All-Purpose Soccer Parents Thread

Discussion in 'Youth & HS Soccer' started by becomingasoccermom, Apr 15, 2020.

  1. soccerdad72

    soccerdad72 Member

    Chelsea
    United States
    Apr 5, 2021
    It depends on the area, but generally, that sounds about right.

    Every area has different ways to label the levels - in our area, for the most part there are local rec leagues, then "travel" (community competitive teams), various clubs and then academies. Within clubs, however, there are even tiers of competitiveness.
     
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  2. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Around here, there's "rec" and "select/travel".

    Rec = Everyone is accepted on a team. There may or may not be tryouts (depending on the club). Kids are split by age group.
    Select/Travel= There are tryouts and cuts may/may not happen based on how many kids try out. Kids are split by age group and skill level.
    I've read about some areas split the select and travel into two groups (I guess that's the "semi-competitive" you mention.

    IMO, "Academies" are a subset of Select.

    Some clubs call their top teams "Academy", but that may or may not mean they're top tier.

    Find out what leagues the teams are playing in (can be state, regional, national) and do some research on what level the leagues are.
     
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  3. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'd say that's broadly correct. The distinction between Rec & semi-competitive probably varies from place to place and by age group (my guess is that at the HS ages they're likely the same thing more often than not), and 'competitive' of course covers a lot of ground.
     
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  4. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    We just did our first U8 tournament and got 1st place. Played 2 games Sat and 2 Sun. Went 4-0.

    What's really cool is we shut out every team. We have 2 beastly center backs.
    We scored 30 goals and had 0 scored against.
    Nice to see these kids develop. A talented bunch. They are passing well.

    My kid scored in every game and finished with 8 goals and even played some defense.
     
  5. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Good for them.

    Now, something else to put on your "worry meter"... was this the top bracket in the tournament? Outscoring opponents by 7.5-0 to me says you're not seeded correctly. In my opinion, I would want my team winning by 1-2 goals. That tells me we're playing comparable teams. Saying that, I don't get "comfortable" until we're up by four or more.
     
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  6. CornfieldSoccer

    Aug 22, 2013
    Seeding teams that young is tough since they're all new and you don't have much to go on (at least I struggled with it the year I took that on for a club tournament).

    But yeah, sounds like whoever manages the team needs to be requesting the top bracket wherever they play (until they run into teams that are easily beating them) and trying to make sure they're not headed to tournaments full of relatively weak teams.
     
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  7. soccerdad72

    soccerdad72 Member

    Chelsea
    United States
    Apr 5, 2021
    I was thinking the same thing - in the early ages, it's hard to know what bracket to put teams. Once there's a little more history, it's on the tournament organizers to try to catch those teams underbracketing themselves just to get the "hardware" (yeah, I've know clubs that do that a lot, unfortunately).

    Congrats to your son, Dada
     
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  8. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    True, there is not a lot of history, so maybe that's what happened (probably).
     
  9. CornfieldSoccer

    Aug 22, 2013
    It does happen, as does the opposite -- teams whose coaches (or parents) overestimate their ability and ask to be bracketed against the toughest available teams when they're not up to that.

    During the handful of tournaments I had various roles in, the more-experienced people I worked around graded themselves in part on how many close games their scheduling resulted in -- the fewer the blowouts, the better your tournament was likely to be and the happier most of the clubs who played in it were.
     
  10. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    There were two brackets, 4 teams in each bracket.
    Each bracket had essentially two A teams and two B teams. Not sure if that was intentional or was randomly assigned.

    The winners of each bracket played each other in the finals.
    So yeah, we played a couple B teams and a couple A teams.

    We played an A team in the final and won 3-0. They are a similar club to ours in the same city.

    We had prior played in a U9 tournament (a year older kids) and we went 2-1.

    In our U8 league (comp tier) we have 3 wins, 1 tie.

    Objectively, seems we're probably the best U8 team in our city. I'm sure there are teams in other cities that would give us a run for our money.
     
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  11. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    In our league we play the A teams of the local clubs. But it seems there aren't many tournaments for U8 around here. We play in a couple other tournaments but we have to play up a year (vs U9).
     
  12. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    Yeah, in these weekend tournaments that are super short, the seeding seems more difficult to get right.
    But there is another tournament (state cup) that spans over several months where they basically have a couple initial round robin seeding rounds. And based on the results of those games they create the brackets for the quarter finals. So that seems like a fair way to do it.
     
  13. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My son was on a VERY good U8 team. They were kinda well-known in the region. A very ambitious U10 girls team (who years later won the state cup) used to regularly scrimmage them for practice, as did a few ambitious boys teams from other clubs.

    They used to get invited to impromptu tournaments out of state--there were a couple of clubs in central NJ who would seek us out. They won every tournament they went to. It was the most fun I've ever had as a soccer parent. As a U9 team, they once went something like a 41 game winning streak (one of the other kid's grandfather appointed himself team statistician, lol) over the course of two seasons and several tournaments.

    In the end, it didn't last. Other teams started to catch up with them, they started losing games as often as they won them, and after a couple years the players went their separate ways, to several different clubs and academies. Ever since then, whether for club, Middle School, High School, Junior College, College club, Adult amateur, semipro, and his one (to date--fingers crossed!) pro team--he's always played for an underdog. That U-little team his U8 and U9 years was one and only experience of being on a 'top' team that everybody else measured themselves against. So if nothing else, he got a taste of what 'elite' players often take for granted.

    And, of course, there's a box full of cheap trophies somewhere in our basement. FWIW, our now-23 year old son can't bring himself to throw them out.
     
  14. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    Whoa 41 games, impressive!

    I was just wondering what the path is for most teams that start young - how many kids quit, what % switch clubs, etc. So thanks, I found your post insightful.
    I suspect even next year this squad will look different. Maybe one or two will switch clubs, maybe one will play up, and then of course some new kids might come into the team.
    And I realize that even if we are the best "team" in the area, that doesn't necessarily mean we have the best players as some parents simply may be waiting until U9/10 to invest in a comp program, but maybe their kid is balling out at home/pickup game/rec or wherever.

    All I can do is just try to focus on positively guiding my own kid. I know he'll be on losing teams too. In fact I was just thinking about this (maybe a discussion for another post) - since indoor is coming up - but maybe let him play with his friends who don't play much soccer - I know he would have fun playing with them even if they weren't good.

    Kudos to you and your kid, sounds like a wild and fun ride you've been on.
     
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  15. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I suspect our story was somewhat common--it started as an "all star" team a year or two before actual travel soccer starts. They were recruited at one club by a parent-coach who watched a lot of games and to his credit picked kids who he thought had good ball handling skills rather than looking for bigger, faster kids. And then...he mostly just had them scrimmage a LOT and play hard.

    It worked, really well, for two or three years. And it was a lot of fun; my son recently ran into that former coach and thanked him for those years. I was glad to hear it.

    It was maybe the best part of my years as a soccer parent; I hope your journey is a good one. Sounds like you're off to a great start.
     
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  16. soccerdad72

    soccerdad72 Member

    Chelsea
    United States
    Apr 5, 2021
    We had an elite U9/U10 team in our area that would dominate every league, tourney, etc. when my younger son was the same age.

    The team couldn't survive - the main reason being that they were so exclusive that nobody else was good enough (in their parents mind) to play with them, so when the time came to step up to 9v9, they couldn't find any other players to add to their roster (at least none that would want to play with them), so the 8 or 9 kids ended up splitting up and going to various other clubs. My son still plays with or against many of those players - they're still phenomenal players, albeit still a little arrogant.
     
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  17. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    #217 NewDadaCoach, Nov 2, 2021
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2021
    Thanks for sharing. I do love watching my kid play.
    But I guess it makes me kinda sad to hear that the enjoyment for you tapered off as he got older. Is that the norm? Why do you think that is?
     
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  18. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    United States
    Sep 28, 2019
    That's interesting.
    It seems to me that the "best of the best" kids around here aspire to ultimately get into the local USL academy or the nearest MLS academy. Or they would play up a year in their club, so it would seem really hard to keep a great team intact for many years.
     
  19. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't think it's the norm. And it wasn't ALL bad after that, either. He spent a year on the B team at another club after leaving the first one and that was a lot of fun--great group of parents, it's too bad that B squads tend to get pretty unstable by Middle school, so it never was going to last. His move up to the A team at that club sucked--my son later told me that was the one REALLY bad year for him. (So, keeping in mind he played from U6 all the way through U19--only missing one year due to an injury--his Junior year of HS--he only remembers one year being bad. That's not a bad ratio!)

    Then we moved to a third club, and the first two years of that were great for him, it's just that his mother and I were no longer enjoying the scene--the parents at that club were a bit up the social-status ladder from us and man did they let us know.

    In the end, he ended up back at the original club--with a handful of the guys from that original U8 team--and it was fine. Not great, but fine. He was driving so my wife and I stopped going to games--we had way more fun at his HS games by that point.

    So--don't think I'm trying to give you a cautionary tale. Quite the contrary--I think having been on a really good team full of competitive kids playing hard and having a great time playing together gave him a real "reserve" of good feelings about the sport. Having a good, positive experience early in his club soccer days probably helped him get through a lot of bumps along the way--it's a marathon, not a sprint. Some of those other teams were fun to play on, and sometimes even played good soccer, they just weren't nearly as successful as that first one.
     
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  20. CornfieldSoccer

    Aug 22, 2013
    This has gotta be one of the better start-to-finish (finish at least in terms of youth soccer) stories I've heard. It sounds like your son (and you) have had a heck of a good ride. Well done, both of you.

    My son's club start was the opposite -- a winless weekend at a tournament, lots of teary-eyed kids who thought they'd be better, a near-winless first season in which the coach had to pull parents together after one tournament and give us all a pep talk about how the skills our kids were being taught would eventually pay off, ... And the core group of that team really came together over the next few years and had a fair amount of success before kids drifted off in various directions by the end of U14.

    Re Newdada's question on teams and the degree they stay together or don't, I looked back not too long ago at a U9 team photo from the last rec team I helped coach just before my son's first club season. Fifteen kids, five of whom would be on that first club team the next year and six more who would move on to another team in the same club. Those kids are all now in the U17 age group and:
    -- One, my son, still plays club soccer, for a different regional club.
    -- Five, son included, were either varsity or JV players for his high school team this fall.
    -- Four others play on other HS teams in our area. The other coach and I really enjoyed the fact that at least nine of the 15 are still playing -- at least we didn't ruin the game entirely for them, eh?
    -- One moved away and was apparently a good club player until concussions started piling up a year or two ago.
    -- Two no longer play organized soccer.
    -- Three I've lost track of.

    I'm not sure if that's typical -- I'm still surprised that my son is the last club player left. I think there were either four or five still at it at U14 -- middle school seems to be a pretty common offramp for club players.

    FWIW ...
     
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  21. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Thanks! One of the things I love about moderating this forum is getting to talk about this stuff with parents who are going through it. Now that it's all behind me, I like to think that maybe I have just a bit of perspective. But honestly, I also just sometimes miss the good parts.

    Sounds to me like your son's team had a really great trajectory. Most players drift away at that age, so all you can do is hope to give them a good experience and hope that the ones who do stick with it got developed as players.

    Also sounds like you did a really good job with those rec team kids considering how many of them stuck with the game.
     
  22. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    As we hit the end of my son's HS career, it's of course time to look back. His first true club team had ~10 kids on it. They were pretty good making it to the state semi-finals (in whatever the state tournament was called at that age). Unfortunately, they broke up after that year (some parents weren't happy with the coach, but that's another story).

    Looking at those 10 kids, two of them were on DS's HS team. One was on the rival team, another was on a home school team.

    DS changed clubs after that year and the following year was the age group change. On THAT team (now playing 11v11) there were 17-18 kids. DS stuck with the team through last year. There were four kids still playing on the team. Three others went to the MLS academy, others went to other teams, and others dropped out of the sport all together. The team got REALLY good before they broke up. Won state a couple of years (easily), and did well in Regionals and at showcases before the mass exodus started.

    So yes, even when you have a good team, it's all but a certainty that the team will have drastic changes over the years. Probably not year to year, but I'd say within 3-4 years.
     
  23. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Changing topics, I saw this graphic on twitter and thought of this board...
     

    Attached Files:

  24. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Oh that's awesome!
     
  25. CornfieldSoccer

    Aug 22, 2013
    Three kids from one team at a local club wound up in MLS academies? Wow. I'd love to see what those kids looked like together before they headed off to "the big time."
     
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