I don't recall any of our club coaches keeping track of any of that. I probably could generally come up with a number of goals my younger son had over the last few years of his club and HS career, but that's because he was a center back and thus, it wasn't all that common of an occurance. In HS, he did usually take longer free kicks, occasional PKs and usually was in the box for corners, so he did have more opportunities than in club. The highlight of his HS career (his second to last game) was scoring directly off the second half kickoff to break a 0-0 tie - they went on to upset a higher seed that day, 3-0.
I don't recall club coaches ever tracking this, or assists (or if they did, they didn't tell players and their parents). I'm sure they all knew who their two or three kids most likely to score were (or provide an assist), but my impression has always been that their job was development -- in the most general sense, to try to make them all better soccer players, on and off the ball. Now that I think about it, the best coach my son has had seemed most focused on his back line and his holding midfielder. They were u12 or maybe u13 and he spent essentially the whole year teaching them to effectively play out of the back, ran a lot of the possession and attack through his fullbacks, ... I doubt he had any idea who scored how many goals (that team had no true keeper, and the goalkeeping didn't even qualify as an afterthought, fwiw).
I know that none of my son's coaches so far (U12 this year) have ever tracked who is scoring. I'm the team secretary, so to speak, so I have records of who scored in every game DS has ever played in, but I keep it quiet. It isn't important, but helps resolve questions down the line, and jogs memories.
Players keep track of their goals, assists, hockey assists and all the who stole whose goal, the could of, should of and would have been goals. At least my youngest son did.
That is frustrating. The worst is when its going in and a kid in an offside position thinks its a good idea to tap it in, so of course it's disallowed. Probably doesn't happen at the teen ages but I've seen it at youth a couple times.
Interesting. I would think coaches would want to know. Can use that information in assessing the lineup for the next season. Maybe a new coach enters but wants to see the data from last season. Not that goals are everything. There are many other important data points, esp on defense. But it would be hard to track more than a couple stats without a dedicated statistician.
I think it might be a catch-22. The coaches who might track that tend to be the same coaches who lock kids into positions at u10, so they know Gyackson and Dylan score all the goals because they are the striker and the CAM. Jaxon, the CB, never scores because you can't head in corners below u13 so he never leaves the top of his own 18. The coaches who rotate everyone through the positions can tell you who is the stronger player at forward but only the memorable goals stick out and they aren't as much focused on stats as they are on vibes
Especially at younger ages, stats from the previous year really mean nothing. Just because someone scored a ton of goals doesn't say a lot. How was the competition? How was the supporting play? How large was the field? Did (s)he have a game or two where they just "went off" (probably against greatly inferior opponents) and that elevated the total for the year. At younger ages, stats really don't mean anything.
Amen. And all of the variables you just mentioned can apply at older ages. A friend once mentioned that a coach he knows who works in college at a fairly low level gets annual pressure by his employers to recruit, essentially, the highest high school goal-scorer in the area. That player is frequently someone who scores 30, 40 or even more goals in a season at a small high school playing against poor competition, and is invariably not a good enough player to play on the college's team. But those stats are amazing, aren't they?
I think every sport, people want to know... in baseball its batting average, RBI, home runs, etc. In basketball you want to see field goals, 3s, blocks, etc. At what age do these things start getting tracked? I remember our high school basketball team had a stats person who only did that.
They may or may not be a good player at the next level. But regardless they would need time to adapt. Ideally there would be much more data to see than just goals.
Baseball & softball, probably around age 10. Of course the "official book" is part of most tournament and league rules. And there are pitch count rules (for baseball at least) in youth, so that needs to be tracked. Basketball might start earlier, but by middle school. Again, the "official book" is part of the rules. Soccer, we've been through probably close to 20 years of club (between two kids), 6 seasons of MS, and 7 seasons of Varsity HS. THE only stats I've seen kept are for Varsity HS. They keep: games played, goals, assists, GK saves, GK shutouts. Again, these are all stats that get reported to the state and are available online. People will want to know the stats for their kid, sure. But you were making it sound like coaches would look at the previous year stats to decide if they want to pick a kid for their team. There are SO many more things coaches look for... ESPECIALLY when it comes to college.
At some MLS academies then the pro game. I dont know if colleges utilize all the tracking software get the stats. It's too much for a person or even a few to try and track during a game or even rewatching on some mediocre filming of the game.
DS' MS coach would go back and watch the video and track PASSES (attempted vs made). It took him 3+ hours per game according to him (games were 30 minute halves). I'm not sure how well it helped him coach.
Soccermeter was a great little phone app. You enter team names, length of the game, then the screen is divided, thumb taps for every touch for each team. Useful at u12 to show that at the beginning of the year, in a 60 minute game, we had control of the ball for like 8 minutes, the opponent for 3, the rest was just kickball back and forth. So we set a goal that by the end of the year we'd have control for 20 minutes a game. No opponent ever reached 5 minutes. I wasn't tracking who lost the ball the most, who touched it the most, just a general "the more we have the ball, the more things will go our way"
The only one of my son's stats I remember is that he managed to score one professional goal before COVID cut the season short and he had to move back to the US. He did score a few more goals at some tryouts and in scrimmages when he gave the pro game one more try, but that one goal was the sum total of his professional "career" stats. So he'll always be able to say he scored A goal as a professional. Of course, he was 21 years old at the time (February 2020).
That's something that most people can't say. That's amazing. You must be so proud of him. And he should be proud of himself.
Thanks! I'll always wonder how things might have gone had COVID not cut things short at that club, but he seems to be at peace with things not working out. As for me, I'm mostly at peace., LOL. I still get wistful thinking about the planned trip to go see him play that never happened and never will. Such is life!
How's about sharing the journey of your son here? What were pivotal moments... Moments of doubt for player, parent... How did pro opportunity come about... Position? What part did college choice and career play... Did any coaches play pivotal rolewas he a youth "academy" player... Please.
I don't track over a season. I do track within game--especially in blowout games. One of my best friends does track but he is the only one I know.
Nothing like driving 4 1/2 hours to see a team give up a 2-1 lead and lose 3-2 on a goal in the last minute of stoppage. . Followed by the 4 1/2 hour drive back, 3 1/2 hours of sleep, then going to see the other kid play.
what if they are looking at quality of first touch? Quality of possessions? goals are tracked on every game sheets. This has been the case since at least U10. None of our daughter’s coaches have done anything g with them…yet. She’s U13.