No High School Soccer in 2012?

Discussion in 'Youth & HS Soccer' started by respecthegame, Dec 10, 2011.

  1. Ruud11

    Ruud11 Member

    Dec 2, 2009
    Club:
    Chelsea FC

    What are you trying to say?
    R u saying that College coaches do not always recruit the best players but the ones who are most likely to pay so that they do not have to give out grants/scholarships?
     
  2. rhrh

    rhrh Member

    Mar 5, 2010
    Club:
    AC Milan
    No, I'm saying *academies*, specifically USSF DA in my area, recruit for the ability to pay the high fees unless they are free. And most academies in my area are not free. They will give scholarships in some cases, but if you look at the USSF DA evaluations, you'll see it is nowhere near all academies giving scholarships, and few give more than a few. And if a kid is really poor, likely their parents do not have a car to take them to practices and games. Real situation in cities, that town clubs solve unofficially with the burden usually on the volunteer coach to pick up players. Public transportation is not possible for most away games.

    If a player is at all borderline (new to the club or not a starter), inability to pay can be a reason to recruit someone else.

    Colleges are different, although there are still a few who cannot play at the level they want because the money is not there for college soccer. For example, books tend to cost about $1,000 per semester, and even if a student is getting money for books (not available at all schools), often the money is late and they either have to borrow money or fall behind on classes. There are also players whose parents make enough money to send them to a great school, but the parents don't want to contribute their share for whatever reason (18 = gone for some parents, despite what FAFSA thinks). Their only chance might be to be declared independent from their parents.

    That is, the "they" in the second sentence that you quoted was "USSF academies", not colleges.
     
    Ruud11 and SheHateMe repped this.
  3. Virginian

    Virginian Member

    Sep 23, 1999
    Denver, Co
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I guess this reiterates my point. In the end, there are too many academies. If every player that enters at 15/16 age group is told that they are training with the end goal of being a professional, then outside of those DA programs tied to an MLS Homegrown program (or the few others tied to USL/NASL clubs), their path to the pros is really college. Even for those academies that offer a free option or massive scholarships, if they aren't good enough to go pro right after high school, their only option is really college.

    College isn't a great option for the majority of players who want to become pros for the following reasons:
    1. There just aren't enough college roster spots at competitive programs for all the kids playing Academy each year
    2. Only 9.9 scholarships to give out (many do not offer the fill 9.9 scholarships if at all)
    3. The rising cost of a college education
    4. Academic requirements of many colleges
    5. Many colleges today that have excellent soccer programs don't have the best academic reputation for your resume after soccer is over.

    In all honesty, if we keep expanding the Academy program each year, we're going to shoot ourself in the foot. I understand the economics of it, and why we have multiple teams in a single metro area (mainly to reduce travel costs and time away from school) but really, if we want to really develop the best players, we need to limit the number of teams so that each game is meaningful, against top competition and not against some team that can't field more that 2-3 players that might be a professional one day.

    I'd say, if you don't have a direct path to the Pro's, then you don't get to play USSDA. MLS clubs, USL affiliates like the Richmond Kickers, NASL academies and MLS Affiliates such as Real Salt Lake Arizona get to stay. Everyone else has to find their own way.
     
  4. mdc00

    mdc00 Member

    Jan 8, 2009
    Boston
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It seems to me that these last two paragraphs contradict each other. Do you want the strongest teams in DA, or do you want the teams with pro affiliations? While there is substantial overlap, those two groups aren't necessarily the same.
     
  5. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    I think the fact is the "very few" 18 year old kids are ready for the professional ranks which is why MLS so many very young project 40 through homegrown signings have struggled. Without regular playing time you are not going to develop and very few teens are good enough to compete with top quality men

    This is the point so many seem to miss in talks about player development. Older players don't lose their skill and don't forget how to read the game. They lose their physical advantages (speed and quickness far more so than strength and stamina) that allowed them to get into the league in the first place. The reality is that very few academy kids have the athletic ability to make it at a top D1 school, let alone at the professional level. A lot of parents in academy have no idea their kid will have absolutely no chance to play at a higher level until their kid is in their last year of youth soccer and no one is calling them.
     
  6. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    I don't think the DA is and the fools who run it are too dumb to understand why. The DA is a suckers bet for the majority of kids and as a result it will never get to the competitive level of Europe and South America where HS sports isn't ingrained into the fabric of the culture. For similar reasons, MLS will struggle to get similar quality competition for the their 18 - 22 year olds as other leagues because college sports aren't ingrained in those cultures. If you look at Baseball and Hockey, two international sports that pay an order of magnitude more than MLS pays its players, many North American kids choose to play in college.
     
  7. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    I share your point of view. Trying to force kids into academy will only cause top talent to flee it. The one thing I am skeptical of is the notion the international rules make that much of a difference. The reality is the very best kids will play the entire game with free subs. If you look at the top college teams, most kids play 90 minutes. If anything, free subs allows the weaker teams and players to better challenge the top players and teams. The reason the games look more helter skelter has more to do with the lack of skill, than the number of subs. If you watch a lower level professional game, it looks a lot closer to top level D1 soccer than it does to Champions league.
     
  8. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Nice post. There have been posts along this line including some from myself in the youth national team forums. They usually don't go over too well in part because the bigger picture you allude to is lost on a lot of people that frequent that forum and possibly because the posts weren't as well articulated as yours was.
     
  9. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    If so, why do soccer players retire around similar ages as basketball, baseball and hockey players? I'll agree that soccer is a fairly high skilled sport especially compared to many positions in American Football, but let's not try to pretend that a guy like Dominic Oduro is among the top 50 scorers in MLS history because of his exceptionally high skill level or his great insight into reading the game.
     
  10. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Selfishness doesn't make better players. Recognizing better decisions does. Encouraging kids to dribble when they shouldn't is doesn't help them anymore than encouraging them to pass when they shouldn't. The reason Barcelona is so good is because players the guys on that team are both great dribblers and great passers. There are lots of hours in a week available for kids to become comfortable with the ball.
     
  11. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    My kids played HS ball in SoCal and not Chicago so I can't really say. But I had a friend whose kid did play for at top level teams for one of the academy clubs and complained to me the his son's HS team played better soccer than the coaches taught at his high priced academy club. Now this was before the great 10 month academy season and his kid did play at one of the better High schools, but the problem in the whole discussion it that most paint it with an overly broad brush.
     
  12. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    This is another big problem with the Academy program - at least from what I've seen locally. At older ages kids really need regular time in games to develop. Yet a lot of kids in academy programs end up playing at best, the better part of a game just once a month or even less. In some cases it is not because the kids aren't talented, but instead because they have poor birthday (very young compared to their peers) or because the mature later.
     
  13. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Where did you hear this? This is the opposite of what I've heard from several fairly well informed sources.
     
  14. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    The bolded part is the key. Virtually every kid (including a number of national team level players) in academy kid I've run into that had a good HS program wanted to play in High School. In contrast, the kids with poor coaches or poor schools were thankful to play full time. From my experience, I'd say 2/3 of the kids would rather play (any many good ones opt out of academy completely) than not. The problem is that the Federation of is trying to shove stuff down the throats of kids that for the most part would rather not do it when they could easily accommodate both as some have suggested by just keeping a U18 program running during the High School season.
     
  15. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Typical of the type of posts you get from younger, less mature and less informed posters. Also the type of people that are most gullible to the BS from the federation. cdskou is it fair to assume you don't have any High School aged kids or your own?
     
  16. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    You are correct in believing it is not too common. Schools are allowed at most 9.9 scholarships if they are fully funded and most schools are NOT fully funded and a lot of schools have very few. On the other hand money is not even distributed. A few kids get a lot and most get none. The way it works is the tent pole kids (national team kids that schools can build a recruiting class around) that sign early tend to get very good packages and the kids that sign later tend to get very little until later they are strongly contributing upper classman - assuming the school has some level of funding.
     
  17. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas
    ...since that 'history' amounts to less than 17 years let's see where Oduro ranks a little later in the league's 'history'
     
  18. SheHateMe

    SheHateMe Member

    Feb 14, 2011
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It wasn't the coaches more than likely, but the group of players who probably know each other well and have played together on various clubs for years. The kids are more vested on their school teams than the club, IMHO.
     
  19. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas
    .....OK....I'll bite....They get old..??
     
  20. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Agree with much of what you written in the thread. The only thing I'd suggest that there is a lot of overgeneralization on this topic. For example, the level in HS is often is good or sometimes better for underclassman than they would see even at the best clubs. Club soccer is very rigidly age oriented and just one year can make a big difference. College scouts are nowhere close to every game even at the academy level. Furthermore, it doesn't make a difference if 100 college scouts are at a game if none of them are at the colleges a player is interested in attending. Another thing club has going for it is that you can choose your coach, in HS you get what your school provides. Cost of HS is not necessarily free, but in general it is a small fraction of the cost many high level club teams.
     
  21. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    While I'd agree few parents expect to get the full ride, I'd also say that a large percentage of the parents are overly optimistic on both the level of interest schools will have in the children as well as the type of offers they will receive. The reality is that you have to market your kid and target them to the right audience, yet very few parents seem to do this. They instead believe that by forking out a ton of money to get their kids on teams that go to showcases, recruiters will magically appear to give their kids offers at schools they can afford and that their kids will want to attend. Furthermore, I hear of U12 - U15 parents talking about recruiters and showcases when no one looks at kids this age.
     
    SheHateMe repped this.
  22. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Agreed. Klinsmann is primarily a fitness nut and is not rigid tactically. Furthermore he's been playing a 4-4-2 of late with two holding mids which is something no academy is supposed to be doing. Instead the rigid tactics come from the brain trust that really hasn't shown much understanding what is needed to develop older teens.
     
  23. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    I think you'd be surprised at how many U18 academy kids aren't all that interested in playing any more. For the girls that age, it is much higher. What you may not realize is that for most of their life these kids have been told by coaches and parents they need push and work harder to make it at a higher level. When they get the academy the "pay-off" is a playing games, or even worse watching them from the bench, in front of two sets of parents in an empty High or college field.

    Here's a list that a poster named Hararea put together in the college forum:
    Just four of the 12 played on an academy soccer team last year. Morris only played one year. I'm not sure about the rest. UCLA has a huge class of academy players including many from the LA Galaxy and national team pools, yet the kid that scored their only goals was a non-DA academy player. Washington, which started the week at number 3 in the country got two goals and two assists in their win tonight from Cristain Roldan another non- academy player.

    You've been writing for several years that the academy is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that kids who are interested in development go there while the kids that are not do not. In theory these teams get the pick of the litter and have almost all the best players. In contrast, I've argued that the benefits are very over stated and that a large number of academy kids would be better off playing a combination of club soccer and HS school where kids will not only get to play in a lot of games, but will also get a lot of positive feedback from their community and peers.
     
    Ruud11 repped this.
  24. scoachd1

    scoachd1 Member+

    Jun 2, 2004
    Southern California
    Since Oduro has only played 7 of those 17 years, I'd say he's most likely going to end up much higher a little later in the leagues history. But the reason we are talking about Oduro in the first place is that you claimed "In soccer technical ability trumps everything else." If that were the case Juninho would have been a dominant player for the Red Bulls last year and Oduro would never have made it into the league, let alone have already become one of its 50 top all-time scorers. A lot of soccer people like to think the sport is a lot different than others in terms of skill, but the reality is that it is not. Instead basketball (due to the value of extreme height) and football (which really doesn't start until HS) are really the exceptions to the rule.
     
  25. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas

    ..The 'reality' is that you don't know jack about soccer....
     

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