Says who? Using that logic, you can't evaluate a player fairly if they're not playing against FCB. If there is an A/B team (however that is set), if there's an opening on the A team, the coaches should be able to communicate and say "Suzy on the B team is best player we have, she should move up."
Not harsh nor selfish…more like normal… You/we have no interest in his teammates (Youth soccer in general) outside of how the directly impact our own child’s development/opportunities… Lesser skilled players training/playing with more skilled players might improve the overall quality of youth soccer…but as the parents of those more skilled players, screw that shit… As I’ve said, I am not pointing fingers or throwing stone…I totally cop to all this myself…I readily admit, I am rather pissed about the situation my son is in this season, in large part, because of the lesser skilled, yet in many cases, older, players my son is being forced to play with/against…I am sure some those lesser skilled kids will greatly improve this season…my son will be lucky to break even….it will be a challenge to remain positive when certain kids are clearly dragging down the quality of training/play my son is used to…. Yet, I am just as sure there are A team parents who are thrilled to death the “dead weight” has been demoted to the B team….it’s all relative and more than a bit selfish…
Are the kids always playing the same position? If so that would be a concern for me, at U10 I would still like to see movement of players from offense to defense, maybe not within a game but from game to game- are the starting line being determined by ability. For example would Suzy on team B who is a forward, but not quite as good as Jill on team A, but if Suzy were to play defense, she would be better than one of the A players. I don't think it is a good idea to have defined 1st team and 2nd team, to me this seems to hurt the team from a development stand point and also seems to hurt them from winning, the only benefit I see is it makes keeping track of minutes really easy.
I've been thinking along similar lines lately. Our son is now a sophomore in college, still grinding it out in college soccer but the days of youth clubs and tryouts and my wife & I driving him to games, tournaments and practices are long gone. So now that he's a young adult in charge of his own "career" I've had some time to reflect on my own role as a soccer parent, back when it was my wife and I making the decisions. And while I still stand by a lot of my complaints and observations about the shortcomings of youth soccer I gathered over those years, I have reconsidered some of the choices I made. I grumbled about "unfairness" quite a bit, and it's true that more than once my son got overlooked in favor of slightly older, more athletic players at the youth level even though he was a serious player who stuck with the game while most of the "A" team players who kept him on the bench have long since quit the game...yet, at the same time, I have to admit that I was looking at it from my own perspective. What seemed obvious to me was likely not at all obvious to coaches who were dealing with dozens of kids on multiple teams. I did eventually come to accept that every coach has his or her bias, they all have to make judgment calls and live with the fact that they will get some of them wrong. And when my son did finally start to blossom and win the favor of his coaches in his later HS years and now in college, the coaches who were "getting it right" with him occasionally got it wrong with other people's sons. I genuinely felt bad for kids who didn't get a fair break, and I've never begrudged the kids who were genuinely deserving of being on "A" teams, going to "premier" tournaments, etc. And I didn't and don't doubt the sincerity of the people who expressed regret for my son when he got pushed to the B team at his second-to-last club, breaking up what had been a fairly happy little squad before a bunch of new kids were recruited in. But, really, they weren't going to rock the boat and risk their kids' good fortune, and I never once considered pulling my kid from an advantageous roster slot in solidarity with someone else's kid. And, more to the point--when that happened, we didn't stick around to see how the B team worked out. We let him go back to his first club, which had never fully recovered from the mass exodus of original families (including ours) in the wake of their first bad season. So...I've not always practiced what I preach. Although, of course, it didn't seem that way at the time.
Yeah I was about to write, we all become better parents the second and third time around - just not with soccer but in general. I was a horrible soccer parent with my older one and as a result, she never really had a passion for the sport. With my younger one I've been to supportive but some of that comes down to her situation at home. Finding a balance with how you support your player in soccer is no different then finding that balance in how we support them in other activities. It's really not a soccer thing at it's core as much as it's about becoming a better parent IMO.
I agree with all that's been said. Though I dont do this nearly enough, I have found that only cheering for the positives (and I do not find this to be natural at all) not just for my kid but for every player on the field generally puts me in a better frame of mind and makes me happier. Less likely to complain (mostly to myself) and more likely to see it for what it is ... just a game. Especially at the younger age levels. U10 is very young. If training is good and kid is happy and getting equal playing time, then I'd consider it a very good situation.