Is the youth club soccer environment uniquely dysfunctional?

First college athletics is end point for MOST athletes, regardless of the sport. There's a small number that make it to that point, and an EXREMELY even smaller number that move on to the professional ranks. I mean, where else would you go after college?

As far as coaches, it's been a mixed bag for us. We've had coaches that help a team "come together" and others who have simply worked on the "soccer side". And yes, we've had "cliques" of players on various teams. That doesn't help the team, and it's going to be more noticeable IN soccer than some of the more "traditional" sports. Coaches call the plays in football and basketball. There little room for innovation in baseball and softball. In soccer (and presumably hockey, lacrosse, and field hockey), you need to react in the moment and limiting your choices to "who your friends are" is not a way to do well. Maybe that's why it's more noticeable to you?

 

Our coach last year was great, did a lot of extra stuff for the kids. This year's coach is the opposite, does the bear minimum, and it sucks.

My kid is a boy, but I have heard from parents of girls who say there is more drama on girls teams.

 

I only really have first hand experience in soccer (and only on the boys' side), so I can't say this for certain, but I imagine dysfunction is not unique to soccer. I've heard enough stories of politics and 'cliques' from sports like travel baseball and AAU basketball to guess that dysfunction is a club thing, not specific to any one sport.

 

I'd like to hear from parents who have kids in other travel/club sports, but that might require a trip to Bighockey, Bigbaseball, ...

My son's first club gave me the impression that parents who weren't soccer people were a factor in our particular brand of disfunction. The DOC always talked about trying to build it into a "real club" that families were attached to, cared about, ..., and that had teams of players who were close and played for each other. But the reality was that a lot of the parents (maybe most?) saw it as a service they paid for and nothing more. Purely transactional.

I'll say this re the push toward college and the level of happiness/unhappiness among the players -- the drop off among my son's group (both the kids here in town he's played with at the local club and, to a slightly lesser extent, the group at the regional club he now plays for who live across a wide region) has been swift and impressive. Over the past 18 months most have decided they no longer care about playing after high school (with some that may not be a choice, I guess).

 

As I pointed out in another thread, only 7% of ALL HS athletes continue to play in college. That's less than 1.5 out of a roster of 20. Doesn't mean those who don't play don't still love the game, but maybe they're just tired of work they HAVE to put in for it. Especially those on the regional team, they've probably been playing for a decade, more than likely year-round. I can see where someone says "this isn't fun anymore".

 

I'm only at U12, but based on what I see, I predict a significant drop off in the number of kids who play next year, or at least at the club I'm at. Kids who wanted, but didn't make, the MLS Next Academy may move on to othe clubs. Others will simply get busy with other pursuits. Fewer and fewer see it as something they enjoy doing for fun. And I can’t really explain that. Is it that it's been an expectation, and once they're released from it they intentionally go elsewhere? Certainly few families that I know have parents who played. But I'm not surprised to hear of future tipping points. Mine was freshman year of high school. Others, end of high school to be sure.

As for whether it's unique, no, I don't think it is. The stories I hear from those who are close to me about dance and gymnastics are much worse than what I've seen so far. But again, I'm only at U12.

 

I have heard of a lot of dysfunction at various clubs. And in my limited time I have seen a bit.
So I don't think it's all that uncommon.

 

We have found this mentality at all the elite teams in our area. The best kids are on the elite teams and almost none of them want to play cooperatively--so many would rather dribble and lose the ball than pass it or take a no angle shot than pass it off for an easy assist. I don't know if it's selfishness or soccer IQ that makes them play this way but I have found all the coaches we have had don't seem to care. My 15 year old son is now playing with adults and he can't believe how much more supportive they are at practices and how much better they are at combining and passing. He has never found that at any of the youth soccer teams he has been on.

 

This!
Kid had no problem with UPSL DUDES.
PARTLY why I don't think I'm crazy![/QUOTE]

I'll give the coaches at my son's current club some credit here -- if you consistently aren't willing to pass and move (and do your part to keep the team's shape rather than freelancing and wandering around as you see fit), you'll hear about it and may lose playing time.

Watching the first club games this month after the fall high school season was a good reminder of some of the big differences there -- my son was part of a good high school team, but positional discipline was anywhere from just OK to bad and frustrating to watch (also costly for the team).

I'm familiar with the club-soccer dysfunction factor -- it's tough for some new players to fit into his team because of the cliquishness, which he just deals with since he's not really in anybody's in-group -- but the on-field standards have been a major silver lining on the club side for him.

 

American youth soccer is an oligarchic system founded on business and ignorance. Many parents are unknowingly the gullible individuals who help feeding it.

We live in an implicit and erroneous notion that problems can be solved without questioning the causes. Sometimes we don't want to do it, often we aren't able to, the fact remains that almost always we manage to confuse the effect with the cause.

So, let's start from the beginning, from the way in which a footballer is formed, and in doing so in the interest of time let’s skip the pre-competitive age group, meaning the grassroots and youth academy (6-12) - although a parenthesis could also be opened here, but this is another story.

At the age of 13 the boy "finally" enters the competitive arena. And here is when the real problems begin. In fact, youth competitive soccer in this country is a perverse machine founded on business, with much more harmful dynamics - paradoxically - than the professional level. Here, not only is the system constructed in such a way that profit is the priority, but to make matters worse, this occurs at the expense of quality and growth, both of the boys themselves, and of the US soccer movement in general.

What do MLS Next, ECNL, USYS and EDP all have in common? Tiers and divisions. This takes us directly to the heart of the problem. The goal, in fact, from age 13 becomes to win in order to maintain or climb the divisions within the league. Legit, you will say. The problem is how and why.

Starting from the assumption that youth soccer is part of a framework of enormous, generalized ignorance, many parents find fertile ground in it, and cause real harm to the kids, by auto-convincing themselves that their child is the new Ronaldo, Messi, Haaland, van Dijk, or just simply the new Donovan or Pulisic.

This is the fundamental premise, because all the problems, trivially, derive from here, the parents. Convinced of having the rising star of international football in their household, or even just a potential professional player (odds 1 in 5-10,000), as a parent where do they take him? Simple, in the bigger leagues and in the best-known clubs which, as such, participate in top tier championships, out of state travel leagues, and tournaments, attended by scouts, agents, journalists, etc.

It seems not to matter that the boy is the thirty-second in the hierarchies on that team, or that to take him to training the parent must travel 40-50 miles and spend hours in traffic, or that away games require spending thousands of dollars on flights and hotels. The important thing seems to be that he is on the “big” stage - and wearing the gear of a known “top” youth club.

Perhaps then a scout or an agent will take notice, and all efforts will pay off (when pigs fly). To their part, the youth clubs, well aware of this mechanism, knowing that in tier/division A there are three times as many young players registered as in B, and that the same thing happens for B with respect to C, try in every way possible to maintain or climb to the next tier. As such, the reward is no longer the formation of footballers, or the process, as Marcelo Bielsa would say, the way in which the individual players and the team improve, but rather materially it is to win.

And here we are at a crucial point: how do you get the win, especially at youth level? What is the fastest and most direct way to get to the finish line? Develop a technical game with creativity at the base working individually on the boy and globally on the team OR resort to the physical aspect, the bigger / more powerful / faster boys? Which one is the most profitable system in the short term?

This brings us to the point where players are recruited if they are 4-5 inches taller than teammates and opponents, or pacier and more athletic than their peers, often recruited in questionable ways, because they are physically dominant and win matches on their own.

In the most important age for the technical and tactical development of the boys, often clubs cease to work on them, with the required time and the necessary patience, but rather look to cross the finish line by taking the shortest route. Apparently, everyone is happy (except the boys, but often they don't even realize it): the clubs collect money, the parents dream, the coaches win, and thus the mechanism feeds itself, but then comes the time for the professional level.

At this point the professional club that evaluates the boy doesn't care how many games he won at youth level and instead demands an already formed and ready to compete professional player. Just like a corporation which hires a newly graduated engineer will expect him to do a job and won’t care anymore about his college grades, in a similar fashion, a professional team will want players ready to win immediately. Only this time though is for real.

And here lies the main issue. Many US raised footballers, or better said many potential footballers, are not ready when making the jump to pro. They don’t know how to dribble in the way is expected of a winger, or mark as it is expected by a pro defender, and often are not even able to control the ball as it’s expected by a pro footballer.

As for the others, the big/athletic ones who thrived at youth level, they seldomly establish themselves at the pro level. They were uniquely the Trojan Horse to enter the city, meat for slaughter, the mean to an end of a system founded on business and winning.

This is part of the reason why we regularly see MLS teams presenting starting lineups where 8-9 players are foreign. LAFC, the current champion of MLS being the best example. The matter is so bad that often MLS clubs will find better value and better footballers even in places like Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, small countries with extremely limited resources but doing enough to produce MLS level players that are better equipped than 99% of elite American youth players.

Ever wondered why the US soccer system hardly produces talents? Why one of only few American talents, Clint Dempsey, grew up in a trailer park in a small East Texas town, where he fell in love with soccer by playing pick-up games in the street with his siblings and Hispanic kids who had no access to big youth clubs? Why the national team is mostly composed of players who have been formed in Europe like Pulisic? Simple: because in US youth soccer there is not enough time, and youth clubs want to win immediately. In fact, what happens if a 14 year old boy tries to dribble and loses the ball and the opponent team scores on counterattack? Or if a central midfielder tries to control into space and loses the ball letting his defense exposed?

These are aspects of the game that need to be trained, and that require a lot of patience. That winger will miss ten, twenty, thirty dribbles before mastering how and when to do them; the other will miss a touch on the ball hundred times before learning to do it like Iniesta. And so I ask you, if Iniesta had been born in the US and played youth soccer for one of many big clubs in this system and not in Barcelona, where since eight year old they teach you to play that way, not caring whatsoever about winning or the result, would he have become Iniesta?

At youth level “play to win” is synonymous of the death of creativity, personality to take players on 1 v 1, and talent, and if we add the pressure, and the responsibilities a teenager is overloaded with on a soccer field, and that “dribbles and creative plays have to be tried only when strictly necessary” it is a recipe for disaster. As why should a 13-year-old know when or what is strictly necessary? Often at that age they don’t even fully understand their position but here too we have the obsession of formations and positions, and we keep lowering the age at which the players must play under the pressure of tactical responsibilities.

Afterall, regardless of the above, talent cannot be taught but rather it can be indulged. And it’s not only the youth soccer programs and academies’ fault. Look for instance at what happens in Spain, with no need to even mention Brazil or Argentina, considering US is much more similar to Europe on a social/economic level. You will see that at the beaches, in the small-town squares, kids play soccer. In the summer, you will not be able to find a single Spanish beach where soccer is not played, a sacred tradition that just doesn’t exist here.

Let’s be clear, I am not trying to change reality and the country’s culture, but highlight how by playing on the street the best talents have been formed, free of expressing themselves, without pressure to win, and forced to adapt themselves to contingent circumstances (in an alley or in a park the ball never bounces in the same way, but every time you have to know how to control it). Here instead, we expect the kids to develop the same amount of talent by only playing on nice fields, when it’s not raining and when the weather conditions are ideal. Why are trainings and games cancelled when the field is wet or it’s raining? To preserve the ideal conditions of the fields? This does not happen in Europe or South America.

Technical quality cannot be considered secondary. Physical strength, which perhaps characterizes the more developed children, will eventually disappear and level to that of the rest. We must consider the youth sector as a cradle where we build the talents of the future, as is done in Spain or in other countries. If you have a lightweight boy with a great technique and understanding of the game, you cannot discard him or play him less and favor a more physically developed one. To the contrary, you must work on his development and wait for him to catch up physically. American youth soccer needs to change. What is the point of only focusing on the more physically mature kids within an age group to win a tournament or a league title?

So, let's all take a step back and start from the basics. Let me launch here a revolutionary proposal, which the professionals in the sector will have the pleasure of mocking but I have the duty to propose. Let’s abolish tiers and divisions up to a certain age; or at least let’s find the way for winning not to become a constant nuisance and the primary objective.

Enough with greedy club directors and win at all costs stressed-out coaches. Let’s work on the boys with patience, let’s bring this sport back to where it belongs, and that is passion, and give everyone their needed time: to the coaches the time to teach soccer for the medium-long term development, to the boys the time to learn without excessive pressure or responsibilities, and to the youth clubs the time to work on development, which will be rewarded by training compensation if they can place at the pro levels the boys on whom they have invested time, commitment and energy.

Finally, an appeal, from the heart to many parents: I understand you. You pour out all your frustrations on your children, but I understand you. One out of thousands makes it and so why not your son, he is so good and then come on... He's your child, he's the best. Maybe if you push him a little he can crown yours .., sorry, his dream! So take him to the biggest and most famous youth club. After all, in the small youth club by where you live, a good player will never be noticed (are you sure of this? Plenty of stories around the world tell us otherwise, but don’t worry about it). Maybe he will have a little less fun, but if you want to get there, sacrifices must be made.

It doesn’t matter if the coach at the youth team near home does it for pure passion, if he prefers to work with the boys at cost of going home to his family late at night, if he is desperately in love with the ball. An elite youth club is elite, they have the best professionals and the right people: it is the perfect stage for your child after all. So take him there to train, grind hundreds of miles, get stuck in traffic. Waste gas, money, time, energy. Park, and wait while watching the training. Do not make friends with the other parents who are your competition. In the meantime, talk to someone that matters, intercept the coach off the field, make contacts, discuss with an agent: you are chasing his dream, you have to make sacrifices.

But I want to ask you a question. Assuming your child might actually make it, have you ever talked to him? Deeply, not superficially. Are you sure that this is his dream, or that it always has been? Yes, in short, that it is not your aspiration, the one you glued on him years ago, when you saw that he had "talent" ... After all, most kids in US are introduced to soccer at an early age, it should be a true rebel in his blood, your son, to send you to hell at twelve. And then, are you sure that you can exploit the system and that you are not the gullible idiots who help feed it, that rotten system?

So take a step back: be revolutionary in your own small way. Stop pouring broken dreams on your children and forget about those "elite" youth clubs in which they will have to share the playing time with thirty other indoctrinated kids. Forget the coaches with drool in their mouths, forced to win and all those who populate that version of youth soccer.

Give up the big club gear and raise your son in the local youth club, with a coach who takes to heart your son’s growth in an environment that, if you are lucky, will still be based on passion. You will see that the boy will improve more in this environment than in the "elite" club: it seems strange, but it is so. And if he is really good, rest assured that someone will talk about it, someone else will notice, and in the meantime you will have saved hundreds of hours of traffic, thousands of dollars of gas, and above all you will not have made useless, indeed harmful, sacrifices. For today mass is ended; go in peace.

 

Regardless of the system or club, a great club coach can do wonders. They can develop players, inspire, push but show compassion when called for. They can ensure a team is placed in the right environments - playing in the right tourneys and leagues.

The system is horribly broken. The majority of clubs are run by "soccer" guys who lack any sense of business and often fail to recognize that development happens at different ages and for different reasons.

A good coach with flexibility - not handcuffed to a style of play or coaching, is a coach who can develop individual players and build solid teams.

Find a great coach!

 

First, welcome to the forum!
Second, there is a LOT to unpack here. Let's remember that everyone's situation is different and what's available and works for one child/family won't necessarily work for another.

It's a nice thought that everyone can just play with the local club, with a coach that is more interested in development than winning. However, you need more than that. You need other players/families who want the same thing. Without those other players/families, there is no team.

DS first team (small, local club) had talented players and a coach who knew soccer, cared more about development, and wanted to go far. This was U9/U10. He even got them to the "state" semi-finals. During the entire week leading up to the semi-final game, we kept hearing from different parents that they weren't happy and were going to leave the team and look elsewhere. So we were sort of forced to, and joined the "large" team 20 minutes up the road. There wasn't an option to play for the local team, they didn't have the players in that age group.

When we started our journey, DS showed an aptitude for it. Yes, he was athletic and tall. At the time, I was hoping he'd get "good enough" to regularly contribute to the HS team, MAYBE play in college, POSSIBLY with a scholarship. He turned into a 4 year starter for HS, 3 year captain, and is now playing (and starting) DIII (obviously no scholarship). He's still hoping to play professionally after college.

I don't think there's anything wrong with WANTING those things. I don't think there's anything wrong with HOPING your goals (whatever they may be) happen. But, I agree with you, parents (and kids) shouldn't be getting into sports PLANNING/COUNTING ON them leading to scholarships. And that attitude is not only in the soccer world. Baseball, softball, and basketball all have the same issue. Parents shelling out money looking for that elusive scholarship. And it's bringing in big money for different areas.

This clip is from five years ago and it talks about "sport tourism"
I think it could have gone MUCH deeper.

But I digress. Another thing your post doesn't discuss, and, IMO, is a valid reason to go to those larger clubs/tournaments is for better competition. Is the athlete going to get better by playing against/with vastly inferior players? Or are they going to get better by playing against/with tougher competition? I think it's the latter. Now, where do you find that "tougher" competition? Larger clubs and "wider" leagues.

Is it better to be the 18th player on a top team or the #1 player on a team a couple of divisions down? I'd say it's somewhere in the middle. Ideally I think you want to find somewhere where the player is between #6 - #14 on the team... getting good playing time, but being "pushed" to earn that playing time by their teammates.

Many people will point to what's "wrong" with the youth soccer system and say it's "broken". They'll say "look at what Germany is doing. Look at Spain, look at the Netherlands. Etc, etc". But I have yet to hear of an area of the US that is doing things "well". So all these people with all of these ideas on what we need to do better are doing... nothing. Except spouting off about how "broken" the system is.

My family is almost at the end of our youth soccer journey. DS is playing in college, DD will have her senior season of HS next year followed by her last youth soccer season. She has no interest in playing after HS. Will our "investment" "pay off"? Not in monetary ways. But that's not why we invested. We put up with the cost, the travel, the time commitment, all of it, because it's what our kids wanted to do. We enjoy watching our kids do something they enjoy. They have made friends, they have won, they have lost, they have been the hero, they have been the goat. Looking back over all the time on the road, all the money we've spent, all the hair we've pulled out, and all the nails we've chewed off, I would not trade it for the world.

Is the system "broken"? Maybe. But until something changes, it's the system we have. Don't like it? Work to change it or don't participate.

 

This part was big for my son. Not living in a major metro, he had to make the choice between leaping (along with local teammates) to a club that draws from a wider area to deepen its player pool or stay at the local club and make the best of it. The non-local club has required us to do things I once swore I wouldn't do in terms of practices commutes, among other things. And it isn't perfect by any means.

But kids who stayed local are now noticeably less-skilled, less-capable players (he and his club teammates are now almost all HS seniors). My guess is the gap that developed had a lot to do with how much kids were being pushed by teammates and the level of competition.

 

We've had them. Purely by luck, we don't go "coach hunting".

 

Having committed teammates that will push you in practice and to practice on your own is more important. I prefer a coach who can recruit over one who preaches development.

 

My son has, too. Not that anyone asked, but of the 10 head coaches and regular assistants I can think of after U-littles rec soccer (which was coached by me and a handful of other parents):
-- 2 were really good, top-notch, in terms of development and helping kids get better and understand the game, and coaches U11 through U14 (both at the smaller local club, fwiw). They were opposites in terms of personality -- one was upbeat and like a buddy even as he pushed them, one pushed them hard and was really demanding.
-- 4 have been mostly good (between them they have had various roles at U15-U19 and high school). One had a lot of college coaching experience and three played in college. All four really love the game, from what I can tell, which I think helps.
-- 2 were just OK, coaching him at U10 and U11. One was actually good at coaching U9 and younger, but just OK past that (all-around great guy, either way).
-- 2 were, for a lot of the kids they coached, not good all. One was a HS coach who I think meant well but didn't know the game on a very deep level and didn't handle his players well (lots of mysterious benchings, affecting other kids a lot more than mine, tbh). The other has high-level coaching credentials and knows the game better than I ever will, but his handling of players not in his favored core on the teams he coaches is just bad. The words soul crushing fit (also the only coach we've ever been around who was the source of enough angst to lead a parent -- not me, thankfully -- to try to fight a coach).

So outside of the last two, my son's done pretty well.

 

Recruiting is an art. First of all, you can't convince a good player to join if your team is not already half way decent. Secondly, the players on your team need to be happy but not content. They have to want to play for you and know that if they don't work hard someone else will take their spot. You can't be a good recruiter if you are not a good coach. Teams like this get better every year.
I hate those coaches who preach development and every year they lose players to better teams.

 

Had a great technical coach/trainer at one club - terrible game coach. Had a great coach at another club but that guy went on to open a new business out of State. Moved to our final club (only 2 years left before college) and he has been the best. Lights a fire but knows when to show empathy. He's met with my kid when she was down (injury) off the field and built her up. He actively helps (a ton) with the college processes - always available and always reaching out to college coaches when they are not responding to his players.

Guys calls it like it is and sometimes some folks don't like it, but more often then not - he's right.

Those last two coaches are the only coaches I've seen that get their players to want to win for them.

But short of those 2.5 coaches - a waste of time and money and more importantly - experiences that almost had my kid leaving the sport completely. So I'm picking up what you are laying down brother.

 

After some of my kids experiences - we had to find the right coach otherwise she was done.

My oldest is 23 - youngest is 17 and I think the most important component =- after you understand where your player is, is a great coach who will get to know them and provide the right approach to keep them interested and developing.

Club hunting - IMO, is a complete crap shoot. Regardless of a clubs reputation, at a young age it makes no difference in terms of where your player ends up by the time they reach u13/u14. The basics of the game at those younger ages come down to the coach 100%.

 

Preaching dev vs actually dev at a young age is key. U8-U12 recruiting is worthless IMO.

As they get older - recruiting and a good pool becomes more important but development should still be in play. Unfortunately many big clubs who have often preached on dev are not teaching it. I roll my eyes when I hear a coach talk about dev or god forbid they toss in the old "Trust the process".

 

Your entire post is excellent. It is exactly what we have encountered in youth soccer. I have a 15 year old son who is a lightweight with great technique and an amazing understanding of the game. At tryouts, we have noticed that the flashy kids who dribble and try to do everything themselves or the biggest ones who have the benefits of being fully grown men are the ones the coaches clamor for.

I often think my son would do far better in Europe than here because he has great speed of play. What takes most players 5 touches, he accomplishes in 2. What takes other players 3 touches, he can do one touch. He has studied the EPL and he understands the tactics of the game very well. But all of the youth soccer we have encountered has valued strength and early physical development over technique and tactics.