Some of my 2006 New Years wishes for US Youth Soccer are: 1) Every club out there start a program that begins around age 4 that involves only having fun and many touches on the ball, no doviding them into teams and keeping standings until at least U/9. 2) Every club become much stricter around coach and parents conduct. Coaches that abuse referees, players, other coaches should be dismissed. Parents that cannot keep their out loud comments positive should be asked to leave. 3) All coaches should have at least some soccer coach training and parent coaches should be removed if their main focus is glorifying their son or daughter by playing them constantly or putting them into the glamour positions. If a coach cannot treat all players fairly and equally then they need to be removed (this drives more good players out of youth soccer than any other reason IMO). 4) Coaches children and club officials children should be treated equally in open tryouts and not automatically make the clubs top team (I know this will hurt some clubs since some parents volunteer only to get inside influence for their children). 5) Select, All Star, and ODP selections should be based on evaluations by completely unbiased qualified people even if they need to be brought in from another region or state. No one should automatically make teams because of their name, reputation, or influence. 6) For older age groups and premier levels, start using verifiable data and statistics like every other sport does to evaluate players. Use goals, assists (up to 2 per goal), goals allowed versus goals scored while on field, turnovers, defensive saves by field players, etc. to judge players more accurately rather than the old " she did not show anything" which is a meaningless expression used by those who often are very poor at breaking down a game. The games shuld be taped and reviewed later to confirm the statistics (high schools do this why can't high level clubs?) Every other sport does this (and it is done at the professional club academies across the world) but soccer in the US some liek to just form opinions and not be bothered with facts. 7) Stop spending huge sums on a few selected players that make the national pool at the younger age groups. Wait until U/17 so that the early maturing players do not just get selected based on size. Use this extra money to have more regional camps where and increase greatly the number of players invited to these. Just some thoughts. Comments?