Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

People are less worried about the tween and teen travel players and more worried about the kindergartners who have to play a bunch of first-graders.

But won't the kindergartners (Sept. to December) be on teams that are majority first graders (Jan-August)? Playing against other teams with the same mix? Under the old system and the new, the youngest kids play with and against kids can be almost a full year older. It's just that now the parents with the Sept.-December kids will fret that their kids are the youngest on the team instead of parents of the May-July kids under the old system. It doesn't seem like a big deal.


Who cares about "playing against other teams"? We're not talking about competitive balance at U6. We're talking about kindergartners going to practice with and playing alongside teammates that are mostly first-graders.

Is it a big deal? Compared to, I don't know, Hurricane Katrina, no.

But is it necessary? No! So why alienate any kindergartners when there's no good reason to do it? There's no U6 World Cup -- why force "international standards" at that age?

We're talking about the oldest kindergartners playing alongside some teammates who are medium and young 1st graders. It is not clear to me why that circumstance should result in any alienation for anyone, but if kids or parents are concerned about the idea of the kindergartners playing with kids who are from 1 to 11 months (at most) older, or feel strongly that they only want to be involved with their kids classmates, there are other options. The new mandates only apply to US soccer sanctioned leagues and events, so parents would be free to form or join kindergarten-only groups that don't participate in anything formal.

And while there is no U6 World Cup, some kids who are U6 now will play in the World Cup. IMO, it would be nice if a greater percentage of American kids had the opportunity to be part of the sort of soccer culture that could help the best and most serious among them develop into soccer players capable of playing with the best players in the world. The less serious or less talented players will not be harmed by learning to play soccer in a model that more closely approximates successful ones from other countries--it's fun to learn how to do things the right way, and they can gain skills that will help them as high school players or in pick-up games. Kids who just want to run around and have fun with their classmates and don't really care about the soccer part of it will still be able to do so.

That's a long-winded way of saying that I'm still not seeing why anyone will find this to be a real problem at any age other than for the current older high school teams. If anyone disagrees, I'd be interested to read a more detailed explanation of the cause(es) for concern.

There are a few articles out there.

I guarantee you putting kids with other kids of their age and class will neither win us the World Cup nor lose it.

I mean -- if we want to do things the way they're done in the rest of the world, a much bigger priority would be dismantling the entire travel soccer industry as we know. Leave only free-to-play academies who don't give a flying crap about winning trophies in U9 and don't travel 300 miles for a league game. Everything else would be recreational, but then we could borrow Germany's system of sending federation-trained coaches all over the country to do sessions with those "recreational" players with an eye toward possibly bringing them into a pro academy at some point. (Some pro clubs in Germany will say you shouldn't quit "recreational" soccer until U12. No one cares who you're playing in games, and if you're getting a lot of touches on the ball, some of them with good coaches, you're doing all you need to do.)

And this whole "oh, kids who really like soccer will think differently" notion just doesn't hold water. Everyone starts as a rec player. Christen Press started as a daisy-picker who wasn't even interested in her game, but some nice coach and some nice club still made it fun for her, and now she's a World Cup champion. No one came in and told her, "Oh, I'm sorry, little girl -- you need to be playing with the U6s instead of your friends because that's the way we think it's done in France."

The age grouping change alone will certainly not have a huge impact on the development of soccer players in the country, but it is part of a package of changes aimed at improving the odds. Starting from scratch in the US system is not feasible, but the changes that US soccer has made already are having a pretty big impact. On balance, the kids who are playing for development academies now are getting much better training and opportunities than the kids in the preceding soccer generation, and I think the new set of changes (field sizes, etc. ) will start helping kids at younger ages pretty quickly. It would be good if the ECNL model more closely followed the DA one so the girls could get the same benefits without families having to pay an arm and a leg.

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make about everyone starting as a rec player or with the Christen Press example. Rec can take many forms, from something that is designed for kids just to run around and get exercise with their buddies, to something that's more focused on (age-appropriate) soccer training. My kids have done both, and one is not more "fun" than the other. It all depends on the kid, the amount of time the family wants to put into it, and whether the program is well run. There may be a small percentage of kids who would be intimidated by being with kids from another grade in a more focused program (and a much larger percentage of parents who I think are worrying about this unnecessarily), but I imagine most of that small number would be fine if they tried it a year or two later. Kids are resilient and tend to like doing new things once they get over any initial nerves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I follow this thread because I have older kids playing travel soccer. I agree that for those kids, the shift in groupings is probably not that big of a deal. They are committed to travel soccer because they love soccer for the sport itself. They are committed to training multiple times per week and they understand that travel is not what you do if you want to play with your neighborhood friends. By the time you are old enough to play travel soccer, there is probably not much of a difference between an older fourth grader say, and a younger fifth grader. But I also have a preschooler with a fall birthday and here is why I think this new rule might make it a little harder for some of these really little kids to fall in love with soccer early on. Not impossible, just harder.

I think there is a HUGE difference in every developmental way between a four year old finger painting at preschool for a few hours a week and a kindergartener attending elementary school all day, riding the bus, receiving instruction in all the core subjects as well as PE, art, music.

Yes. A million times, yes.

I coached a U9 team this spring that had a kid who had never played before and had been home-schooled. Nice kid but had absolutely no idea how to react to receiving instruction. The very notion of having people tell him where to stand to start the game was foreign to him.

Now imagine having one-third of a team with that issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean -- if we want to do things the way they're done in the rest of the world, a much bigger priority would be dismantling the entire travel soccer industry as we know. Leave only free-to-play academies who don't give a flying crap about winning trophies in U9 and don't travel 300 miles for a league game. Everything else would be recreational, but then we could borrow Germany's system of sending federation-trained coaches all over the country to do sessions with those "recreational" players with an eye toward possibly bringing them into a pro academy at some point. (Some pro clubs in Germany will say you shouldn't quit "recreational" soccer until U12. No one cares who you're playing in games, and if you're getting a lot of touches on the ball, some of them with good coaches, you're doing all you need to do.)

And this whole "oh, kids who really like soccer will think differently" notion just doesn't hold water. Everyone starts as a rec player. Christen Press started as a daisy-picker who wasn't even interested in her game, but some nice coach and some nice club still made it fun for her, and now she's a World Cup champion. No one came in and told her, "Oh, I'm sorry, little girl -- you need to be playing with the U6s instead of your friends because that's the way we think it's done in France."

The age grouping change alone will certainly not have a huge impact on the development of soccer players in the country, but it is part of a package of changes aimed at improving the odds. Starting from scratch in the US system is not feasible, but the changes that US soccer has made already are having a pretty big impact. On balance, the kids who are playing for development academies now are getting much better training and opportunities than the kids in the preceding soccer generation, and I think the new set of changes (field sizes, etc. ) will start helping kids at younger ages pretty quickly. It would be good if the ECNL model more closely followed the DA one so the girls could get the same benefits without families having to pay an arm and a leg.

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make about everyone starting as a rec player or with the Christen Press example. Rec can take many forms, from something that is designed for kids just to run around and get exercise with their buddies, to something that's more focused on (age-appropriate) soccer training. My kids have done both, and one is not more "fun" than the other. It all depends on the kid, the amount of time the family wants to put into it, and whether the program is well run. There may be a small percentage of kids who would be intimidated by being with kids from another grade in a more focused program (and a much larger percentage of parents who I think are worrying about this unnecessarily), but I imagine most of that small number would be fine if they tried it a year or two later. Kids are resilient and tend to like doing new things once they get over any initial nerves.

The point is this ... some people think aligning with birth years won't affect the "good" players. My point is that at U6, there's no such freaking thing as a "good" player, at least not in any sense that transfers in any meaningful sense to success down the road.

If daisy-picking Christen Press had gone out for the first season of daisy-picking and felt uncomfortable around all the older kids, we would have ruined a world-class player at age 6.

All the stuff about aligning internationally is so incredibly meaningless in the early years before we've segregated into "recreational" and "competitive." Why not wait to have birth years until U12 or U14, when you're already playing in two-year age groups anyway? Why not at least wait until you're doing travel, which shouldn't come before U10 (according to U.S. Youth Soccer and many others) but comes at U9 here?

IN FACT ... and this should end the conversation, check out how they actually do things in England:

http://www.nwyfl.co.uk/downloads-and-information/

(Check "Age table")

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, the new set up groups by birth year. In our school district, the oldest kid in any given grade is born on October 1 (not counting kids who were held back) and the youngest on September 31. So the kids born between October 1-December 31 are actually born in the same "birth year" as the kids in the grade above them who were born between January 1 and September 31. So those three months of birthdays (oct-dec) would play with mostly kids in the grade above them.

Well the biggest issue is that those fall bday Kindergartners (October-dec born) would now be playing with first graders (jan-August) that already have a year of K soccer under their belt.

I think they should leave out Rec soccer and only apply it to travel/develop. Programs that start older.

[Anonymous]

Those fall birthdays can start soccer when they are pre-k with the January through August kindergartners. So when the fall birthdays go to school in kindergarten and play pick up games at recess they will have the advantage. In a rec. league they will be at a disadvantage. It evens out for most except the most talented fall birthdays most likely won't ever be tapped for the most competitive teams. Look at the rosters of international u-16' u-18 or u21 teams and they are almost all jan. Through June birthdays. Very few fall birthdays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean -- if we want to do things the way they're done in the rest of the world, a much bigger priority would be dismantling the entire travel soccer industry as we know. Leave only free-to-play academies who don't give a flying crap about winning trophies in U9 and don't travel 300 miles for a league game. Everything else would be recreational, but then we could borrow Germany's system of sending federation-trained coaches all over the country to do sessions with those "recreational" players with an eye toward possibly bringing them into a pro academy at some point. (Some pro clubs in Germany will say you shouldn't quit "recreational" soccer until U12. No one cares who you're playing in games, and if you're getting a lot of touches on the ball, some of them with good coaches, you're doing all you need to do.)

And this whole "oh, kids who really like soccer will think differently" notion just doesn't hold water. Everyone starts as a rec player. Christen Press started as a daisy-picker who wasn't even interested in her game, but some nice coach and some nice club still made it fun for her, and now she's a World Cup champion. No one came in and told her, "Oh, I'm sorry, little girl -- you need to be playing with the U6s instead of your friends because that's the way we think it's done in France."

The age grouping change alone will certainly not have a huge impact on the development of soccer players in the country, but it is part of a package of changes aimed at improving the odds. Starting from scratch in the US system is not feasible, but the changes that US soccer has made already are having a pretty big impact. On balance, the kids who are playing for development academies now are getting much better training and opportunities than the kids in the preceding soccer generation, and I think the new set of changes (field sizes, etc. ) will start helping kids at younger ages pretty quickly. It would be good if the ECNL model more closely followed the DA one so the girls could get the same benefits without families having to pay an arm and a leg.

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make about everyone starting as a rec player or with the Christen Press example. Rec can take many forms, from something that is designed for kids just to run around and get exercise with their buddies, to something that's more focused on (age-appropriate) soccer training. My kids have done both, and one is not more "fun" than the other. It all depends on the kid, the amount of time the family wants to put into it, and whether the program is well run. There may be a small percentage of kids who would be intimidated by being with kids from another grade in a more focused program (and a much larger percentage of parents who I think are worrying about this unnecessarily), but I imagine most of that small number would be fine if they tried it a year or two later. Kids are resilient and tend to like doing new things once they get over any initial nerves.

The point is this ... some people think aligning with birth years won't affect the "good" players. My point is that at U6, there's no such freaking thing as a "good" player, at least not in any sense that transfers in any meaningful sense to success down the road.

If daisy-picking Christen Press had gone out for the first season of daisy-picking and felt uncomfortable around all the older kids, we would have ruined a world-class player at age 6.

All the stuff about aligning internationally is so incredibly meaningless in the early years before we've segregated into "recreational" and "competitive." Why not wait to have birth years until U12 or U14, when you're already playing in two-year age groups anyway? Why not at least wait until you're doing travel, which shouldn't come before U10 (according to U.S. Youth Soccer and many others) but comes at U9 here?

IN FACT ... and this should end the conversation, check out how they actually do things in England:

http://www.nwyfl.co.uk/downloads-and-information/

(Check "Age table")

If you want to end the conversation, you can simply stop replying. Citing how they do things in England will never be a conversation ender for anyone who is serious about this topic.

[Anonymous]

New PP. Why not? If England can have rec age groups with a cutoff of Sept. 1 and a travel cutoff of Jan 1, why can't the US? Sept 1 makes more sense than that August 1st cutoff. Most of the schools in the US now have a Sept. 1st cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New PP. Why not? If England can have rec age groups with a cutoff of Sept. 1 and a travel cutoff of Jan 1, why can't the US? Sept 1 makes more sense than that August 1st cutoff. Most of the schools in the US now have a Sept. 1st cutoff.

Wasn't this whole change made so that we'd align with the international community? Well the international community doesn't necessarily have a Jan 1st cutoff either.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, this whole rule seems so stupid to me. The USMNT is not have the best soccer team in the world because most of our country's best natural athletes do not play soccer. It is not the most popular sport here. Our best athletes are divided up between baseball, basketball, football (although this is is becoming less popular among youth) and of course some do play soccer. Seems like our women are doing ok under the current system. So they are going to shake things up for an entire country worth of kids, but the best athletes are still not going to play soccer. And you've got all these rec children in a country with an obesity problem, kids spending too much time glued video games, and a staggering statistic about the number of kids dropping out of organized sports, and you are going to make it harder for them to enjoy soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, this whole rule seems so stupid to me. The USMNT is not have the best soccer team in the world because most of our country's best natural athletes do not play soccer. It is not the most popular sport here. Our best athletes are divided up between baseball, basketball, football (although this is is becoming less popular among youth) and of course some do play soccer. Seems like our women are doing ok under the current system. So they are going to shake things up for an entire country worth of kids, but the best athletes are still not going to play soccer. And you've got all these rec children in a country with an obesity problem, kids spending too much time glued video games, and a staggering statistic about the number of kids dropping out of organized sports, and you are going to make it harder for them to enjoy soccer.

Exactly.

Here's what ESPN's Tom Farrey had to say about the state of youth sports in his book Game On: "It’s less and less accessible to the late bloomer, the genetically ordinary, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other - the clinically obese.”

And if you're all worried about the eventual state of the national teams, note the term "late bloomer" in there. If you restrict soccer to those who are all riled up and ready to play up when they're five years old, you will leave out a lot of great players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, this whole rule seems so stupid to me. The USMNT is not have the best soccer team in the world because most of our country's best natural athletes do not play soccer. It is not the most popular sport here. Our best athletes are divided up between baseball, basketball, football (although this is is becoming less popular among youth) and of course some do play soccer. Seems like our women are doing ok under the current system. So they are going to shake things up for an entire country worth of kids, but the best athletes are still not going to play soccer. And you've got all these rec children in a country with an obesity problem, kids spending too much time glued video games, and a staggering statistic about the number of kids dropping out of organized sports, and you are going to make it harder for them to enjoy soccer.

Exactly.

Here's what ESPN's Tom Farrey had to say about the state of youth sports in his book Game On: "It’s less and less accessible to the late bloomer, the genetically ordinary, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other - the clinically obese.”

And if you're all worried about the eventual state of the national teams, note the term "late bloomer" in there. If you restrict soccer to those who are all riled up and ready to play up when they're five years old, you will leave out a lot of great players.

The argument that the best natural athletes don't play soccer in the U.S. Is total horseshit. In fact--in youth sports--it's often the opposite. The fat and slow kids flock to baseball. Big fat kids also swarm to Football.

Soccer is the most running of any sport---consistent. The average full-size field player clocks 8-10 miles per game. Soccer is heavily skill-based so you can't just take a kid at 14 that's never played and then him into a star like you can in Football.

Many American kids that are superb athletes are not playing football because of the head injury issue.

Basketball and Football at the upper levels require size limitations. A lineman is not the most athletic player. He's just a tank.

Man-- I thought views in soccer had changed since I started in a boys league in the 70s because there were no girls league---but the American Neanderthal attitude still exists. Fwiw--set a state record in the 300--but still went for soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, this whole rule seems so stupid to me. The USMNT is not have the best soccer team in the world because most of our country's best natural athletes do not play soccer. It is not the most popular sport here. Our best athletes are divided up between baseball, basketball, football (although this is is becoming less popular among youth) and of course some do play soccer. Seems like our women are doing ok under the current system. So they are going to shake things up for an entire country worth of kids, but the best athletes are still not going to play soccer. And you've got all these rec children in a country with an obesity problem, kids spending too much time glued video games, and a staggering statistic about the number of kids dropping out of organized sports, and you are going to make it harder for them to enjoy soccer.

Exactly.

Here's what ESPN's Tom Farrey had to say about the state of youth sports in his book Game On: "It’s less and less accessible to the late bloomer, the genetically ordinary, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other - the clinically obese.”

And if you're all worried about the eventual state of the national teams, note the term "late bloomer" in there. If you restrict soccer to those who are all riled up and ready to play up when they're five years old, you will leave out a lot of great players.

The argument that the best natural athletes don't play soccer in the U.S. Is total horseshit. In fact--in youth sports--it's often the opposite. The fat and slow kids flock to baseball. Big fat kids also swarm to Football.

Soccer is the most running of any sport---consistent. The average full-size field player clocks 8-10 miles per game. Soccer is heavily skill-based so you can't just take a kid at 14 that's never played and then him into a star like you can in Football.

Many American kids that are superb athletes are not playing football because of the head injury issue.

Basketball and Football at the upper levels require size limitations. A lineman is not the most athletic player. He's just a tank.

Man-- I thought views in soccer had changed since I started in a boys league in the 70s because there were no girls league---but the American Neanderthal attitude still exists. Fwiw--set a state record in the 300--but still went for soccer.

And- it comes down to $. US Pro soccer players make peanuts compared to Baseball, Football, Basketball players. They are getting millions like International soccer players and are pro-MLB, NFL, NBA players.

It's always been about $ and culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, this whole rule seems so stupid to me. The USMNT is not have the best soccer team in the world because most of our country's best natural athletes do not play soccer. It is not the most popular sport here. Our best athletes are divided up between baseball, basketball, football (although this is is becoming less popular among youth) and of course some do play soccer. Seems like our women are doing ok under the current system. So they are going to shake things up for an entire country worth of kids, but the best athletes are still not going to play soccer. And you've got all these rec children in a country with an obesity problem, kids spending too much time glued video games, and a staggering statistic about the number of kids dropping out of organized sports, and you are going to make it harder for them to enjoy soccer.

Exactly.

Here's what ESPN's Tom Farrey had to say about the state of youth sports in his book Game On: "It’s less and less accessible to the late bloomer, the genetically ordinary, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other - the clinically obese.”

And if you're all worried about the eventual state of the national teams, note the term "late bloomer" in there. If you restrict soccer to those who are all riled up and ready to play up when they're five years old, you will leave out a lot of great players.

The argument that the best natural athletes don't play soccer in the U.S. Is total horseshit. In fact--in youth sports--it's often the opposite. The fat and slow kids flock to baseball. Big fat kids also swarm to Football.

Soccer is the most running of any sport---consistent. The average full-size field player clocks 8-10 miles per game. Soccer is heavily skill-based so you can't just take a kid at 14 that's never played and then him into a star like you can in Football.

Many American kids that are superb athletes are not playing football because of the head injury issue.

Basketball and Football at the upper levels require size limitations. A lineman is not the most athletic player. He's just a tank.

Man-- I thought views in soccer had changed since I started in a boys league in the 70s because there were no girls league---but the American Neanderthal attitude still exists. Fwiw--set a state record in the 300--but still went for soccer.

And- it comes down to $. US Pro soccer players make peanuts compared to Baseball, Football, Basketball players. They are getting millions like International soccer players and are pro-MLB, NFL, NBA players.

It's always been about $ and culture.

'Arent'

[Anonymous]

Nobody said soccer players aren't supremely athletic. Just that our country's natural athletes are divided among many different sports particularly on the boys/mens side and soccer is probably the least popular of them. There are far more boys dreaming of playing in the NBA, NFL or MLB than there are dreaming of playing soccer in MLS. There is also hockey and lacrosse. There are some seriously athletic boys out there playing all these other sports at the youth level who gave up soccer once other sports became available and never looked back. That doesn't mean that there aren't incredibly athletic kids also playing soccer. Just that the pool of athletically talented kids is spread out.

[Anonymous]

And yes I agree a big part of all those daydreams is for the money or the celebrity culture that is associated with some of those other sports - no doubt about it.