We did one year with our last club - in the midwest. Training was very poor but that was in part to managements decision to switch coaches on us - I mean seriously, playing world cup the last 30 minutes for 15 year olds??? As far as competition was concerned - it was sub PremII (MRL) with exception of Liverpool. It basically comes down to pro-longing a typical season by adding a month or so to the overall year of play. Good to keep your foot on the ball and get some time under a different coach so that players have to adapt - as long as that coach knows what they are doing I would not do it again but mostly because our current club offers some training over the summer and we have lots of very competitive open play in the area. I'd add that my 05 daughter needs some recovery time. We went straight from high school soccer to club and the injuries are piling up - so age comes into play for sure. Knowing who you are I am assuming you are going somewhere with this - that you may have already a personal opinion of the matter, so that said I would much rather see meaningful pick up (open play) soccer offered at no charge 2-3 times a week. - No pressue (most kids will take more chances in that environment) - No coaching (kids figure it out and mature with help of other - sometimes older players) - Cost: Cheap or free makes it accessible for kids who are not financially as stable as club players which may equate to more opportunities down stream (club scholarships and so on). - Just fun: I've never seem players smile so much - laugh and joke but still push one another. - Less play time which allows for more recovery. At u15 and up this is a major problem - seriously! - Rebuild or build in more love of the game... Some kids need to go back to the simplicity of the game itself without all the drama and intensity to remember why they are out there.
I've heard more bad than good from others about it (including people I know where I live whose kids participated at the same time as my son), but he did it two summers at U13 and U14 (two and three years ago, also in the Midwest), as part of a team put together with players from multiple clubs. The first was better than the second, and over all he was glad he did it, as were we. Positives: -- As Volk said, playing for a different coach (as long as they're a decent coach), having to adjust what you're accustomed to in terms of style of play and instruction. Also, just more touches, practices, ... -- For a lot of kids, playing in positions that aren't your usual (mine didn't stray too far from his usual, but did spend some time playing in a back 3 for the first time). -- Playing almost entirely against teams that you might not usually see. -- Playing with teammates you wouldn't otherwise know or play with (some of who, in his case, are now his teammates at a regional club). -- Also as Volk said, the stakes were low -- bonus soccer, so the kids had a lot of fun and the losses weren't soul crushers. -- A good entry point to higher-commitment soccer to see if you really want to do more than the local community club. The downside: -- A number of families seemed to figure out midstream that they didn't want that level of commitment, and left mid-summer in year one. -- In year two, with fewer people involved, the level of play on his team dropped. Mixed bag: The competition was all over the place. Some very good teams that really stretched my son's team (thank you, Chicago Inferno). Some teams that weren't much better than rec level (names withheld). One more thought: That might have been about the perfect age for my son to do it, the two years before high school and the period just before that higher-commitment soccer happened. Any younger than that and travelling across multiple states for soccer for players who aren't academy-level would have been silly (to me, anyway).
I mostly agree with Volk but honestly my son only did two years and he may have enjoyed it or remember it more fondly than my impression at the time. Also, this was over a decade ago so my perspective is dated as well as super subjective. (I also watched many of the practices but never saw any of the games).
It seems like many families travel throughout the summer so getting a consistent roster is difficult. I know Crystal Lake Force had a hard time with numbers and merged their Super Y with FC Lake County for this summer. Not a problem on Force's side - just an issue with the amount of parents who are really committed to "more" soccer and prefer some family down time (vacations). Honestly the memories of MRL - traveling, hotels, cheering on your kid(s), having a good time with parents is pretty solid - almost as good as any vacation. But it's not the same and some people really need that time together as a family. I get it really!
Absolutely. I've had more than one "Are we doing the right thing?" moment along the way, particularly when other families post their Yosemite (or pick your dream spot) photos while we're in Kalamazoo or Cincinnati or Schaumburg. To the extent possible, as I think you've said a lot here, just build non-soccer fun into the soccer trips where you can and enjoy the company of the other families when it works. As long as my son still wants to do this, we're in.
Yeah we are always about car and aviation museums and so on - Kalamazoo has an awesom aviation museum which I HIGHLY resommend. We love looking up cultural places to eat as well as local dives - again Kalamazoo has an excellent Mediterranean place to eat. Always try to add something in for MRL or Super Y for sure in order to make it more like a get away. Most of these kids are not getting college $$$ - even far less are going pro. So why not sprinkle in other (non-soccer) activities to make it more interesting? For those in Super Y and headed to Kalamazoo this summer - hit up these two places! https://www.airzoo.org/ https://zooroonarestaurant.com/
I'd add one more to Kalamazoo's finer attractions: http://www.bellsbeer.com/ U13s get pretty fired up after a cold IPA.
This is our first year in Super Y. U11. We were looking forward to South Bend this past weekend (it got rained out), planning on hitting the Studebaker Museum, a brewery, and maybe some former stomping grounds (I lived there briefly). Still looking forward to going to Toledo and hitting the Maritime Museum. I was hoping to stay in a tree house, but those are all booked up. Oh yeah, there's soccer to be played, too, which will be fun. But unlike the others, we haven't done it yet. I'm looking forward to seeing what the other teams are like, but since we're just entering the 9v9 world, I'm not expecting a whole lot in terms of competition. My wife (rightfully) calls it soccer tourism. While we're enjoying integrating with the new team and extending the soccer season after not having a ton of games during COVID (though 17 games, April through June, is a lot I think), it's going to make taking August off that much sweeter. My son is having fun, so I am, too. And, Mr. Dure, I thank you for Single-Digit Soccer, which is on my shelf. I enjoyed it immensely.
From the looks of it, my kid isn't the best player (Great). He is working with a group that are already familiar with each other (Great, kids have been nice). Traveling 45 minutes for practice 2x a week,vs the 15 minute we are used to.(I've been spoiled). Practices have been a lot harder than previous club. As of right now, we would sign up again with Super Y.
Development is a cumulative affect. A kid will not come out of Super Y or any 5 day summer camp significantly improved other than at the youngest of ages where basic technical development is lower hanging fruit and more immediate returns can be seen. That said, Super Y allows for a low stress continuation of a practice regime and games. It is an opportunity to play with different kids and have a different coach. Those can be beneficial in ways not immediately appreciated and not always in ways specific to pure soccer development. You can tell in the very early fall season what kids did Super Y or other regular training and what kids didn't. Some kids did definitely improve but they were mostly just more in shape and kept their touch.
So my son's Super Y season is now over. It was revelatory in both good and bad ways. On the good side, it was good to see some faster soccer. It was good to see that moving from 7v7 to 9v9 didn't phase my son a bit. He relished the increased competition. On the neutral side (for me, most I think would find this next a negative), the schedule was punishing as we had make-up games during the week and the whole season compressed into two weeks because of the stormout lost weekend. 1500 miles with many of those miles coming on weeknights was really hard. I'm lucky that I was able to take some vacation time to get it done. The highlights from the travel included the Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, a fly fishing shop in Sylvania, and the Air Zoo in Portage, MI (thanks for posting about it Volk!). Unfortunately, neither the food nor the beer lived up to the entertainment in any of the places. And this was not a cheap time (though very glad I get about 55 mpg). On the negative side, [snip] (sorry, not relevant to the issue) [snip]. The hardest thing to see, though, was one mother of an opposing team player joysticking her son the entire game. By the end of the game he was in tears. The kid has talent, but I can't imagine he's going to want to play much longer. The whole team had parents like this mother, though not as bad as her, and at one point I looked over and asked the nearest father, "do you not trust your kids or your coach?" He replied, "no" and moved away from me. But obviously, this sort of behavior is not unique to Super Y. In sum, I'm not sure that we would do it again. My son did enjoy it and liked the competition. He enjoyed the games (except one where he froze into a popsicle on the sideline). He enjoyed the travel and staying in hotels and going to the museums. But we were exhausted at the end of it. I found it expensive for the return on investment. I can think of better ROI opportunities for the family in summers to come, but we'll see.
Great report - sorry for the headaches in this. With Super Y the best benefit is that you have a new team/club and coach but that can also bite back as this was the case. It's a roll of the dice for sure.
@Fuegofan Well in my case, we already signed up for a new team. However, the Super Y team has been great to be around. They will be strongly considered, if we make another move.
Hi folks. Super Y is not far away already. Or at least, my local Super Y club is asking for interest. If you've read the previous posts you know that my experienced was pretty mixed. My son enjoyed it. I had trouble with the amount of playing time that he got in games. I wasn't thrilled about spending all of that money for him to play less than 50% of the minutes in several games and 15 minutes in one of them. He wasn't being punished for discipline or missed practices, either. And the club had gone out and gotten five ringers from other teams at the 11th hour that didn't practice with the team, rumor has it they didn't pay the fee, and played the lion's share of the minutes. My dilemma is as follows: My son wants to play as high a level as possible. He's not yet academy age, but will be soon. If I had to guess, I don't think he'll make the local MLS academy (but who knows over the next year or two, right?). This club that has Super Y has a USL Academy. They're the top programs we can get to and he's probably good enough to make the USL Academy. The Super Y club has stated to everyone that this year they are restricting the Super Y team to alumni and current club players. Should I just take my lumps from last year and keep the relationship going with the Super Y club? Should I ask the coach via email whether I can expect my son to get 50% of the minutes this season? Any other thoughts?