Is it worth it to even try? Or are kids better off going to a different club? Seems like there are always a couple of kids who never get their shot. I can't figure out why when I look at the talent that does stay up there. And fwiw, it's not sour grapes. I'm actually thinking of a girl on my DD team who is top 3 on this team(top team at club), but only got moved up because they lost so many other girls. What took them so long? She was this good two years ago, we could have used her. I'm especially interested in hearing from people on the club side. Is there that much politics at play? It doesn't add up that you keep weak kids and don't move up talent.
There can be politics for sure - I've seen that everywhere. Outside of politics, I don't think there are many "good" coaches who focus on development. Few spend the time to get to know the players to the extent that they may need to coach coach them differently in order to get the best out of them. There is often this conveyor belt of training - not development where the best players are on-boarded and the rest are basically spare-parts. I have a 23 and 17 year old - both played club and only 1 coach I felt ever really spent the time and really cared. When he saw my kid struggling with injuries and a loss of love for the sport, he met us both for coffee and had a hard talk with her that turned things around. If I went back into coaching - THAT is something I would do to improve how I would develop players. Find a good coach who knows the game and is patient and cares about winning by getting there in the right way. People often forget that a coach develops players. I think what we have moreso today is organizers who know the game and manage players. I could be wrong - or off a bit but that's just what I often see and hear.
Politics can definitely play a part. It could also be a decision from the player/family. Maybe they like the B team for some reason. Maybe the B team doesn't have as much time/travel commitment. Maybe the B team has players they car pool with. I've also seen players struggle on an A team, go back to B for a year or two, then return to A and shine. Every player will develop at a different rate.
This post makes sense, but in the case I'm speaking on, the parents really wanted her moved up and they never would move her(and we needed her). Seems like some kids get a raw deal and I can't figure out why. Almost like they want to hang onto a good athlete or two so the B team can look halfway decent. For sure the weaker A team players couldn't carry the B team the same way.
There are a lot of factors from an admin standpoint. 1) Is the kid you would drop close in skill to the one you would move up? Loyalty matters at all but the biggest clubs 2) I have always felt it more beneficial to be the top kid on the B team playing more minutes and leading, then to be the third player off the bench on the A team, that goes into some of the thinking, in the end you are trying to develop the players for a full 11v11 squad, so at 7v7 it makes more sense to play than watch. *this should not matter if all coaches in your club are development focused, but even when we try they are not 3) Parents, parents, parents! You make decisions based on their behavior and expectations too 4) Is there a player in the same position on the A team who will limit the B team player's time? Not to say any of these are an excuse to move people up or down, but they do factor in the equation. We have moved players every year in both directions, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, the key is for it not to be a surprise.
Can you elaborate? Are parents hurting their kids chances? It seems to me like complaning and threatening works to get your kid moved up, otherwise how did we get saddled with such little talent? But my daughters team has also lost the last 9 in a row, so I am certainly paying more attention to what is happening in her age group. Much more than in the past.
Parents can definitely have an impact. Sometimes it's the "squeaky wheel gets the grease", other times the way the parents act at games can inhibit a coach from selecting the kid. You don't say what age your daughter is. Unless they're HS age, don't worry about the scores. Are they improving? ETA: IMO, if a family/player REALLY wants to move to another team they haven't been accepted at the best action is to ask the coach what the player needs to work on/improve in order to make the squad. Could be foot skills, could be decision making, could be speed of play.
Thanks. She is 14. They are, as a team, not improving. They are regressing, based on results and video assessment. They have lost the last 9 in a row and have been outplayed all nine times. Lots of reasons. If coaches/directors will not clearly delineate why a kid isn't moving up, what does this mean? I can't lie, I think many clubs make up their minds about kids at 8 or 9. I have no sight lines into how clubs behave, but that is my sense.
I coached at a low level, then wsa my teams travel coordinator (setup tryouts with the external evaluator, led the player assignment group) then was the club president (got the complaints that escalated after player assignment group did their thing ) I found people tend to think the A team are the 18 best players at the club, and the B team are the 19-36th best, etc. When more than likely, the best 7 kids are on the A team, the worst 7 kids are on the B team, and that pool of 22 in the middle are mostly interchangeable from what coaches usually look at - speed, individual technical skills (dribbling, shooting). Sometimes it is politics: The top rated kid in my club at 2001 wound up on the B team I was given at u12. The A team coaches didn't want to deal with a parent. The 5th highest rated kid wound up on my B team - he was a wing, 3 of the 4 A team coaches kids also played wing. They both wound up on the A team at u13 when the rosters expanded, both had nice HS careers, etc. That whole A team came about because we originally had two A minus teams. They both realized the should combine. Realistically one of the team should have had 8 kids on the new team, one should have had 4 based on tryouts (12 player roster limit) but the agreement was 6 from each team. Sometimes it's not politics, it's just convenience - A team have carpools or travel pods setup, it's not necessarily worth it to exchange the squad players. 2 years in, several of my B team kids were scoring better in tryouts than the A team kids. A team didn't want them, they were happy to have kids who were friends with their kids and who didn't complain about getting 10 minutes (in a 70 minute game) every week. To one of the points made earlier: HS tryouts, there were some very surprised A team parents when the B team kids who played a lot were freshman team starters over their A team bench sitters. Also remember the 1-36 vs 7-22-7 idea... There's also a tiny amount of coach ego - Imagine you get to pick your own team, you don't rate a player and they show that you misjudged. It's easy to say "sure, theyre racking up goals at a lower level but trust me, I'm the A team coach, I know what it takes to play for the A team, they aren't A team level". If you never move them up, it's always plausible that you're right.
CoachP365, this all makes much more sense. Also, it's now clear there's no way of fixing it. That's frustrating, but the truth is what it is. Thank you.
Parents definitely hurt a kids chances. Having open and honest conversations is expected (at the appropriate time). Making demands does not work (unless of course your child is the stud driving the boat for the whole age group). The downside is, many clubs do not even want the open and honest conversation. If they won't even entertain talking, then leave. But also be aware that if you do not recognize the crazy person in the room, it might be you...
Results may/may not matter at that age. Are they playing tougher competition? Are they a group of kids who haven't played together before vs teams that have the "core group" who've been together for years? Who's doing the "video assessment"? You shouldn't really need video assessment to tell you what the team needs to work on. My daughter's team needs to work on first touches and speed of play. That's been the case for years. They've finally kicked (no pun intended) the habit of "just kicking the ball to kick it". They're U17. What do you mean "will not clearly delineate why a kid isn't moving up"? I thought you said you were concerned about a child other than yours. Unless you were in the meeting when it was asked, you don't know what answer the coach gave. A coach shouldn't talk to you about what another child needs to do/work on, and a parent may not have listened well or may not be comfortable telling you what the coach told them. @CoachP365 gave some good reasons for kids being "not selected" for the A team.
I wouldn't go that far, there's also how the club views the teams. Is it a clear A team B team where both are in the same league setup, just different divisions (ie, in my state, there are 3 select divisions, you can have your 2006 Gold in athe 1st division and your 2006 Blue in the 3rd division). Is it a little more unspoken, like "we have a team in the ECNL, and a team in the Girls Academy League" where the best players are ECNL, but the GAL is nothing to sneeze at. In that case maybe yes, the club doesn't want to gut the GAL team, figuring they'll replenish the ECNL team with the next year's tryouts. It sounds like right now you have a u14 girls team that is struggling. Are they in the same division as last year? If they moved up due to good u13 performance, that could explain the struggle. It also sounds like they did pull up a good B team player or two, so what exactly is the issue right now? Is it possible that the team thrived by having early maturing athletes, and now at u14 most of the girls have finished growing so they've lost their size/speed advantage? One last thing, related to the club not being able to delineate what a player needs to do: The whole talent eval thing is more art than science, especially in US youth club and HS soccer. Ideally your club would be having mixed practices with the A& B teams so the coaches are all familiar with the entire pool, likewise they should all be working from the same club curriculum of "this is how we play". Most clubs however are just a collection of coaches doing their own thing, even though if you ask them they'll all sound very close to the same of "development..no tactics before u14...footskills..etc etc" They could say "their footskills aren't good enough" so you work on 1v1s and then in tryouts what actually happens is the kid is never in a position to get a ball to show off the 1v1 skills - so maybe their off the bal lmovement is what they really needed to work on. Or the kid is a black hole, the ball never escapes from them until the other team takes it from them after they insisted on yet another 1v3 take on. Regarding losing 9 in a row and regressing - what were they doing before , aside from winning, that they aren't doing now? The 2nd u12 team I took, was right after the change to birth year from school year age groups. So they jumped from being decent u10 players to lost u12 players. Fall season, we got crushed. But in practice, and scrimmaging the A team from a year younger than us, they were playing how I was teaching them - move the ball, be patient, connect passes- controlled direct play. We dropped from the middle division to the lowest division for the spring, and finished just above .500. They couldn't execute at the speed required against a bunch of 1st quarter 2005 birthdays, which made sense given that they were all 4th quarter 2005 birthdays - basically 5th graders playing 6th graders. When we ddropped, they were fine against kids more physically like them. So, how have they regressed from u13 to u14, and how would adding B team players help?
This is what I'm seeing. The kid works hard, not a behavior issue. Parents seem normal, I guess some folks can keep up an act, but I don't think so. Things are starting to add up, but not fully.
Competition is the same, same core group and the team is struggling for a lot of reasons. Re: video, the same mistakes are coming up in video sessions that were coming up in the fall. I'm not there, so I go by what I'm told by my daughter from the sessions and what I see at games. The reason this kid in particular is important to me is that my daughter is the CB. She has borne a lot of responsibility for several years, without a lot of help defensively. They were basically playing with 2(9v9) or 3(11 v 11) 10s. The girl who came up is an aggressive 6, this really lightened my daughters load. She now has a similar dilemma with a keeper who is really not great, but there is a much better one on the team below. We can't understand why she hasn't been moved. Wins and losses matter to competitive kids who want to see their efforts rewarded. I've had enough rides home with an upset, worn out kid who played her heart out just to lose on terrible goals, that I don't see why you "have" to lose when there are alternatives.
Same division. Lots of reasons for the trouble, would be an entire thread unto itself. I outlined my specific interest above in my reply above.
Is the coach addressing the mistakes and it just hasn't "sunk in" with the girls? Is the coach focusing on other things that he/she thinks are more important? My example of my daughter's team "just kicking" the ball happened for YEARS. It's only in the last year or two they finally have started "making plays". Again, they're now U17. Again, unless you are in the conversation between the coach and player/family, you have no idea what was actually said, and whether the coach 'won't give a reason". Of course everyone wants to win and it can be heartbreaking to lose. My point is you can't always look at results as a measure of improvement. I'd rather have close losses to good teams than win blowouts against poor teams. It's possible your coach just isn't very good, or simply can't get the best from the players. How long have you been with this coach, how many more seasons with him/her?
We were in the similar situation before. The A team was struggling and the B team had a few players that looked good. I asked the coach to call up those players for a tournament and he agreed to try it. They played and they played poorly. Sometimes the weaker competition makes you look better than you actually are.
We are having two conversations. Related, but different. As far as coaching, I have plenty to say about the coaching, the training and the "curriculum". But I really want to stick to why they aren't moving players. In short, no they are not correcting anything. The coach stands on the sidelines and yells, and I quote: "forwards move". I'm not joking. It's a shambles. But, from my days of AAU basketball, I have learned, a few people develop, the rest go get more talent and call it development. In this case, neither is happening. This is our first and hopefully last year with this coach. I know that the goalie and the 6 don't know each other and my wife and I have spoken to each of the parents individually and neither received feedback from the club on how to improve their condition. Parents of a boy in my sons age group said the same thing a few years ago and he bounced around until he finally quit. We didn't recognize it then, but it's clear there is a pattern here. I'm trying to figure out what it is. Doesn't seem racial or anything like that, it's a pretty homogeous group in terms of race or religion. And you are correct, I was not in the room. But why would people make this stuff up? Seems like an odd coincidence, doesn't it? If I had my way, we would have mandatory wall work with both feet, fitness work and defending in games. If you don't do all three with vigor, find me 15 girls who will. Because if you work hard on your first touch, your fitness and your effort defending as a team, you will continue to progress for a long, long time. It's hard to watch girls who don't play hard, jogging and walking on the field because their position is in no jeopardy. I think it is especially hard for the girls that want to compete. We can keep going deeper in the weeds on what is or isn't happening with the club. I'm really trying to figure out why you don't upgrade when you have a chance. The other issues are nothing new at this club.
This is legit. But you would have to try it in a game or in practice to know if it would work. Why wouldn't you try? Even in practice. Makes no sense.
There's been a number of reasons posted on why a coach doesn't "upgrade". It could be one of those or it could just be he's a bad coach.