Not sure for $5k a year I could or I should/would send my kid abroad (where exactly) tonlearn soccer. If US soccer turns on the spigot for solidarity payments-we could see more kids going to the pro ranks.
Like I wrote: Travel soccer here with a volunteer coach: $200 tuition for fall and spring $100 uniforms For an apples to apples comparison add indoor fees: $400 to train for 20 weeks indoors $200 for $20 indoor games (not necesssary IMO) So you need ~$1K. Around here your training becomes a crapshoot and honestly your teammates commitment level becomes an issue-from personal experience. Not that this justifies the $3K cost for club soccer, because IMO there’s a lot of shitty licensed coaches here and a lot of teammates that are not committed despite the cost. Heck, hopefully not, but maybe I’M a shitty licensed coach.
...And despite a different kind of genetic lottery that they won (“won”)... the predominantly rich, white kids I coach-it’s NOT their fault this is their lot in life. I started coaching before I had kids as volunteer work. Then P2P recruited me away from a rural town club the vast majority of which were not upper middle class, like my current P2P club. I was going to take a break from coaching because some of the travel parents frustrated me. Point is that I didn’t seek out a paid gig. I’m bigger in social justice issues than most people but these rich, white kids are who are in front of me to coach. I feel like there’s a lot of coded language out there that Hispanic kids will make better footballers out of the box and inner city black kids will be more faster. But the genetic stick here isn’t much different than what you’d see represented in say Denmark, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland. They’re upper middle class now but a generation ago, literally, many were firmly blue collar. Some good socio economic things happened for these parents in the past generation. The DOC I worked with at the rural town club, he’s got some great ideas that he’s implementing. He wants to be able to bring real club quality coaching to the travel level. He wants the travel teams to be able to compete with the club teams without paying the cost. But it takes a mindset shift from a lot of his volunteer coaches to really work on their craft. Many are still in the dark ages of tactics @u6 type of mentality. The club I grew up in the DC area 20 years ago. Cost about $100 a season. Ten years ago, my niece played for the same club and it cost $2500 a year! But they did have professional-esque coaches. I also think that parents have come to believe that you pay for what you get? I have a new player this year, last year she went to CLUB Z. Club Z is trying to make club soccer more affordable. From what I heard their methods were in the right place but they were severely understaffed so learning wasn’t optimized. I sincerely root for the last 2 examples. But they have big logistical challenges.
I wonder if your niece plays for my club Our top level teams have a base cost of $1400 but travel and other tournament fees add more to that . Our 04 girls are on a amazing run so their families are paying a boatload this year to cover the extra travel (8 days in Dallas this summer is a killer)
Coming here to totally brag. I got my 1st hatrick in eons yesterday AM. It was small-sided pickup using PUGS so no goalies. Two were strikes from 10_+ yards out where I turned the last defender and had the space to shoot. The third was sort of basketball like. I took possession right in front of the goal, posted up my defender and shielded him off to put it in.
This WC has been unreal. Lots of fun to watch. Lots of tactical riddles to solve and tactical decisions to second guess.
Would you say the difference between 1 and 2 touches by the attacker gives the defender 3 steps to close down?
Short answer: No. Long answer: How much time (steps) the marker has to close down depends on what happens before the attacker gets the ball. The farther away the ball the looser you can mark. Waiting to close down the attacker until after he receives the ball is a mistake. Basically you have two choices. 1. prevent the ball from getting to the attacker. 2. let the ball reach the attacker but force the attacker to play negatively or into pressure. Both choices require the marker to be in position, not 3 steps away. If you are talking to the attacker, 1 tactically stupid touch or a bad touch may give the defense additional time to close the attacker down. On the other hand good touches create space and catch the defense out of position. These are the types of feedback typically given regarding first touch, dribbling and finishing.
Local team won regionals and are eligible to go to nationals. Someone started a gofundme page for them with a $10,000 goal. My initial reaction is the players should be doing the fundraising to make this happen. Is it audacious for, I assume, parents who probably already paid about $5-6K for the season, tournaments, and regionals to be asking the world at large for money to fund this trip (in part)?
I see this as a difference in methodology. Not a substantive difference. To me the circumstances are not improved if individual children are directly making a solicitation, if individual parents are directly making a solicitation, or if a solicitation is made on social media collectively by a group. If your point is not methodology, but rather the target of the solicitation, then who solicits that target is irrelevant. Personally I think trophy hunting is a waste of resources if the objective is youth player development. It makes even less sense for players U14 and below.
US Club or USYS? Were they in a regional league, or did they win the state level then win regional tournament? Am I off base here in thinking that the club should budget for this kind of stuff? Also what does the $10K cover - entry fees, lodging & travel for players?
State Level and Regional tournament. Interesting thing is that they're kind of in limbo. The current name of the club they under doesn't really exist anymore. It "merged" with another club. I don't know how that has affected funding for this particular team. According to the gofundme: "airfare, hotel, meals, etc." Seems like a general slush fund?
I was thinking maybe car washes or some activity. They are U16, so not wholly inappropriate. I think nationals are in your neck of the woods. Maybe club should contribute a portion (entry fees etc) and families contribute a portion.
if you don't like it, don't donate. if gofundme is the easiest way to get the money from willing donors, who cares? selling chocolates or doing car washes don't generate the same revenue as just asking for the cash. no one wants to buy that crap anyway.
It's just an online discussion. Of course if I don't want to, I won't donate. Baby sitting, yard work, house work, help with DIY projects—all viable options. On another level a bit of sweat equity from the players to earn their trip isn't a bad thing.
If you believe the trip is not beneficial to development, then "sweat equity" is a further negative. I suspect like any team, some parents can afford the trip and some cannot. So fund raising is probably necessary to preclude leaving someone behind. Local tournaments help players get noticed by other clubs. Going to nationals won't help in that regard. I also think it is a year too early for them to be concerned about being seen by college coaches. Even some parents who can afford the trip probably have better uses for the money.
Yeah. Development wise I think its not a good venue. It’s not my club but at the same time this team may not be together next season because of the mergers and high school ball- might be a good parting experience. Going to nationals is a rare event, so I could be seduced to going in their shoes. But if it was about development think of how much training you could do for a fraction of $10k (which isn’t even the true cost of this whole thing).
I've been banging this drum a lot recently. So I apologize. But our sponsorship agreement with Big Name Brand (sporting goods company) requires us to buy new uniforms every two years. Makes sense. Kids grow a lot in two years. But do we really need a $75 home jersey for players of any age???? Answer is no. It's 25% of the whole cost of the uniform package. Everything else is reasonably priced: game shorts @ $12, away jersey $20, socks $6/pair. Then we have to buy a new bag. The bag from last year is a year old (we came in the in-between year), it's perfectly fine. As is always my objective: hope the play ON the field looks as good as these kids uniforms. F-ME. We need to do better in reigning in these costs. But at the end of the day, it's my modest coaching pay is the supposed driver of this cost (I represent < 20% of cost per family).
Free equipment (pinnies, cones, coaches gear). I estimate I've been given about ~$700 worth in clothing, cones, pinnies alone. To be fair, I have used the cones and pinnies a lot. The only piece of clothing that seems extravagant was this really nice winter stadium jacket (long, hooded, insulated, waterproof). I won't bat an eye on that one either.—it gets cold, wet, and rainy here for a lot of games. But we also have 25-30 coaches, so it adds up. Since it's all very corporate already, I would hope that we could sell advertising on our jerseys in the hopes that that would offset the cost for families. But really it may just end up being pocketed at the top.
To put this in perspective, the majority (57% according to one poll) of Americans do not have money to cover a $500 emergency expense. Forty percent don't have money to cover a $400 emergency emergency expense. The percentages change for relatively small increments of cost. Add the family's cost of soccer shoes, a ball and shin guards for each kid to the above cost items and we price most Americans out of even recreational youth soccer even at a $500 a year budget per child.