There probably won't be a viable alternative to the club pay to play system until there's a critical mass of knowledgeable parents who can act as quality volunteer coaches at the youngest ages like in other sports. That's not going to happen overnight. Our town travel teams implement a system where they have pros handle the practices and volunteer parents handle the games. It's not perfect, but significantly cheaper than my kid's club and the dollars are spent primarily on training.
You take them both? As many as possible as long as possible with the best coaching possible. At 9/8/7 (which, end of season June 2019 - birth year 2009/10/11 = u10/9/8) educated volunteer coaches should be good enough. I'm not convinced the new USSF curriculum is going to produce that, but that's a different thread. Ideally grassroots clubs would direct all their parents to pickup a copy of Tom byer's book, so that they have the footskills by the time they enter u6/7. You teach athleticism by getting the kid with good soccer skils - tech/tact/psych - SAQ coaches after they hit puberty. Teach them to run better, how to weight train, etc. Luckily, FIFA has figured that out. It's 12. You pay the clubs back to when the kid was 12. Parent education so they learn that winning does not always equate with good development at u5-16. Incentivize coaching for player retention. If a pay2play club has a u9/11 academy, is their u12 A team made up of kids that came through that that academy, or are they all new kids acquired through tryouts? Publish those rosters so parents can see.
I agree. Too bad we dont live in an ideal world. I think you can only take so many (and that number varies based on how many play in a game, & how many coaches there are). If you're playing 7v7, do you carry a roster of 16? What does that do for playing time? At some point, you're going to end up with more players than can comfortably fit on a team, but not enough to have a second team. And yes, that can happen at U8, 9, and 10 as well as the older teams.
If you don’t make the A team at age 9 it isn’t a death sentence. One year my son’s team added 2 B team players...u14 I believe. They both play D1 soccer now, one in the ACC. As we’ve all said, it isn’t perfect, sometimes the results are less than “fair”...but that is one of the reasons sport is a parallel to “real life”. Some of the best lessons I’ve learned were through success in sports, some other great lessons were from failure in sports. I learned plenty outside sports too but kids can learn as much about teamwork, dedication and leadership on the JV team at school as they will on the A travel team. If the treatment of a player seems to be unfair it is reasonable to pursue another team etc...if the player just isn’t cut out for the top team it could be the best thing to ever happen to them. I have not seen anything to suggest the best athletes in HS are more successful in real life than the rest. Most stories suggest the opposite. As the zen master said...we shall see. For those who have kids in the pre-teen or teen years...someday all you will care about is that they are happy in college, going to get a degree and prepared to be a young adult. You won’t recall, much less give thought to, what the record was in U13 or why they didn’t get to play striker. Focus on the big picture and let the sports stuff fall as it may.
With 16 in younger, 7v7 soccer, that's enough for two teams -- back to this idea -- one pool out of which players are chosen to go to games. But I get the problem. My son's u14/15 team has 19 this fall. You can take 18 to games. Someone will have to sit out every game, something that has players and parents uneasy (might help if the club would explain how they'll decide who sits and when, but that's another story).
It ain’t that much of a problem…first you don’t take 18; you take 15 and sit 3-4. Add another tournament/set of games to compensate…5 tournaments, instead of 4, for example…with everyone guaranteed 4 tournaments…its fair, flexible and actually increases playtime…league play works a similar manner…post-season Cup play is not guaranteed; that lineup will be determined over the course of the season… Of course, that setup requires the coach/team management/club buy-in, as it does requires a little more work and effort on their part…but from the parent/player perspective, I think it works pretty well…
16 is enough for 2 7v7 teams if you have a high degree of confidence everyone will make every game. My son's team carried 9 last year and it always seemed like there was a conflict or sick kid every week resulting in only 7 being there. Great for playing time, but it would've been nice to have a few subs. But I agree the pool approach would work as look as the club communicated what they were doing. If the club said "we have too many kids for 1 team and not enough for 2 so rather than cut kids we'll divvy up the games" most parents would be perfectly fine with that. And the ones who aren't were probably going to find something to get disgruntled about and leave at some point anyway.
In our relatively short stint with travel soccer (I think we're on year 8 right now), we have had three different systems... U8/U9: A true "pool" of players. This was our "academy" program. Basically anyone who showed up for tryouts was accepted. There were six "play dates" with surrounding "academies". Each play date had each team playing two games back to back. Each play date (and sometimes each game) would have different "teams". So your child may play with Joe and Sally (co-ed) week 1, but play with Ed and Joan week 2. I thought it was great. Kids learn to play with different team mates and different coaches, score was kept, but not tracked, emphasis on developing. Clubs bought in, but parents didn't. They grumbled the entire season. Four years later when DD went through the program, parents were still grumbling, and about the same things... they wanted to be with the same kids every week. The kids who weren't as skilled were dragging the others down, etc. DD's U11(?) team had more kids than you can really use in games/tournaments, but not enough for a second team. So the coach went through the schedule before the season and had kids "sit out" games/tournaments. Everyone sat out games (stars as well as bench warmers). I liked it, but again parents grumbled. They didn't like their "star" player missing games and grumbled about some kids not even deserving to be on a travel team (not a totally wrong statement). A/B/C teams. Of course, some parents grumbled because their child didn't make the 'A' team and would then shop the kid around in order to be on a top team. I don't have a problem with A/B/C, even at younger (U10) ages. If someone is going to give up a sport because they didn't make a top team, I don't think they have a true passion for the sport anyway. Anyone else see what the common denominator is? It's not the coach or club not buying into a system, it's the parents (and by extension the kids). I don't think you see these issues in other sports (basketball, baseball, softball, etc) because you don't have clubs in those sports like you do in soccer. At least in my experience, those sports would have individual teams, usually coached by a parent. There MIGHT be a 2nd age group, and I think I rarely saw a 3rd. So parents/kids will simply find another team if they're not happy with the one they're on.
Was it the majority of parents who didn't like the U8/U9 academy set up or a vocal minority? Just curious.
If I remember correctly (DD is now U13), it was a vocal minority. But I don't know that they said anything to club. I do remember some parents would intentionally keep their kids out of the academy and then put them in the travel program at U10.
As others have noted, parent education is very important. Not soccer related, but just youth sports development and expectations based on age. Resources on learning and how it should be taught and again by age. Then apply it consistently by way of the coaching. So need to educate and groom good coaches.
My club had a program like that at U8. We took the first 48 kids who signed up, regardless of ability. No tryouts. In addition to their weekly practice and game with their parent-led rec team, they had a professionally trained session once a week and then a game with another club late Saturday afternoon, a few hours after their rec game. We took those 48 kids and randomly (we think) divided them into four teams each Saturday. (IIRC, we were playing 8v8. Maybe 7v7.) We never trained kids as goalkeepers, but the games had goalkeepers. Neat program, right? Well, here's the problem. The other clubs we were playing took a different approach. One had no rec league -- just one U8 team of superstuds. Another, much larger club assembled its one team by tryouts, and they didn't play rec games. So those two were de facto travel teams. Meanwhile, our four teams were handed off to parent coaches like me who maybe knew the names of 2-3 players. A lot of conversations like this: "Hey! What's your name?" "Joey." "OK, Joey. Can you play right back?" "No." "Well, go in for Timmy anyway." I'm not sure what we learned losing 8-0 or 15-0 each week. Didn't seem like much.
I believe the poster mentioned that the other clubs bought in. Your case sounds like the opposite so good reason to complain.
It's funny, I had a conversation tonight with a parent whose son started in my son's club at u9 (my son was still in rec soccer at that point) who said that that year -- playing what might have been 9v9 at that point -- the club took what was then the unusual step for us of creating one big pool out of the small group of kids (maybe 18) who came in at that age that year rather than trying to find a way to do an A team and a B team. He pointed out that other clubs they played appeared to be doing anything but fielding teams of all abilities, and his son's team regularly lost by double digits to "A" teams. Not many kids from that cohort are left in our club, maybe five or six of the original 18 or so. Honestly, I'm not a fan of travel soccer for 8- and 9-year-olds at all (I was even reluctant when my son joined at u10). But clubs playing to grab trophies at that age are just nuts.
I was the one who brought up our "academy" experience. I don't know how the other clubs formed their teams. All I know is we played them.
There is a difference between chasing trophies and putting together a good team, training against good players and playing good competition. Seems these clubs aren’t confirming expectations prior to acting or are naive about what will happen. If there are leagues involved they also are at fault. I understand the idea of letting anyone who shows up play on the team but anybody who thought that group should then go play teams who have tryouts and cuts (and didn’t think the score would be 10-0) was sadly mistaken. Must have been 20 posts ago but my first thought in this was that parents who know the game and value development will not join, or not stay, at a club that employs the approach. This whole thread should be divided into Recreational Youth Soccer and Competitive Youth Soccer. The more those lines are blurred, the more circular discussion will occur.
In our area, U8 is when the first Rep teams are formed and the pool where its drawn from are from Rec which begins at U4/5 or something. So I think in this case, there is overlap between Rec/Comp. If its a club doing it for the first time or if it's a new league, there's bound to be some mismatches. At that age group, if one team has a couple of standouts, they're bound to destroy the other team.
I didn't get the impression the lines have been blurred in this thread. Our local select program starts at U8/U9 (sometimes a U7 player is allowed) with the "academy" program I described above. If you're playing select, you're not allowed to play rec. Rec starts at U5 I believe.
I don't mean to pick on you or slam your comment, but I don't see much of a distinction between chasing trophies and "competitive soccer" for kids that young (8 and 9). At that age, no one really knows what any of those kids will eventually become as players, aside from sometimes being able to identify a kid as a good athlete in a general sense (and even those kids will be caught and passed by a lot of other kids as they all mature). Whether the kids are playing pure rec soccer, and my son was one of them at that age, or playing in a club, they should be practicing and playing with a focus on becoming better players and having fun with it so they stick around. By u12, the A teams in my son's clubs are playing at a pretty competitive level. His team, now a u14/15 hybrid, plays in the top brackets at strong tournaments and in a lot of cases makes finals (we'll see if that holds this fall playing against true u15s ...). Bottom line, I'll be curious to see how the new focus I mentioned a ways back for younger kids works out for our club, and whether the parents come around to the idea, whether some remain resistant, ...
I'm all for blurring the lines. I spent three years paying for "competitive" youth soccer that was nowhere near the level of the best "recreational" teams in our area. Most other countries have two types of youth soccer ... 1. Pro clubs' academies, fully subsidized by the pro club. 2. "Grassroots," often pay-to-play but at a cost we would call "rec." Why not put every team in a local or regional pyramid? Top teams will likely attract or recruit pro coaches. Lower-tier teams will have parent coaches. And yeah -- full-time travel before age 12, much less 10, is a crock. I've been on that campaign for years. http://www.soccerwire.com/author/duresport/
The thread started with pay to play and the article attached. Soccer development occurs at an early age, physical development is based on a different timetable. The intersection of the two creates a few million unique outcomes. Every year. Trying to create a model that makes everybody happy is a fool’s errand. At younger ages, trophies or medals are given out at every tournament and at the end of every league season. Often the only distinction between first and last is an inscription. Youth soccer, for all of its issues, breaks the game into recreation and travel, this thread combines them.
Trying to create a model that more open, fair and just might produce better outcomes (certainly no worse outcomes) is not [a fool errand]. Our current model favors those parents who know how the system works and are willing to pay big bucks to be part of that system…competitive/travel soccer at a young age is a race to take average players and turn them into slightly better than average players…where “better than average” is all that is required to find success in US Soccer, at least through the college ranks…
I said trying to make everyone happy is a fool’s errand. Feel free to disagree, but let’s try to be factual.
Factually, the phase "trying to make everyone happy" is rather vague and somewhat meaningless... Furthermore, categorizing what others might be suggesting as merely “trying to make everyone happy” is dismissive and a bit insulting…