How often and bad is this obsession at clubs and teams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ When coaches don’t communicate their plans or what your DC need to do to improve or why they are on the bench parents perception is that the coach/club is committing fraud. Stealing your investment and time”

Not just the bench parents feel this way.

+1000

[Anonymous]

If you find your kid is in that situation. Rather than wait for the coach to tell you what you need to improve on. Have your kid work extra on everything on their own. I promise you no kid on his team is good enough that they don't to improve on everything. Your kid just needs to out work everyone else on his own time in addition to team training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you find your kid is in that situation. Rather than wait for the coach to tell you what you need to improve on. Have your kid work extra on everything on their own. I promise you no kid on his team is good enough that they don't to improve on everything. Your kid just needs to out work everyone else on his own time in addition to team training.

Whoosh! Whole thread over your head. You’re absolutely right, but let me ask how those kids working hard, but potentially overlooked, compared to overhyped superstar, get meaningful time at superstars defacto spot outside of someone leaving? Wait 4-5 years for club to finally look for something else, likely something shiny from outside?

[Anonymous]

I suppose there's a sweet-spot in between playing to your team's (and your individual players') strengths to win, and playing to develop your players.

Over the years, my children have been on some teams that rotated players throughout the entire season, and sometimes went a whole season without winning a single game; that's demoralizing for kids. A little more focus on developing players into their natural best-fit position would have been a good idea, as would keeping in certain players who seem to be keystones for more playing time than others.

On the other hand, if one of my kids were on a team where they were getting ZERO minutes of playing time, I think that's a problem. All of these pay-to-play teams have tryouts, and so clearly there should be a minimum level of skill possessed by every player on the team -- at least some playing time each game is, in my mind, mandatory for each player. I can't imagine forking over thousands of dollars and traveling hither and yon just to watch your kid ride the bench. I played multiple sports in high school, some where I started, others where I, well, mostly rode the bench or got minimal playing time. But those were free, and the schools bused us to games, and my parents didn't have to spend time/money for us bench-warmers.

In my experience with Vienna Youth Soccer, I've never seen a kid play ZERO minutes in any game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suppose there's a sweet-spot in between playing to your team's (and your individual players') strengths to win, and playing to develop your players.

Over the years, my children have been on some teams that rotated players throughout the entire season, and sometimes went a whole season without winning a single game; that's demoralizing for kids.

This is only possible if either the coaching is appalling, or there is a huge difference in player ability which the coach/club should have been well aware of when putting the team together. A good coach can happily rotate players between positions and develop players and the result will be an improving team which absolutely does not lose all its games, and indeed wins more frequently as the season goes on.

A poor coach of course can rotate players without developing them and provide equal playing time,and his teams might lose every game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose there's a sweet-spot in between playing to your team's (and your individual players') strengths to win, and playing to develop your players.

Over the years, my children have been on some teams that rotated players throughout the entire season, and sometimes went a whole season without winning a single game; that's demoralizing for kids.

This is only possible if either the coaching is appalling, or there is a huge difference in player ability which the coach/club should have been well aware of when putting the team together. A good coach can happily rotate players between positions and develop players and the result will be an improving team which absolutely does not lose all its games, and indeed wins more frequently as the season goes on.

A poor coach of course can rotate players without developing them and provide equal playing time,and his teams might lose every game.

no coach will turn away a great player because the rest of the team isn't at their level. As you move down, clubs with no cut policies may have very uneven bottom teams. In both cases, a coach has to balance winning vs playing time for the rest of the team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

no coach will turn away a great player because the rest of the team isn't at their level. As you move down, clubs with no cut policies may have very uneven bottom teams. In both cases, a coach has to balance winning vs playing time for the rest of the team

it isn't just playing time, it's development time... if that the great player playing a full 90 at a critical position is deemed by coaches essential to others individual and team development, but produced little to nothing as individuals AND teams in development and results weekend after weekend and feedback is not good, maybe it's time to reassess what's going on.

[Anonymous]

Most of those stars have parents who are all up in coaches grill as well.

[Anonymous]

+1000