year old with 10 years of coaching started right out of high school, didn't go to college, didn't struggle finding a job in their industry, all the other things that could affect their entry into coaching.

    That's funny. This site shows the number has been increasing since 2009. Either there was a HUGE dropoff from the 07/08 season to the 08/09 season, or someone has bad information.
     
  4. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Gave the numbers that show international basketball is gaining/surpassing basketball development. Kobe says so. LeBron says so.

    You cannot disprove the numbers in any way. If it weren't the case, why has international make-up of the NBA increased nearly every year. You think NBA ownership is choosing a lesser-talented international over a more-talented domestic player? Not hardly.

    Very specific here, one would expect US to dominate in every position in football. For five years running, the best punter in college football has gone to an Australian. Probably going to be a sixth straight year this year.

    Germany has shown its competitive ability in the world's game. US hasn't. Germany also has more of its players playing higher levels than the US. That's the difference.

    Know about Das Reboot? Probably not. You'll find out that Germany made changes to influence their first division (and all other divisions). England is doing the same now. Spain did as well. Italy is too. Countries lose an identity when/if they cannot properly identify talent. They make changes to ensure talent is identified AND developed.

    You said it, not me.

    Prove it.
     
  5. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Either/or. For sure. If we are talking about "generations" of people playing a sport. One would think it should correlate. Doesn't guarantee anything, but there should be added coaches to the coaching pool.

    I can flip this around and say, you're assuming that the 28 year old was unable to start, didn't start coaching, etc.

    Coaching isn't a favorable career to get into -- and even less favorable volunteer or secondary gig to do. No doubt about that.

    Apologies, I made a mistake. Not real sure where the numbers went wrong, I utilized NFHS since they govern high school athletics. They have mandatory participation numbers. I did all the adding up right then in the reply (didn't have anything memorized). I must have looked at a different number when adding, or added same number twice.

    2007-08 -- 730,106 (somehow I previously calculated 930,106)
    2017-18 -- 846,844

    So, the numbers are increasing, average of 11,673 kids per year (233 kids per state). IF we are doing things right, these all should make for the ability to have qualified coaches yearly. Unfortunately, we really have no way of counting how many coaches exist in the US, unlike other countries who do track their coaching.
     
  6. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    No, they are not…of course, these international player are talented, as talented, even more so, if being 7 foot is a talent…but it’s really not a case of less-talented vs. more-talented….was Thomas Muller less-talented for playing with Ribery and Robben? Where Ribery and Robben more-talented then Mullier because they were French and Dutch respectively, while Muller was German? Of course not, only an idiot would make such a claim…
    This just proves how incredibly out of touch you are…punting? Kickers, no less, punters are barely considered football players… I often wonder why football even bothers with kicking the ball anymore…And Australia, oh my goodness, I wonder, I wonder why that could be????
    Who the hell doubts US competitive ability in football, baseball and basketball?

    Team USA Baseball is ranked #1 in the world and Team USA Basketball, has rather consistently, dominated international play for decades...
     
  7. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    What’s with using 28 year olds as an example?…most 28 years olds aren’t even married yet (national average for marriage: 27 for women; 29 for men), no less have kids…most of these 28 year olds won’t be thinking about coaching anything for a few more years yet…
     
  8. TheKraken

    TheKraken Member

    United States
    Jun 21, 2017
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, but what percentage of those foreign players are starters on their respective teams? I bet it's a lot higher than 13.2%. How much financial assistance is offered to those foreign players whether it be athletic scholarship or otherwise? Once again, I'm sure it's much higher than the average US born player.
     
    mwulf67 repped this.
  9. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Keep in mind those numbers are 9-12 (I'm assuming). Also assuming it's evenly split between all grades, you're CURRENTLY looking at 210K (and change) seniors graduating last year.

    It would be interesting to know the average coach's age. I'm guessing it's probably around 40 if not older. Meaning they graduated HS 20+ years ago. How many players played HS soccer across the country in the mid to late 90s?
     
  10. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    More unfounded assumptions. Ridiculous.

    Here's a breakdown from 1998-2008. It's 20 years ago clear up to 10 years ago.
    Year Boys Girls TOTAL Split
    1998 321416 257586 579,002 144,751
    1999 330044 270273 600,317 150,079
    2000 332850 292086 624,936 156,234
    2001 339101 295265 634,366 158,592
    2002 345156 301450 646,606 161,652
    2003 349785 309032 658,817 164,704
    2004 354587 316104 670,691 167,673
    2005 358935 321555 680,490 170,123
    2006 377999 337632 715,631 178,908
    2007 383561 346545 730,106 182,527
    2008 383824 344534 728,358 182,090

    Just those years produced roughly 1,817,330 soccer players (just took the senior class from each year - estimate). That's not a bad pool of players that could end up becoming coaches. All of those players are now 28-38 years old.

    As of 2017-18, there were just over 24,000 high schools that sponsor boys and girls soccer. There have been around 36,300 players per state that have come through the high school soccer ranks in that 10-year span. There are an estimate of 480 high school soccer programs per state (this obviously isn't accurate for every state).

    Wouldn't it be "easy" to fill 24,000 coaching jobs even with the short time span that we went with? That's not taking into account the existing coaches in the jobs already OR the younger coaches who have graduated high school after 2008.
     
  11. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Unfounded? Americans have been getting married later and later in life since the 1960s. It is a well-established demographic statistic…easily confirmed with a quick google search…

    Hell, I’ll even give you an article This Is The Average Age Of Marriage Right Now and its underlying source documentation, Historical Marital Status Tables….
     
  12. bustos21

    bustos21 Member

    Aug 13, 2004
    NJ
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    I graduated High School in 97 and the current coach of my alma mater graduated with me. This guy played rec ball and high school as a player. He went to college and played volleyball. During our high school years our coach was terrible. The practices consisted of running laps and scrimmages. I absolutely hated high school soccer because of this, i was pretty much injured most of my high school career. Now fast forward to today and guess what nothing has changed the kids on the team runs laps and scrimmage. No improvements at all and it just hurts to watch high school soccer in general.
     
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  13. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Are you sure about your 1.8M number? How did you gather that? I hope you didn't just add the numbers from each year, that's not a true result. Someone who plays all four years will be included for each year.

    And just because they played HS doesn't mean they were a good player, and even if they were a good player doesn't mean they're a good coach.
     
  14. pu.ma

    pu.ma Member

    Feb 8, 2018
    I think a lot of coaches tend to fall back on their experiences as players and how they were coached and run their training sessions in that manner. One of the best coaches that one of my kids had for a year did not have a big background in soccer, but he was highly interested, found good resources (people and online), educated himself, and ran some great training sessions. The point is he was open to learning and actively sought out what he thought were the best methods in player development.
     
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  15. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    He took the split for each year, which is Total/4, which is reasonable attempt to breakdown by class…the Spilt would be ~number of senior players graduating each year…so, 1.8M seems fair, perhaps a bit high, as class size tends to shrink over those 4 years, as kids drop out or get cut…but nothing to quibble over…
     
  16. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So, in order to be a HS coach, one must be married and have kids. Gotcha. On top of that, they have to have life all figured out in order to get into coaching. Okay.
     
  17. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I did exactly what @mwulf67 stated. Took total number and divided by 4. It is probably on the high, but it's about all we can do without knowing exacts. I'm no statistician, but I'm sure there's a +/- number to go with that 1.8 million.

    No player has to be considered a "good player" in order to be a coach OR even a good coach. I'm just going off the numbers we have of how many HS players could have come through the system 10-20 years ago. That's it. Rough estimates. We all know there are numerous coaches out there who never even played HS soccer (or soccer at all). Some are good, some are bad.

    The best life advice I've ever heard was basically this. Always keep learning. Things change. Adapt and evolve. It's important in coaching, and in life.
     
  18. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Gotcha. Didn't see the split column.
     
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  19. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    No, my comment was clearly directed at and in relationship to parent coaches, primarily at the U-little level, which at one point in the thread appeared to be a main focus…most/many youth coaches begin coaching with their own children and of course, other people’s kids who happen to be on the same team…
     
  20. ThePonchat

    ThePonchat Member+

    #ProRelForUSA
    United States
    Jan 10, 2013
    I've Been Everywhere Man
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My 28-year-old comment was dealing with coaching high school, just an example of an age/experience opportunity.

    I'd venture to say that tons of youth coaches are in the 18-28 year old age range. Unfortunately, they are probably only coaching short-term while in college for some quick money and/or community service (like with a college program). In general, youth coaches are short-term anyway. Like you mentioned, many coach their own kids and stay on board for a year or two then move on.

    I look at the clubs I've worked with in the past couple of years, there's tons of young coaches involved. There's equally older coaches, mostly dealing with the administration side and older age groups.
     
  21. bustos21

    bustos21 Member

    Aug 13, 2004
    NJ
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    I strongly agree that the parent involvement in soccer has a huge benefit. I think this is what is happening in other countries. I believe in the Tom Byer approach ( i have read his book) and I am trying it out with my own kids (4 & 1 years old).

    Every year I go to our annual alumni game at the University that I played for. I start to talk to the other alumni about there children playing soccer. You would think since it was a Division 1 program that all these parents would want there kids to play soccer but I wasn't hearing that with everyone. Some of these parents are leaning towards football, baseball and basketball over soccer which I thought was quite surprising.
     
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  22. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Interesting, but maybe not that surprisingly…I think we tend to think or assume former soccer players will have children that will automatically end up playing soccer as well (that whole 2nd/ multi-generation phenomenon we hope for/bank on) …I am certainly a bit guilt of that…

    It would be interesting to know or examine why these former soccer players are leaning their kids toward other sports…maybe they are jaded; maybe they see the value of collegiate sports/athletics, but know there are more opportunities in those other sports? Was it a lot of parents, or just a few? Did they give any indication why they were leaning their kids in other directions?
     
  23. bustos21

    bustos21 Member

    Aug 13, 2004
    NJ
    Club:
    CA Boca Juniors
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    It wasn't many parents but I didn't want to get into 'why' they were doing this. Some parents are freaks about soccer like me and others are kind of in the middle. My guess would be more opportunities in other sports. Maybe they got sucked in the american culture. I do feel that soccer is not ingrained into our culture like the other sports are.

    I don't want to force the sport onto my kids i just want them to like it organically. If my sons don't like it then at least I tried to introduce them to the sport.
     
  24. jvgnj

    jvgnj Member

    Apr 22, 2015
    They could be leaning that way simply because their kids prefer other sports.
     
  25. Jim n GA

    Jim n GA New Member

    Oct 10, 2018
    A little random – but a few thoughts.

    Parents understand the activities they grew up with and even though we are at a point where the middle aged parent could have played club or HS soccer, only a small percentage of parents either want to or are able to coach/assist. A recent discussion with my daughter surrounded how families may watch hrs of football in a week while finding a soccer game on tv can be a challenge. It’s pretty telling when the soccer coach/private instructor gives homework “to watch soccer on TV or youtube”.

    Our local baseball and softball leagues (U12 and under) have waiting lists that prospective coaches are placed on due to the high demand of parents wanting to coach.

    Removing the large academy or club from the discussion where they may have multiple FTEs, the local soccer association has to practically beg people to coach. These end up being parents who either have minimal or no exposure to soccer and they volunteer because they “can”, not because they have the background or knowledge to teach the game.

    Concerning “curriculum” for coaches - when my daughter was playing U6, the club had an initial meeting where they pressed the parents for volunteers. I reluctantly agreed mainly because it was a 20 minute drive home and I was going to be there anyway for the entire practice. The club had little to no guidance as far as how a practice should be run or what skills should be taught (we were given a “Challenger” mini book that explained a few drills). Fast forward several years and I signed up for the E level licensing course. Everybody taking the course was under 25 (I was 35) and most were taking the course as a requirement by either a larger club or they were pursuing coaching as a career. Although the course was helpful, my main reason for taking it was to learn more about the game and the simple tactics/techniques that are to be utilized. I learned zero in this area as it was expected that the students knew enough about the game to develop and create a unique practice plan. After passing the course (guess everyone passed) they asked if I wanted the information on the D license, I laughed and said if I was still coaching when my daughter was 13/14 (because I was the best option), then we had bigger issues.

    The grassroots courses that are now being offered may be a step in the right direction, yet how many parents are going to 1) even know about the courses, 2) invest the time to take these courses so they can coach for 4-5 yrs?

    Although my daughter may be playing on a NPL level team now, the U8 travel softball team she was a part of had more committed parents and kids than her soccer team does at U14.

    Perspective from the rural south as it’s understood the level of family commitment and quality of coaching within a sport can vary greatly by geographic/demographic area.
     

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